Now you know why REAL maple syrup is so expensive right It truly is a labor of love! Maple sap contains 98 water so to get rich maple syrup it needs to be boiled down aggressively to concentrate it. A quick rule of thumb is that it takes 40 gallons of maple sap to get 1 gallon of maple syrup. The best maple to tap is the Sugar Maple because its sap has the highest sugar concentration but any maple tree that has a minimum diameter of 12 will work. The season typically only lasts 4 -6 weeks so we re hoping for juuuust a bit more to meet our yearly quota we go through a lot of syrup. Once the buds on the trees start to mature the sap changes and season is over.