Maple syrup? Nope.

At our Easter dinner today, my grandson handed us a small jelly jar with what appeared to be maple syrup in it. Nope. Looks like maple syrup and tastes as good as maple syrup, but it’s made from black walnut sap.

Josh said the trees are tapped the same way and the sap collected the same way and boiled down in the same fashion. The sap he says, is as clear as water when collected. He said the ratio is about 40:1 for the finished product and he’s have had more syrup, but he got started a little later, maybe about mid-way thru the maple run.

This is seriously good syrup and seriously sweet. So, who else has made this syrup?

Attachments:

1. 

   491887079_2366707660371347_8725133314929162192_n.jpg
   

got a pretty good size black walnut……i’ve never heard of them being tapped for syrup though?????

Walnut sap is typically lower in sugar content than maple sap, concentration can vary by location. I’ve heard of 1:100 syrup to sap ratios with walnuts. Sap yields from the trees are also lower than that of maples. Walnut syrup is delicious and much more expensive than maple syrup.

Birch syrup is also delicious and has an even lower concentration of sugar than walnut sap. Also quite expensive.

Josh said they figured the ratio out to 40:1. And he and the step-son both said the sap was sweet. Maybe the sugar content depends on the year.

I’d heard of birch, maple and boxelder syrups, but never black walnut. It certainly has a dynamite taste.

at least in my area, hard to find enough walnuts to justify a syrup operation whereas maples are all over the place. I’ve also heard walnuts produce much less sap than a maple, further amplifying the difficulty of having any sort of scaled operation. Maples produce ~3X more sap than walnuts according to google.

After looking around a bit about the walnut syrup, the walnut trees have a shorter sap run than walnuts and they run less on a daily basis. The grandson mentioned this.

Also learned after doing some reading about walnut sap, there are some real health benefits to drinking the strained sap prior to cooking. Apparently the sap has a multitude of minerals and some medicinal qualities. I’ll just stick to the syrup myself.

Honestly, I’d never heard of walnut being a sap source for syrup but the stuff is sure good.

Walnut syrup is amazing. I was gifted some a few years back by a guy we gave permission to turkey hunt.

We have quite a few walnut trees, but if it’s true the sap is not only less, but lower in sugar content…there’s no way I’d ever have the time to try boiling some down

Jimmy Jones wrote:

Apparently the sap has a multitude of minerals and some medicinal qualities

Same is true for maple sap. During syrup season, I make my coffee using sap water.

My dad made some walnut syrup this spring, he’s brining me a pint next wknd. Sounds like he may not have gotten the boil quite right, said it’s kinda thin but tastes good so if it’s not cut out for pancakes, I’ll use it in other recipes + cocktails this summer.

I tapped the walnuts in the back yard a few years ago but couldnt get myself to cook it. Just a piece of its wood smells so bad in the fire pit. Figured it would taste like it smells.