Let the tapping begin.

It's that time of the year for homemade maple syrup, which starts with drilling maple trees and ends with the boiling process.

"There is a way to do it, and there is timing involved," according to Teddy Fryland of West Bend. "I got involved with it for my kids. It became a little tradition for us when they were younger and I decided to carry on with it. I like it."

The drilling creates a hole for the spout, which is inserted in the maple tree to draw sap. It's an angled hole which is drilled for the bags, or bins which are positioned outside of the tree.  

Sugar maples usually offer the highest sugar concentration.

"Some of the same trees are tapped every year," Fryland said. "The trees are built for this when the temperature is just right."

The tapping is underway at the time of this writing. It's all about the weather, and the temperatures need to cooperate with highs around the upper 30s to low 40s during the day followed by lows in the 20s.

The sap is then put through a reverse osmosis machine to take a percentage of the water from the sap before boiling. The sap will become thick, with the sugar carmelizing, according to the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association. The process can take several hours.

It doesn't get any sweeter than that!