HOW MAPLE SYRUP IS MADE

HOW MAPLE SYRUP IS MADE


Pure maple syrup is made by boiling down the slightly sweet sap of the sugar maple tree. In late February or early March, syrup producers (called sugarmakers) prepare for their annual harvest of the maple sap. The sugarmaker prepares his sugarbush (maple orchard) by clearing access roads in the snow, removing fallen branches, and setting up his buckets or sap tubing systems. Whether they use tubing or buckets, commercial sugarmakers must be sure that all their sap gathering, collecting, evaporating and bottling equipment is absolutely clean and in good condition before the beginning of the season. You could do it in your backyard without the careful preparation, but those who provide it for our tables must meet very strict codes created by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Sugaring Off

A sugarmaker must be completely in tune with his/her environment because there is no set time at which sugaring begins.. The sugarmaker must be aware of the clues of nature to tell him or her when the time is right: Days become warmer, the streams run with melting snow, icicles drip faster, the birds announce the not-too-distant arrival of spring. This is the time known as "sugar weather," . Nights fall below freezing but the days are mild. These conditions make the sap flow.

When the sugar farmer feels the time is "right" he/she will start to tap the trees. Tapping involves going from tree to tree in the sugarbush, drilling, upslanting holes into the wood which carries the sap. If buckets are used to collect the sap, a metal spout or "spile" is tapped snugly into the hole, and a bucket is hung from a hook on the spout. A cover is put on the bucket to keep out rain, snow, and debris. If a plastic tubing system is used to collect the sap, a plastic spout, which is connected to the pipeline system, is tapped into the hole in the tree.

The maple tree must be about 40 years old and in good condition before it can be tapped. The hole is usually placed about waist high on the tree. Larger trees may accomodate more than one tap hole if they are healthy. But a sugarmaker must be careful about this. These trees are the sugarmakers livelihood and they must be cared for and nurtured for the future. Trees that are in poor health or have been defoliated by insects are often tapped less, or not tapped at all. If proper taping procedures are followed, tapping will not endanger the health and vitality of the tree. A healthy sugar maple can provide sap every year for a hundred years or more.

The sugaring season will last approximately one month. On average it takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup but this varies widely from season to season and tree to tree.

When the trees have been tapped and all the equipment is ready, the sugarmaker is ready for the "first run," when the sap first starts to flow.

Just as garderning in New England is dependent upon climate zones, so too is sugaring. New England sugarhouses often start and stop boiling at different times due to local weather patterns and region. If you have missed the sugaring season in Connecticut and Massachusetts you may still be able to catch it in Northern Maine or Vermont and New Hampshire.

Mark Twain once said "if you don't like our New England weather . . . just wait a bit" summing up the changeable nature of New England's weather patterns. Sugarmakers are subject to these vagaries of the weather as well. Warm spells or cold snaps during the season may halt sap flow for a day or two, and it may start again when conditions are favorable. On days when the sap runs, the sugarmaker may live a frenzied existance with little sleep but a cold spell or warm spell will provide just enough down time to prepare for the next run.

Stinson Brook Mindscape

Albert Camus Quote

"In the depth of winter 

I finally learned 

that there was in me 

an invincible summer."

~ Albert Camus

Maple sap, as it comes from the tree is a clear, slightly sweet liquid. The sugar averages about 3%. (compared to 68% when production is complete) The sap must be evaporated as soon as possible because the freshest sap makes the best quality syrup and sap left too long can sour. Where the bucket collection method is used, a sap gathering tank is mounted on a sled, wagon, or truck, and is moved through the sugarbush as the sap is gathered. The sap is collected from each tree by workers using large gathering pails. These pails are dumped into the gathering tank, which is then taken to a large sap storage tank at the sugarhouse, where it will soon be boiled down into pure maple syrup. If the tubing system is being used, the sap drips from the taphole, through the spout, and into a 5/16 inch diameter section of tubing. This tubing is joined to other trees, and eventually turns into a larger pipeline called a "mainline." The mainline carries the sap downhill to a sap storage tank at a low spot where it can be collected easily and transported to the sugarhouse.

