Musings of a Maple Syrup Hobbyist
We hear the sap is running, it is "Maple Syrup Time" at home. First made by the indigenous people, maple syrup is now a business in the northeastern US, but for my husband, Dennis Lautner, it is a hobby. He makes 15 to 20 gallons each year to share with family and friends. When we left Traverse City in 2003, we stocked the boat larder with numerous pint-sized jugs of "Wild Denny's" - nature's finest sweeter. Our intent was to share the bounty with people along the way who helped us out in various situations. All along the US waterways people were grateful; a little note thanking them for whatever, indicated that it was "homemade." In the Caribbean, Denny always had to explain what it was, how it was made and what one used it for. Most of the locals had not experienced maple syrup before. Now that we are never home in the spring we've relied on friends and family to take over the production of our maple syrup. When they visit in the spring and when we come home for hurricane season our boat supply is restocked.
Anyone with maple trees can produce their own maple syrup as a hobby. It is generally not profitable as a business unless one has thousands of trees and high-tech equipment that measures sugar content, spins out water as opposed to boiling, vacuum pumps the lines to increase sap output, and finishes in special pans. Thousands of dollars can be spent for the basic operation. For the hobbyist, basically one collects and boils sap until it reaches a concentration point that it boils up in the pan -- it becomes thicker. Warning: it will boil out of the pan rapidly, covering the stove with a nasty mess. The secret is to carefully watch the liquid as it is boiling. When the bubbles cover the top of the liquid, turn down the heat, simmer for another 5 minutes, being careful to avoid a boil-over, turn off the heat, can the syrup and enjoy.
Denny began 30 plus years ago in what I called a "Sanford and Son" shack. All recycled goods with tarps as walls right near our home's front entrance. He moved it away from the house into a valley by the maple woods and it is now a "Red/Green" hunting shack - a 20' x 8' recycled building with windows, a homemade door, a roof vent to let out the steam and a storage area inside for the recycled pallet lumber he collects for fuel, a 2 1/2' x 6' boiling pan on a metal enclosed fire pit and all the paraphernalia one needs for the process -- strainers, filters, ladles, pails, cutting tools for the pallets, and chairs to sit on when watching the boil. He started with spiels and 1 1/2 gallon pails on the trees, 5 gallon buckets to collect the sap from the trees carrying them back by hand to the sugar shack -- a very labor intense system. The spiel is nothing more than a hollow piece of tubing -- wood, plastic, or metal, slightly tapered so that it snuggly fits into the 2" deep x 3/8" wide hole, "tap", drilled into the trunk of the maple tree. (A couple rules for drilling/tapping the tree: one never drills a tree less than a foot in diameter; one can place several spiels at least one foot apart on the larger trees. As many as six spiels have been placed on a huge tree, all at about waist or chest level.) Many people have asked if this hurts the trees. From an observational standpoint, it doesn't appear to harm them. Each year when new holes are drilled the previous year's holes are nearly healed. A two year old hole is barely discernible -- the tree is healed. The hole should be on the southern/sunny side of the tree as the sap runs there earlier in the day thus producing more sap in a day's time. A pail is attached under the spiel so that the sap drips into the pail. Many people cover the spiel/pail setup to keep debris out of the sap. Gather the sap, place over the fire in a pan with a large surface area. (Denny's pan has a convoluted surface on the bottom increasing surface area for boiling.) Keep the fire going until consistency is achieved.
In the last 20 years, Denny has used clear, plastic tubing and spiels making pails and tree to tree collection obsolete. The sap is never exposed to the elements until it is moved into the boiling pan. This is a gravity fed process flowing to the lowest point in the woods. Sometimes deer run into the hose, trees/limbs fall on it, and squirrels chew it. It does reduce the amount of work necessary to collect the sap, but one must keep a watchful eye on the components. The woods is tapped and hose is run from maple tree to maple tree. About 20 taps on a 3/16" ID hose are feed into a 3/4" ID main hose that runs down the center of the woods into a 55 gallon collection barrel. As a general rule sap runs when the daytime temperature gets above 32 degrees and continues until it drops below freezing, usually at sunset. Curiously, if it doesn't freeze at night very little or no sap will run the next day. Cold night, melting snow and warm days are the secret. On a good day these 120 tapped trees will produce at the collection point about a pint of sap every minute. Boil off is about five gallons of water per hour so one falls behind quite quickly on a good day, thus requiring continuation of boiling well into the night, sometimes even the wee hours of the morning. It is quite an experience to sit at the sugar shack in the middle of the night listening to the sap boil, the owls hoot (it's mating season) and the coyotes howling back and forth to each other, 100 degrees inside and well below freezing outside. One could even feel sorry for those who have never experienced such a delightful spring pastime. When the snow melts and the nights warm, the maple sap season is over until the following spring.
Sap/syrup ratio varies in concentration from tree to tree and throughout the season. Road trees or trees fully exposed to sunlight generally have a higher concentration of sugar in the sap maybe as high as 35:1. Tasting that sap one notices quite a sweet flavor. Trees in the middle of the woods -- less exposed -- have a lower sugar concentration often 50:1. When tasting this sap one can hardly detect the sweetness at all. All trees have a greater concentration in the colder earlier season than in the warmer later one. There are expensive instruments to measure sugar concentration in the sap but the human tongue is free.
Once sap is boiled down to the syrup point it is canned or bottled and stored in a dark, cool space. It does not need refrigeration until the jar is opened. Regular canning jars or specific maple syrup plastic containers can be purchased. Packed with vitamins and minerals, on pancakes, waffles, or ice cream, in milk, coffee or by the teaspoon, maple syrup is a most nutritious, delicious natural sweetener.
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