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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent starter book.
Review: I remember fondly the early Michigan spring from my childhood, helping my father collect sap. This more than anything fueled my desire to make my own syrup. This book, Rink Mann's "Backyard Sugarin'" is an excellent book to get you off without breaking your back or your bank account. The author has a delightful writing style that is thoroughly engrossing. The book is well illustrated, full of ideas and rock solid on exactly when, how and what to tap, and exactly how to process all that sap. I highly recomend this book. Even if you don't live in sugar country you will enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect starter book to get you hooked
Review: One of the bibles of backyard sugarers. Easy to access, well-written, clear directions and diagrams, a good sense of humor, and an emphasis on doing things as inexpensively as possible. For the practical do-it-yourself tinkerer. If you're fortunate enough to live where maple trees can be tapped, pick up this book and you'll be absolutely hooked.
Rating:
Summary: Great intro to ultra cheap sugaring!
Review: This book has an overarching philosophy - keep it simple and keep it cheap! The authors describe everything you need to know and stress not having to pay for anything you can get for free. This quest for free stuff that works well is one of the pleasures of hobby sugaring. Well written descriptions of all the processes. Lots of photos. Reading it makes you wish the sap would start flowing NOW! Highly recommended
Rating:
Summary: Perfect starter book to get you hooked
Review: This is the do-it-yourself book that got me started on that sweet rite of spring -- making my own maple syrup. The author's emphasis is on how to do it efficiently and very cheaply, using easy-to-find materials you can scrounge yourself. If you have the trees to tap, by all means get this book! (Hint: they don't have to be the sugar maple species. Try other maples as well. I get great syrup from box elders, which I considered "trash trees" until I learned they are in the maple family. Now I treasure them like gold.) My own sugaring set-up is total simplicity: just some old refrigerator grates set on top of cinder blocks, heated with odd scraps of wood that others have thrown away at construction sites, etc. The sap is boiled down in flat baking pans, then finished off on the stove inside. Except for the initial expense to buy some professional spiles for tapping (you can make those, too, but I'm a failure as a tinsmith), I have spent ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the 3-4 gallons of syrup we make each year. Not a bad return for a book that I cost me less than ten bucks!
Rating:
Summary: Everything you need to know -- just add trees!
Review: This is the do-it-yourself book that got me started on that sweet rite of spring -- making my own maple syrup. The author's emphasis is on how to do it efficiently and very cheaply, using easy-to-find materials you can scrounge yourself. If you have the trees to tap, by all means get this book! (Hint: they don't have to be the sugar maple species. Try other maples as well. I get great syrup from box elders, which I considered "trash trees" until I learned they are in the maple family. Now I treasure them like gold.) My own sugaring set-up is total simplicity: just some old refrigerator grates set on top of cinder blocks, heated with odd scraps of wood that others have thrown away at construction sites, etc. The sap is boiled down in flat baking pans, then finished off on the stove inside. Except for the initial expense to buy some professional spiles for tapping (you can make those, too, but I'm a failure as a tinsmith), I have spent ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for the 3-4 gallons of syrup we make each year. Not a bad return for a book that I cost me less than ten bucks!
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