I have a very small “sugar bush.” A sugar bush is a collection of trees that are used in spring for making maple syrup. our output peaks in pints per day when it peaks, not gallons. We average about three gallons in the season, and that is plenty for our family needs.
We are just starting out. But already we’ve noticed the variety pint to pint. We kind of enjoy the differences tasting and using the syrup is a culinary adventure. We could mix the pints together to average the consitancies, and colors, but rather have the syrup as it is. Each pint is marked with its number in the series and the date it was tapped.
It is that time of year. At last, the first tap went in, the first bucket hung, and the first drops of sap fell. It’s maple syrup time. Now, if it is warm in the days and cool at night, I’ll soon be boiling sap for syrup. Like a watched pot not boiling, a watched bucket won’t fill, so patience is required, followed by evenings of boiling. The tapping started just about on time – about a week after Saint Valentine’s Day. Tapping ends when the maple buds open or the tree frogs start singing. That final sap run, sometimes called the Frog Run, can yield some very interesting syrup. Unlike the uniform grade in “stoah boughten stuff,” your syrup can vary in appearance and taste almost daily. It’s always a great discovery to look at the differences in color, thickness, and taste.
As you probably know, maple sap is mostly water. So to get syrup, you boil off all that water. In the meantime, all that heat from boiling and all that water make the home a moist warm environment. We enjoy it, and as the sap concentrates, there is a faint odor of maple syrup in the air. The photo shows how our kitchen windows steam up during the process.
You do not want to make maple syrup in a kitchen that is wallpapered. I’ve heard of people whose wallpaper neatly unpasted itself and fell to the floor in rolls.
Sapping and boiling are activities that indicate the change of season. When the sap runs, you boil. It’s a pleasant enough exercise but be warned that hauling buckets of sap in the snow can be awkward. When the sap runs, you boil, which can mean late nights as you finish a batch.
the following post first appears in February of 2020. instead of 22 inches of snow, I am now in the middle of a storm that will drop a foot or more. But we have started making the sweet stuff. the following post talks about How I learned and became involved in this annual ritual. A video from 2018 is also attached:
Growing up in New York City, I had to wait till I joined the Boy Scouts and went camping to learn to recognize maples. But, I did not make the connection between the tree and the product of its sap for many years. Pancakes came with syrup in a bottle that was mostly corn syrup. I don’t think in those days that I connected the tree and the syrup at all. When I first came to New England around 1964 or ’65, I was gifted with a small box of maple leaf-shaped candies made from maple syrup sugar. I rather gracelessly ate them all in about ten minutes. But it wasn’t till I went to Maine that I found out what real addiction was. In Portland, I met a Coast Guard petty officer who’s family owned a “sugarbush” in northern Maine. Chris, like some drinkers, was always equipped with a small silver flask, except his contained maple syrup. Where other people might use sugar, he used syrup. He also used it medicinally with rum or whiskey. If his ship were about to deploy to Station Charley or Delta, he’d make sure that his mother and father shipped enough for the deployment. One of
Gradually I became syrup snob. I liked the deeper amber grades with the stronger flavor and eschewed the fancy grades the tourists bought. While working on the Smithsonian’s Festival of Folklife in 1988 I spent considerable time in contact with folks from Massachusetts who made the sweet stuff. We had a syrup evaporator set up and everyday watered down syrup so we could demonstrate how syrup was made.
Soon after this, I was gifted with a few spiles – the spout you stick into the tree. It’s been a downward trend since then. Now, as winter wanes, I begin to watch the highs and low temperatures to begin calculating when I should tap my trees. Where I’m located, the traditional date is right around Saint Valentine’s day. But, with the seasons in an uproar, I’ve set taps as early as the end of January – and gotten some very dark ambrosia! You want the temperatures to go up in the day and then plunge at night. Around the time the tree frogs start singing and buds open, the season ends. As at the start of the season, so too at its end: a matter of considerable variability. Next time you complain about the cost of good syrup, consider how much energy goes into boiling the sap into syrup, and how much labor goes into making it. If you are in a syrup producing area, visit a sugarhouse. Like most home producers, I boil at my house on the stove. I tap a few huge maples on my property that grow on the verge of the woods. They get lots of sun, and when I pour the sap into the boiler, I can already see the sugar shimmering in the sap before It boils. We produce several gallons for home consumption; I could push production, but we don’t need more. I am adding a video on the process that I made a few years ago. If you decide to try, this it’s labor intensive and avoid doing it in a kitchen with wallpaper – unless you were interested in stripping the walls anyway.
Here is a video I made a few years ago about a typical sapping season for making maple syrup. I’m a strictly kitchen operation and aim to make just enough for family and friends.
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