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Many Sweet Returns
By John Stowell, Outdoor Educator
Liquid gold, nature's golden harvest, pure maple…whatever you call it, New York State pure maple syrup produced in a local sugar house is one of the finest offerings nature can provide. It's a simple process that has been practiced for hundreds of years.
Present day consumers owe Native Americans a sincere debt of gratitude for discovering that sap collected from maple trees could be processed into maple syrup. One legend suggests that the first knowledge of sugar from a maple tree came from an early Native American who tasted an icicle hanging from a broken maple branch, and noticed that it was sweet. The "sap-sicle" had formed when a branch tip broke off in late winter and the sap flowed out and froze. The evaporation and sublimation of water from the "sap-sicle" increased the sweetness of the remaining ice, resulting in a sweet and tasty treat hanging from the tree.
Sugar Maple trees are decorated with metal collecting buckets in the later part of February in our neck of the woods. Some producers use plastic tubing to move the 2% sugar, 98% water maple sap solution to collection tanks or directly into the sugar house for processing. The sugar maple offers the highest percentage of sugar content, but other species of maple can be tapped to produce syrup. For example, a red maple requires 80 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup, twice that of the sugar maple.
The maple production industry has improved equipment that has increased efficiency; however, the single ingredient involved in making syrup remains the same and always will. Converting maple sap into syrup is accomplished by the concentration of sap solids, primarily sugar, through the removal of water, chiefly by evaporation through boiling. The process involves many complex physical and chemical transformations that together affect density, color and flavor of the product. A wide variety of equipment and practices to remove water and achieve these changes are used. However, the primary goal is the same-to produce a natural, pure, high quality food product. Boiling maple sap to 219 degrees Fahrenheit will produce syrup.
Generally, any healthy maple tree larger than 10 to 12 inches in diameter at breast height (4 feet above the ground) may be tapped. Healthy trees with large crowns (tree tops) will produce large volumes of high-sugarcontent sap as opposed to small or unhealthy trees.
A visit to a sugar house is a sure cure for a winter's worth of cabin fever. The smell of sweet sap boiling in an evaporator and the taste of warm, fresh maple syrup will get everyone focused on the fact that spring is in the air and not too far away.
Sap flow is dependant on a steady weather pattern of cool frosty nights and warm sunny days. A cold, hard freeze or unseasonably warm temperatures can bring sap flow to a screaming halt, only to regenerate when Mother Nature provides optimal condition once again. By early April the maple season comes to a close in our region. Buckets and equipment are cleaned and stored in the sugar house until the mid-February sun calls the sugar maker and equipment back into action, and the long standing history of making maple syrup continues for yet another season.
The Taconic Outdoor Education Center, located off of Dennytown Road, will be celebrating the sugaring season with their Sugar Maple Celebration this Sunday, March 16, 2008 from 9am-noon. Demonstrations and a pancake breakfast are highlights. The cost is $6 for adults, $4 for children. For more information, call 265-3773.
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