Urban Forager: Made-in-Brooklyn Maple Syrup
27.01.10
Optimal weather conditions for the lost art of maple “sugaring” (aka, harvesting sap and making syrup) require the following rule of thumb: A period of hard frost, followed by warmish days of 40-plus degree weather with evening temperatures that dip to freezing.
Even a newbie tapper like myself knew that the confluences of nature were perfect, and if the Fort Greene maple tree we were working with was as large as reported, the owner and I were going to have plenty of sap on our hands. I envisioned maple syrup, maple sugar, and even maple sugar butter — as well as the requisite hours of boiling.
A gentleman friend and I conducted our maple syrup project DIY-style. I didn’t have time to get equipment from a mail-order establishment, so we hit my local hardware store where we found everything we needed: Hollow steel pipes (amusingly called “nipples”) for make-shift taps, 90 degree elbow joints to direct the sap downwards and for aesthetic appeal, a length of clear PVC tubing to allow the tap to flow into a grounded bucket, and a drill bit.
Source: New York Times (blog)