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How to Install Plastic Tubing to Collect Sugar Maple Sap
How to Install Plastic Tubing to Collect Sugar Maple Sap. Traditionally, people collected maple sap in buckets hung on the hooks of spiles, also called taps, drilled into sugar maple trees (Acer saccharum). Hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 8, a sugar maple can take up to four spiles, depending on the tree's...
Traditionally, people collected maple sap in buckets hung on the hooks of spiles, also called taps, drilled into sugar maple trees (Acer saccharum). Hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 3 through 8, a sugar maple can take up to four spiles, depending on the tree's diameter. Transferring the collected sap from buckets to holding tanks is a lot of work, particularly if you have many productive maples. Where maple land is mountainous or hilly, you can connect plastic tubing to the spiles and string it down the slope to a tank, letting gravity do the work.
Things You'll Need
Drill
5/8-inch drill bit
Sap spiles
Hammer or mallet
Plastic tubing
Tube cutter
Tube connectors
Collection tank
Select the trees that you plan to tap. If you are looking at trees in the summer or fall, tie a ribbon or string around them so you remember which ones you chose.
Drill and tap your trees in the spring between late February and early April, when the days are above freezing and the nights are below freezing. Use a drill bit designed for tapping trees at the appropriate depth of 5/8 inch. Gently tap a spile into the hole you drilled, using a mallet. You should see some sap start to come out. Sap runs during the day.
Connect tubing to the spile. The tubing should slide easily over the bottom nodule but stay on without help.
Connect your tubing to other tubes via a series of connectors that lead to a main tube, or mainline. Depending on terrain and the number of taps you have, this could be a complicated or simple series of connections. The main tube will lead to your collection tank. Large syrup producers sometimes attach a vacuum extractor at the base of the mainline to keep sap moving in the tubes.
Leave your tubing system up all year or restring it each year. If you have many trees to tap, you may want to leave it up. Simply maintain the system as needed by clearing sticks and limbs, looking for damage by animals and maintaining trails.
Tips & Warnings
In places where maple syrup making is an industry, most feed and hardware stores carry tubing and spiles in the early spring. You can also order appropriate tubing through internet sources. Tubing is 5/16 inch in diameter.
