Tapping Sugar Maples, Closed Collection System

Last year we tried this closed tubing system and it worked wonderfully! There is little room for contamination or spilling, and the buckets don't have to be emptied as often as with other systems. You only need a few supplies that you can find at your local hardware store. No Maple-Syrup-specific gadgets like spiles or special bags etc. If you're tapping Sugar Maples this season try our spile-free closed collection system.

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Maple Sugaring, Spile Free Closed Collection System

What is a spile?

A spile is a small metal or plastic tube, sometimes slightly funnel-shaped that helps direct the sap flow out of the tree. They can come in a few different styles some are meant to work with plastic tubing, buckets, or bags. We've found that if you get the right size tubing and corresponding drill bit you can forego the need for spiles.

In the past, we've used a variety of different methods to collect sugar maple sap. When we first started out we found the old-fashioned spile with the metal hook to hang the collection bucket at an antique store. They worked as a means to get the sap dripping out of the tree, but the collection buckets were wide open to the elements. If it rained or snowed the buckets would fill with water. We always have a family of squirrels living in our big Sugar Maple and I was paranoid that one of the squirrels was going to pee above the branches where our sap buckets were.

Milk jug photo

So we tried cutting a hole in the side of milk cartons. This was better, but still wasn't completely closed off. We'd get the occasional dead bug and dust and debris. That worried me less than squirrel pee. The hard thing about the milk jugs is that they would fill really quickly and needed to be changed out every hour or two on a heavy sap flow day. If we went out for the day we'd come to overflowing buckets and we'd waste a ton of sap.

Where on the tree to tap

Drill the hole for your tap into the tree about 2 inches deep. Angle the hole back 15 degrees toward the ground. It's best to have a south-facing tap under a large branch, or above a large root. Try not to tap under or below a previous tap scar.

This system is great because the sap stays beautifully clean and we can collect 5 gallons before the buckets need to be switched.

We typically tap 3 trees. One of those trees is a giant, old sugar maple that can support 3 taps. Then we tap 2 smaller trees with one tap each. From those 5 taps, we usually get around 70 gallons of sap which boils down to around 2 gallons of syrup. The typical ratio is around 40 to 1, but our trees tend to be a little sweeter than that.

For more information on tapping maple trees, check out my post Intro to Maple Syrup Season

Materials:

Drill

1/2" drill bit

clear plastic tubing 1/2" (We found this at Home Depot) You will need approximately 3 feet per tap.

5-gallon buckets, you can get food grade here: 5 Gallon Bucket (You can also find pickle buckets for free from local coney islands or restaurants. Just make sure you get the vinegar smell out completely.)

5-gallon bucket lids

Making the spile-free system

1. Begin by washing your buckets and lids with soapy water.

2. Drill a hole in the lid of your buckets. You will need a drilled lid and a bucket per tap, then more buckets and lids to store extra sap.

3. Drill the hole for your tap (see above where on the tree to tap).

4. Feed the tubing into the tapped hole. No spiles are necessary.

5. Bring the bucket and lid to the base of the tree, making sure it has a flat area to sit.

6. Cut the tubing to length. You want a little wiggle room, but not so much excess that the tubing sags.

7. Feed the tubing through the hole in the bucket lid, and place the lid on the bucket.

8. Now you wait for the bucket to fill. This year, it hasn't been long.

Storing sap

As the buckets fill, remove them from the tap, place a lid without a hole on the bucket for storage, and place a new, clean bucket under the tapped lid.

We also place stones on the empty buckets to give them some weight against the wind storms we've been having.

Sap can spoil

A word of caution. When you're collecting 5 gallons of sap at a time you need to check to make sure that the sap is staying cool and not spoiling. Spring can hand out an array of different temperatures. If the weather warms up during the day or stays over 40 degrees for more than 48 hours, or if the sun is shining directly on your pails, the sap can spoil. It will get cloudy and if you dip in your finger, it will taste "off"... less sweet and have a slightly sour flavor. If you taste good sap (which I highly recommend) you'll be able to tell the difference. Do not add spoiled sap to your other sap to boil.

Bucket rotation and Keeping the sap fresh

If the weather warms up before we get the chance to do a boil, we place the buckets in our upright freezer overnight 2 at a time. The sap freezes and will keep fresh for a few days as the sap slowly melts. We rotate buckets through the freezer to "buy us time" until we can do a boil.

You can also pile snow around the buckets if that's available.

Clean up

We keep around 10-12 food-grade 5-gallon buckets with lids just for sap collection. At the end of the season we wash the buckets in warm soapy water in the bathtub and dip or spray them with a diluted bleach solution and rinse, (they will get sticky and mold if not cleaned). We dry them and stack them down the basement with a lid on the top bucket.

The tubing is a bit more difficult to clean. We usually run hot water through the tubes and then a bleach solution and rinse again. Then hang to dry. When they're dry we coil them up and store them in the top bucket. Occasionally we have to buy new tubing the next year because of mold. But it's very inexpensive to replace.

The materials for this project can be used over and over each year if cleaned and stored properly.