BuckAlley

My families been making maple syrup long before I was ever born. I've done it since I was a kid. We don't have modern fancy evaporators or tubing method on tree's. We still hang buckets, and boil it pan to pan over a old fashioned fire box. We produce anywheres from 30 to 100qts of syrup a season depending on how it goes. This yr. actually hasn't been as bad as we thought would be. The delayed spring has helped it here. We have 103 buckets out. I don't find it to be a pain in the butt, becasue I actually enjoy it. What else is there to do outdoors this time yr.! Plus the smell of sap boiling in the sugar house is awesome. Its like walking into a chocolate factory but its maple smell instead!
The best thing I can tell you is buy/ make the best boiling system you can. The brick base w/ chimney sounds good actually. Kinda like a permanent outdoor fireplace. I'd suggest you use at least 2 stainless steel pans.1 deeper than the other. First use the smaller pan to heat the sap, and begin boiling it down. Use a deeper pan to boil it to syrup. As it boils down, and you need to add more sap, take it from the smaller pan, that way it has a head start. It won't take as long. Add fresh sap to the small pan to keep it up as well. A syrup thermometer is pretty much a must to know when your at syrup. There's little tricks otherwise to tell when your getting close. Like scooping somesap out, and watching it drip off the end. When it starts toform a ripple across the bottom of the scoop. Its getting close. From there you'll have to constantly check the temp like every couple mins. It'll reach syrup quickly on you. Its like it takes hrs to do, and then suddenly its there. Our setup takes 4-6 hrs to make syrup. All depends on how well the fire is going.Something you must attend tooconstantly, a good constant hot fire helps. You'll use alot of wood too!Once syrup you have to run it through a filter system. Syrup has alot of what we call sand in it. If you don't filter it, it's like drinking a cup of coffee with grounds in it! Filters can also be purchased from syrup supply co's. We filter it into asmall holding tank, thenimmediately put it into canning jars or plastic syrup containers, and seal them tight. Long as it doesn't freeze it'll remain good for many yrs.
I'm not sure what gathering method your thinking of using. Either taps & buckets or tubing style into a container. But I'd plan on using at least 4-5 good sized maple tree's. We don't tap any closer than 24" between taps around the tree. Some like to put more in, but we feel it can harm the tree.
Good luck, theres nothing like fresh maple syrup over pancakes!!