RE: making maple syrup
My ex wife and a friend of hers have made syrup every spring for years...Most years they make 25-30 gallons of syrup...This spring the last I heard they only had made 6 gallons...real crappy season...
For years they used an open 40 gallon stainless steel pan over a barrel type woodstove...A few years ago they upgraded to a commercially madeevaporator, which speeds up the process considerably...
As kenman said, the amount of sap used for a gallon of syrup varies, from 40-45 gal. sap to each gallon of syrup depending on the sugar content of the sap... EARLY season sap has the highest sugar content..The sap becomes less sweet as the season progresses...