The Sugarbush Diaries: 73 Taps, 500 Gallons, 12 Dozen Bottles of Made-in-Alberta Deliciousness

Michigan Tech 'Latest News'

Plonk. Plonk. Plonk. The sap drips hitting the bottom of galvanized buckets in Preacher Park are louder than the raindrops on an April weekend at Michigan Tech's Ford Forestry Center.The buckets aren't full yet. But across US-41, Tara Bal's maple syrup management and culture class is collecting from the sugarbush maples that line the streets of Alberta Village. The trees look a little like hospital patients receiving IV drips. Some bear rectangular blue sacks; you can see the clear liquid inside. Flexible, thin blue tubing protrudes from the tap holes on others, snaking down into white plastic buckets.
But tapping doesn't hurt the trees, says Bal, a research assistant professor in the School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science(SFRES)—you can pinpoint her location by following the smoke billowing above the Sugar Shack, out back of the research, education and conference center's dining hall and dorms. This year's sugarbush sap boil is in full production mode.
A lot had to happen beforehand. Selected entries from this year's Sugarbush journal:
February 2-22—Firewood, move evaporator, tanks, bucket to shack. Buy drill bit and mallet. Everything still needs cleaning.
February 23—Tap five birch on campus.
February 27—Tapped five trees at Forest Center.
March 2—Check sap bags. Too cold to tap trees.
March 3—Tap trees, check sap.
March 6—Got more buckets, tapped as many trees as we had buckets, bags, taps.     
March 19—Pray for better weather, take more pictures
March 23—Check buckets, bags, got about 1/2 bucket of sap, pray for better weather.
March 25—Collected sap, about eight buckets
March 26—Collected sap, eight half-buckets.
March 27—Collected sap.
March 28—Mini boil, get pump-and-draw system operational. Gathered 13 buckets of sap, evaporated about 50 gallons. 
April 1—Boil sap
April 2—Boil sap
April 3—Boil sap
April 5—Finish boiling, make candy, bottle syrup
April 7—Clean kitchen.
Total taps: 73
Total gallons: About 500 
Ford Forestry Center, the planned community of ...

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