Tappin’ trees
SAXONBURG — Tim McCorcle, of Cabot, led an educational session on tapping sap from maple trees on Saturday, Jan. 11, at the South Butler Community Library, but the sap he brought for people to sample was raw and had not been processed yet.
“It tastes like really bad sugar water,” said Kory Murdie, of Saxonburg. “Like you ran out of sugar while making Kool Aid.”
The sap was not a hit with the dozen or so children in attendance, many of whom are members of Cub Scout Pack 53, but McCorcle led them through hands-on demos with hand drills, hammers and spiles — a small wooden spigot for stopping a cask. Participants even got to take home spiles of their own.
“Awesome,” said 8-year-old Rowan Isaac Cranmer, who is a member of Pack 53.
This was the second straight year that McCorcle, who has children in the Cub Scout pack, led a tree-tapping workshop at the library. This year, McCorcle brought logs with him to allow the children to try out drilling indoors, but then he led everyone outside where he demonstrated how to tap a maple tree for real.
McCorcle said tapping a tree for syrup takes tools, a little knowledge and a good amount of patience. In his demonstration, McCorcle drilled into the log with a drill bit taped to the correct length, hammered the tap device into the bark and fed the tube into a bucket. It’s that simple, he said.
“You only, at the most, need to be 2 inches deep, because that’s where all the sap is being made by the tree,” McCorcle said. “If it starts to get around 40 degrees, you’re going to have a nice sap flow and it’s going to come flowing out of the tree.”
McCorcle explained that most maple trees can be tapped for sap, and it only takes a few days or a few weeks for the tree to be ready to be tapped again. He said tapping a maple tree is pretty easy, if you know a few basics.
“Trees should be a minimum of 12 inches in diameter, so as long as it is 12 inches, you could put a maple tap in it,” he said. “When you tap it, you have a slight angle upwards because water flows down, and you drill into it.”
McCorcle also explained how to prepare sap for use as syrup. After gathering a bucket of sap, you have to boil it while stirring occasionally until it can fall from a spoon in droplets. After that, filter it while still hot through a coffee filter to remove impurities, and then it is ready to eat. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.
Michelle Lesniak, the library’s director, said McCorcle’s presentation was popular last year so she was happy to have him back this winter. Luckily, there were a few maple trees behind the library parking lot where McCorcle could demonstrate tapping for real.
“He asked to do this presentation and people came out for it,” she said. “He came in the fall while the leaves were still on and marked which ones were maple trees.”
Another Cranmer, 7-year-old Orion, said “tapping the tree” was her favorite part of the session.
McCorcle said the winter is a good time to tap maple trees — just make sure you get the spile or tap far enough into the hole.
“If your tap is not in good enough, you’ll just see sap all over the tree,” McCorcle said.
