It's 4 months to the start of maple syrup season and the first box just arrived from McMaster-Carr.
My Purolator driver likes to deliver these McMaster-Carr boxes because he gets to look at the latest changes to my machine room (and to visit the caramel fridge in my office.)
This box includes a bunch of replacement O-rings for the John Guest fittings in my RO system. If you've ever tried to buy replacement O-rings you will have been frustrated by the fact that it's very difficult to figure out what kind of O-rings they are and that they are available in very small packages for a ridiculously high price.
They are EDPM Dash 110 O-rings (McMaster-Carr catalog number 9561K41 .) $1.71 for 25 pcs.
I have 3 maples in front of my house and about a dozen in front of nearby neighbors. I was wondering about a community project to tap them and boil the sap down.
My recollection is that the time to tap is when it's freezing at night but warm during the days. But i live in Vancouver so that never really happens.
Hi. The most important thing is the freeze/thaw. The sap flows when its below freezing at night and above freezing during the day. You can definitely tap a dozen and a half trees. Depending on how big they are you might get 3 or up to 14 or 15 liters.
The season breaks as soon as there are two or three nights above zero. It's would be a very short season but if you can get in right at the beginning you might get enough sap to make some syrup.
Unfortunately, the seasons are being worse and worse for everyone. Soon there will only be maple syrup weather above the maple line. That will be sad.
I heard that someone in BC was making Japanese maple syrup.