Sugaring Time

The past 2 weeks have been filled with beautiful weather, the melting of all that white stuff and with that the maple taps have been running like mad.  There have been many a late night around here turing all that sap into syrup.  For those of you interested exactly how we do it, well our operation is - very primitive.  

    On our 27 acres we have loads of sugaring maples, so in our case, we are selective in which trees we tap, size and age of the tree are considered (trees about 20 years or older work best - maples can live over 200 years) as well as location relative to our house - we need to be able to empty the buckets easily daily and taps run better in sunny spots.   Over the last few years we have been lucky enough to score 10 aluminum maple buckets during our summer yard sale adventures so we mostly use those for collecting sap, but recycled milk jugs work just as well.  

Once the daytime temperatures consistently rise above about 35 with nights that fall below freezing, we drill the holes, insert the metal taps into the drilled hole, tap lightly with a mallet  and hang the bucket on the tap hook.   The sap drips slowly each day during the warmest part of the day.  On sunny days, the taps flow better than on cloudy days.  After about a week of collecting sap from our 15 trees we usually have enough to make a batch of syrup.  

 

We process our sap outdoors (believe me you don't want to do this inside) in a standard 30 Quart Stainless Steel Propane Powered Turkey Fryer we purchased at Costco several years ago for around $80.   This is much less expensive option than buying a Backyard Half Pint Evaporator which would be the standard for a small operation like ours, but costs around $1000 dollars!   It would take us many years to recover the cost of such a purchase with our small amount of syrup production, so for now our method works very well and makes economic sense. Here's a look at our "high-tech fancy" backyard sugaring operation.  

We fill the pot and boil it down until it reaches a temperature of 7 degrees above the boiling point of water relative to our elevation.  Because we live in a mountainous area in NH, our boiling point is lower than the norm, so we take that number and add 7.   Our 30 liter pot is equivalent to almost 8 gallons which when boiled down will yield a little less than 1 quart of syrup (we need about 10 gallons to make 1 quart).  This boiling down process is repeated several times over the course of a few weeks for us to get our desired gallon of syrup each sugaring season.   

Once the sap is reduced to a small amount, we filter it through cloth filters to remove any undesirable matter (baby spring flies love boiling sap -yuck) then I  move it into a smaller pot with a thermometer and watch the temperature carefully.  If you've ever made jam, you understand why it needs to be watched.  

As you can see it begins to take on a beautiful maple caramel color.  Once at the right temp, we filter it once more, allow it to cool to 180 degrees and then bottle it.  Syrup quality is affected by weather conditions during the maple season, time during the season when the sap is collected, and processing technique. So each year the same trees may produce different syrup grades.  Maple Syrup is generally classified into grades:

• Grade A Light Amber a.k.a. Fancy — the lightest of the three classifications has a mild, delicate flavor
• Medium Amber — a bit darker with a fuller flavor
• Dark Amber — the darkest of the three grades has a stronger maple, caramel, and other flavors Grade B — has the strongest flavor 

This year we produced all Grade A Light, which is our favorite, it is not too sweet and is very light.   I put a friend's syrup, the dark one in the right of the photo, so you can see the difference in color - we love to trade syrup with friends and neighbors because each batch tastes different.   We put all of our syrup in recycled syrup containers that we save and collect throughout the year.  Mason jars also work well.  We refrigerate syrup that will be used within 30 days  and freeze the rest.  The freezer provides the best long-term storage, it will not freeze completely, it may thicken but if it is removed and thawed for a few minutes it will regain its viscosity and pour easily. The freezing process allows the syrup to stay fresh longer than if it were merely kept in the refrigerator. 

This year, we also tried our hand at making maple sugar candy and ended up with a small batch of the crystalized goodness, which can be grated into maple sugar.
In the end we processed about 180 gallons of sap to make a grand total of 1 gallon of maple syrup this year and one batch of maple sugar candy.  The warm syrup was immediately enjoyed on some vanilla bean ice cream.

After the sugaring season ends, usually when night time temperatures stay above 30 degrees, days are consistently warmer than 45 and before the tree begins to bud, the buckets come down, the taps are pulled out and a small piece of wood is inserted into the drilled hole in each tree.  The tree then heals over the course of the year and the following year the new tapping hole is drilled in another spot, several inches away from healed previous tap holes.  If properly cared for, Maple trees can go on producing in this manner for many, many years.  

We have family coming into town tomorrow for an extended weekend, so I'll be away from this space for a few days doing some spring skiing and enjoying their visit.  This morning we woke to a fresh coat of Sugar Snow (snow after an early spring warm up) on the ground so it looks like the skiing will be great!
I'll be back next week, until then, 

Happy Weekending!