From Sap to Syrup
if you’ve got a few maple trees, sugaring might be a sweet hobby to pursue!
If you’ve got a few maple trees, sugaring might be a sweet hobby to pursue!
Sugaring holds a warm place in my heart. My first foray into making maple syrup was when I was 14, working as a volunteer at a historic farm. I drove the farm’s draft horse and sled into the woods to collect sap from tin buckets that hung on the ancient sugar maples. I had never tasted anything as good as the syrup that came out of the farm’s vintage sugar shed, but I think the experience of making that syrup was far memorable. So when my husband and I purchased our farm 12 years ago, we decided to try our hand at sugaring. We only had 15 maple trees to tap, but they yielded enough syrup to make it worthwhile.
Michelle Visser is the author of Sweet Maple: Backyard Sugarmaking from Tap to
Table. Along with her husband and four daughters, she makes syrup on their homestead in New England. She and I agreed that turning sap to syrup is a kind of alchemy.
“I thought my husband was crazy when he tapped our first tree,” Visser says. “I hated maple syrup at the time, but I thought the process of sap to syrup would be a good science lesson for my daughters. The second year we got it right, and we ended up with the light-colored early syrup that is so delicious.”
Anyone can be a sugarmaker. You don’t need a forest full of mature sugar maple trees; a sugar bush (or orchard) can be as simple as a few trees around your house or scattered throughout a small patch of woods (as in my case); or more expansive, spread across many acres (as is the case with Visser). You can also get permission to use trees from your neighbors or in a local park.
In the Maple Belt (the hardwood forests that stretch through the Midwest, Canada and New England), sugaring time usually runs from late February to early April, or when the nighttime temperatures are below freezing and the daytime temperatures are above freezing. This freeze and thaw creates pressure, which allows sap to flow. But you don’t have to live in the Maple Belt to be a sugarmaker. If your area has a freeze and thaw, you’ll have a sap run.
Although the sugar maple has the highest sugar content, any maple tree will produce sap for syrup. There are also four alternative trees that you can tap:
birch, walnut, sycamore and sweet gum. And of the 30 sugar sap trees Visser mentions in her book, at least one grows in every state, even Hawaii with its palm tree flower. “All it takes is knowing the right weather conditions,” she says. “A major change in weather can be enough.” For example, in the Pacific Northwest, a rapid fluctuation in high and low fronts will cause sap to flow.
It’s worth tapping a tree even if all you’re going to do is drink the sap. Sap is delicious and loaded with polyphenols, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. “You might not have enough sap to make syrup,” Visser says. “But during the season you’ll have really good water to drink with a tint of maple flavor.”
Tap Tips
Trees facing the warm afternoon sun tend to produce sooner than trees living deeper into the forest, although it’s difficult to predict which tree will do best, no matter its location. Some trees will give one year and then not at all the next. In our sugar bush, we have a tree called the “Old Lady.” She’s the grand dame of our woods and large enough to accommodate three taps. Last year, she kept most of her sap to herself while the younger trees gave generously. There’s also a debate as to whether you should tap on the south or north side of the tree. No one has come to any conclusion, so feel free to try either or both ways.
To tap your tree, use a 5⁄16- inch bit, and drill a hole 11⁄ to 2 inches deep, 36 inches above the ground (4 inches
2 away and a few inches above any previous holes). Use one smooth slightly upward motion to make a perfectly round taphole. (Less-than-round holes can leak.) Visser says in a healthy tree, the wood shavings should be light colored. Darker wood shavings mean the hole will be unproductive. In this case, move to another section of the tree and try again.
Use a stiff wire to fish out any sawdust lingering in the taphole. To seat the spile (also called taps or spouts) correctly, Visser says to gently tap it in with a light hammer until you hear a change in pitch.
You can place multiple spiles on trees depending on the diameter of the trunk. Do not tap trees less than 10 inches in diameter. Doing so can rob the tree of its essential carbohydrates. The ratio is as follows:
• one tap for trees 10 to 17 inches in diameter
• two taps for trees 18 to 24 inches in diameter
• three taps for trees 25 inches and up.
At the end of the season, remove the tap. Do not plug the taphole; leave it open and let the tree heal itself.
A Sap Gathering
How you collect sap depends upon your sugar bush. My trees are in a flat patch of woods close to my house, so I use simple 2-inch homemade spiles, cut from bamboo canes and wrapped with electrical tape, and milk jugs. I cut a small “X” on one side of the jug and hook it over the tap. I run a string through the handle and tie it around the tree to secure it in place. Visser has hundreds of trees over rocky, hilly land, so such a system doesn’t work for her. She uses 5⁄16- inch tubing that leads into a 5-gallon food-safe bucket that sits on the ground.