Q. How much sap does it take to make a gallon of bigleaf maple syrup?

A. It can take anywhere from 80 to 100 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of bigleaf maple syrup.On the East Coast, it takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of maple syrup.

Q. Is harvesting bigleaf maple syrup a sustainable practice?

A. Yes! Each year the tapholes heal shut after a few months. Each production season, you place the taphole in a different location on the tree, as explained below, which is why your tree needs to be large enough in diameter to start tapping. By using this technique, the tree has completely healed by the time you reach the first location you originally tapped the tree. Having been considered a “non-essential” tree and generally logged off or killed, the emergence of bigleaf maple production will now offer an economical value for these magnificent trees that have been greatly overlooked.

Q. How do I know when to start tapping?

A. If you use just a few taps to produce pure bigleaf maple syrup, you can watch the weather forecast to determine when a stretch of colder weather will arrive to start tapping. Sap runs when day time temperatures reach above freezing and then go back below freezing at night. If above freezing temperatures aren’t reached util later in the day, little sap will flow on that day. Ideal flow seems to occur when overnight lows are 28-29 degrees F and warm quickly after dawn. Sunny days seem to also help pressurize trees for greater sap flow, and barometric pressure can be a factor too. The season typically starts from mid-to-late November and ending around the second week of March, right before bud break happens on the maple trees. Because of the Pacific Northwest climate, it is sometimes too warm to continue getting sap for the whole season, so the sap is generally intermittent throughout the season. The amount of sap you receive can dramatically differ depending on the weather patterns.

Q. How big does a maple tree need to be before it can be tapped?

A. Bigleaf maple trees should be at least 10 inches in diameter at chest height to be suitable for tapping. If there are several codominant stems (multiple trunks) then a tap can be put in each trunk if it is at least 10 inches in diameter.

Q. Can you use the same tap hole every year? How about tapping the same tree year after year?

A. Once a tree is large enough to tap, and if the tree remains healthy, the same tree can be used for many, many years. Tap holes will scar over shortly after the season ends; the scars surround the tap hole and will not conduct sap. So, next year’s tap holes need to be offset and not reoccupy the scarred wood. Best practice is to not “girdle” the tree by tapping in successive years at the exact same height. Many producers will pick a direction (clockwise or counterclockwise) for these successive tap hole offsets, so that they can keep better track of where the previous year’s tap holes are located. By the time they work their way around the tree, the tree has grown enough additional diameter that fresh wood has grown over the old scars.

Steps to Tapping a Tree Multiple Times

1. Only tap maple trees with healthy crowns, and avoid tapping trees that have been recently damaged or show signs of poor health.
2. Previous tap holes will develop a scar roughly twice as wide as the tap and will be quite long, reaching 6-12 inches above and below the tap hole. This scar area becomes closed off to the tree when it heals and is called nonproductive wood. The next seasons’ tap holes should be drilled several inches to the side, and/or above or below the scar length to ensure clean sap wood.
3. This is a main reason why trees should be 10 inches or more in diameter before tapping. It takes this much circumference on the tree trunk to support annual tapping and still maintain tree health and growth into the future.
4. Tap hole wood shavings should be whitish-cream colored. Brown or dark colored shavings indicate rotted or unproductive wood, and those tap holes should not be used.