Maple syrup is traditionally made in a building called a "sugarhouse" . Sugarhouses vary widely still from rustic wood buildings out in the woods with poor access and no electricity, full of old memories of seasons passed to modern processing plants, brightly lit and streamlined. Regardless of the age, every sugarhouse will have vent cupola at the top that is opened to allow the steam of the boiling syrup to vent. An evaporator is used to boil down the sap into syrup. Evaporators are made up of one or more flat pans which sit on a firebox. Wood or oil, and sometimes gas or coal is burned at the front end, and the flames are drawn along the underside of the pan, heating and boiling the sap as they travel towards the rear.

The basic design of maple syrup evaporators has changed little over the years, although modern sugarmakers have created new methods to replace the necessity of ladeling boiling sap from one pan to another. The size of the evaporator really depends upon the scale of the operation. If you want to try boiling sap yourself you could do it over a fire outdoors or in your kitchen. Be aware however that the amount of steam produced boiling sap down inside may have a detrimental effect on wallpaper or other finsh work so use caution and judgement about boiling inside. . . there's a reason for those cupola vents!

Sugaring with Uncle Harry

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I remember as if it were yesterday, though at least 35 years have passed. Warm spring Sundays, filled with the hope that spring always brings. Sun shining on my face as I left church and greeted Uncle Harry at the door.

Uncle Harry was a deacon in our church and he wasn't my uncle - he was everyone's Uncle. His kindly face, worn with the seasons of a Yankee native's life, would beam as he leaned down to remind me of the sugaring off party at his sugarhouse that afternoon and called me "dear" in that rich North Country accent that resonates still in my brain.
Of course he didn't need to remind me, or anyone else in our informal confederation of communities, drawn together by the necessity of sharing schools, churches, fire departments, police. The moment that sap buckets appeared on the maples along the road we knew that the moment was approaching. Children and adults alike would find their conversations turning to the sap and Uncle Harry's sugaring off party.


Uncle Harry sugared the old fashioned way, though many of the sugaring operation of the day were even then beginning to modernize. His only concession to the modern age came well toward the end of his days when the horse drawn sled gave way to a small blue tractor. Even then, though, he would alight from his tractor, put the rugged yoke around his neck and trudge through the snow from tree to tree gathering sap from the buckets by hand and emptying them into the container on the tractor. When the huge container on the tractor was full it would be transferred to the sugarhouse where his wood fired boiler and evaporator would turn the sweet sap into maple syrup.


-It was the 60's and despite the conservative ways of my North Country neighbors Uncle Harry began to wear his hair long. Not shaggy like so many of my older friends, but longer than the norm for disapproving adults. Uncle Harry's hair was more like a snow-covered rainbow, mostly white with streaks of brown, gold and red as it flowed in waves down his head. It almost seemed that the golden brown of his syrup had so thoroughly penetrated his being that even his hair reflected its glory. Though he never said a word about it to me, I think letting his hair grow was Uncle Harry's way of sending a message to the young people in the community that their choice of self expression did not make them outcasts - despite the whispering and snide remarks of other adults. We loved him for it.


Then the long anticipated day would arrive. After church Uncle Harry would head back to his orchard to prepare for the festivities. A huge pile of clean snow, gathered thoughtfully on some long passed stormy day, lay covered with a large canvas tarp to be unveiled only when the children were gathered around squeeling delightedly.


When families began to arrive Harry Uhlman would be hidden away in his sugarhouse boiling the syrup past pancake thickness to that special level where just the act of pouring it on a snowcovered plate would seem like a spiritual experience. . . nature's sweetest celebration of the spring. While he finished the syrup the children would play in the maple groves, waiting for the moment that they would form a human wave of exhuberance as they rushed to get in line. The adults would mingle, share tales of winter tribulations and plans for the warm days ahead, and pretend that they weren't just as excited as the children. . . .and then Uncle Harry would emerge, wooden bucket in hand, a silly old hat on his head, smiling like an angel . . . I think he was. I know he is now. To this day I can't see a sugarhouse or a tapped maple that doesn't bring him back into my life.

"Maple Ablaze"


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