Tapping Maple Syrup in Ohio

Today Joe visits Ralph Rice's farm Riceland Meadows in NE Ohio to learn about his maple syrup operation. Ralph makes use of this non-competitive income stream each year and involves family in the operation. We first meet Ralph in his home with his syrup tapping materials. He shows us how he has moved from buckets and spiles (used for over 100 years) to his current system of modified bags from the grape industry, plastic spiles and washers. He has started using the 5/16" "tree saver" spiles over the 7/16" spiles because the opening they make is more easily healed from year to year. Other supplies needed are a battery powered drill with a bit specially designed for tapping. A special spacer that keeps the hols to n o more than 1 1/2", a modified crow bar for removing taps and a SMALL hammer for inserting the spiles. We proceed to the woods with Ralph. He explains that his woods are fairly young and used to be a cattle pasture prone to flooding. He has Red maples and soft maples. Silver maples are prone to early budding. Soft maples are not as sweet and do not produce as much sap. You can make syrup from all maples as well as sycamore, beech, walnut and boxelder. Ralph then demonstrates tapping and attaching the bags with these instructions: Tap 6 inches horizontally and vertically from previous taps.He prefers drilling on the opposite side of the tree. Drill 30-36 inches from the ground (for ease of emptying). Drill slightly upward to enhance gravity flow. Ralph gets 60/1 average (60 gallons sap makes one gallon syrup). Ralph moves on to discuss his horse drawn sled used to carry his sap tank to the woods for gathering sap. He discusses the pros and cons of two different sleds. His new one is much more adept at handling the undulating terrain of his woods. Joe follows Ralph, his son, grand daughter and grandson into the woods to gather syrup. Great footage of the kids filling the buckets and emptying into the sap tank as well as Ralph's beautiful Percheron team and his expert horsemanship navigating the tight spaces. After filling the tank we see them emptying the sap into a pipe flowing directly to a tank in the syrup house. Ralph now shows us his maple arch (wood fueled evaporator) and how it works. He has added a blower to increase the oxygen in the fire and has increased his output from 150 gallons of sap per hour to 250 g/h. He walks us through the process from filling the evaporator (works as a heat exchanger) with raw sap to evaporating, fueling, filtering and pouring a beautiful jar of maple syrup!