Maple Syrup

[Comet]

Does anyone have ideas for a burner system to boil down maple syrup? I am thinking of tapping my trees.

[jerk bait]

I did this for the first time last year. I used some equipment I borrowed from a friend that has done it for many years. He had pans made. They were 2' x 3' and about 10" deep stainless. I think you want more surface area than depth. We had 3 pans and set them on concrete blocks with a fire underneath.

[MNmikew]

A buddy uses his turkey fryer cooker to do it.

[Comet]

Thanks for the feedback. I am going to use the turkey fryer for a burner and look for some steam pans from a restaurant supply house for a large surface area. It would be nice to have a pan made like you describe and have a tap in the bottom to drain it off easily.

[jerk bait]

We used a turkey fryer to finish the syrup. When the sugar content gets higher you have to control the temp or it will foam and boil over or you will go to far and end up with hard maple candy. We actually had 3 pans of sap boiling at one time.Remember the ratio is at least 20:1. a turkey fryer holds about 3 gallons of liquid. It will take a long time to have enough sap boiled down for a quart of syrup. When we did it we had 175 gallons of sap boiled in 3 large pans over wood fires. This took about 20 hours and yielded 20 quarts of syrup.