Drowning in Sap
“Pour some sugar on me * Ooh, in the name of love * Pour some sugar on me * C’mon fire me up
Pour your sugar on me * I can’t get enough * I’m hot, sticky sweet * From my head to my feet.”
~Def Leppard
This Spring I attended a women’s breakfast at our church in Vermillion and discovered, in conversation with one of the ladies at our table, that Norway maple trees can be tapped for sap to make maple syrup. Before I was home, I had ordered some spiles and downloaded a book on my Kindle to learn what I needed to know to make syrup. Like everything else I do, I commit before I know everything and learn as I go. I had no idea what to expect. I tapped the first spile in the large Norway Maple in our front yard and the clear sap began to flow. Not like turning on a faucet but a nice steady drip. A person has no way of gauging how quickly those little drips will add up, but I, in my naivety could not fathom that it would ever be quick enough to match my ambitions. So, after verifying that my maple tree was large enough to accommodate several taps, I inserted a second tap. That evening I had my first two gallons of sap which I immediately boiled down to about ½ cup of golden delicious syrup!! Sweet success (albeit on a small scale) fueled my burgeoning syrup enterprise. In my newfound excitement I invited my grandsons to come over and help me tap a second maple tree. Brantley found the sap run to be as instantaneously gratifying as I had. The next day he went to daycare and told all his friends that grandma and grandpa had syrup trees! The evening of the second day, after we had 4 taps running & no more pails left to collect the sap we tied empty ice tea jugs to the spiles. That night before bed I had collected 5 gallons of sap. Now we were talking! As the sap kept running, I read everything I could get my hands on about sap exudation, boiling times and methods, sugar content related to tree age and canopy, Baume and Brix scales, and other tree species that can be tapped (like Black Walnut and Birch). However, the maple tree is alone in its unique ability to produce sweet sap.
“The sap extracted from sugar maple (Acer saccharum) trees contains high levels of sugar, and is collected for the production of maple syrup. The mechanisms driving sap exudation in maple trees are thought to be associated with: (1) the unique cellular structure of maple trees and existence of gas-filled fibres; (2) a freeze thaw cycle where ambient temperatures fluctuate above and below 0 C; and (3) the presence of sucrose with vessels of the tree’s xylem.” (Driller, Holland, Watson 2020)
A look ahead at our forecast on day 3 told me that conditions were going to be optimal for collecting sap. The prediction was for freezing temperatures overnight and daytime temperatures above freezing. For 7 days straight I collected and boiled sap! I had been told that the volume to be evaporated was far too much to be done indoors (apparently it will remove your wallpaper if you have any). So I set up a small woodstove outside and used a stock pot to begin the boiling and would bring it in the house to finish it on the house stove in the evenings. It took at least 8 hours to boil down 5 gallons of syrup. It takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. (Surprisingly, the sugar content in the Norway maples was so high that I got slightly more syrup than that.) On about the 4th or 5th day I had to call for backup. I was drowning in sap. I had put 5 gallons on to boil and 10 more gallons in buckets waiting to be processed. My daughter took some to her house to finish out and my son brought me a propane fueled burner used to deep fry turkey’s in oil so that I would have a second outdoor source for boiling. I also brought out my 2 burner Coleman camp stove to boil an additional 4 gallons. Every day all three of these sources were boiling sap first thing in the morning and last thing at night. At the end of the first week I was SO RELIEVED when we had 2 nights above freezing and no sap flowed into my pails!
Some interesting things I discovered when setting up to do this, is that it required far more firewood and propane than I would have ever anticipated. I also learned that when you go to Runnings to buy clear hose, pails and a lot of propane you get asked a lot of questions and get some funny looks. My husband told me that I am probably on some kind of watch list as a suspect for cooking meth!
If the syrup hadn’t turned out extremely well, I think I would not have bothered with the additional expense and labor but – it is honestly the best syrup I ever tasted. (All of my taste testers agreed when comparing it to Log Cabin i.e. not real maple syrup AND real maple syrup from Sugar Maples.) There are many conflicting reports online about the predicted success of tapping Norway Maples for syrup. Some say that the sap is “milky”. Mine was not – it was completely clear. Some noted that the sap was clear but appeared more cloudy after it was reduced even though the flavor was unaffected by this. There were variances in the different batches I made but only in color. The first batches were more gold colored and later batches were the traditional brown color of syrup. The most notable difference in taste was the mellow, almost buttery caramel flavor of the syrup.
Is it good FOR you?
Since beginning this process I have learned there are many health benefits to syrup as well.
Pure maple syrup is not only high in antioxidants, but every spoonful offers nutrients like riboflavin, zinc, magnesium, calcium, and potassium.
Oxidative damage, which is caused by free radicals, is believed to be among the mechanisms behind aging and many diseases. Antioxidants can neutralize free radicals and reduce oxidative damage, potentially lowering your risk of some diseases. Studies indicate that maple syrup is a decent source of antioxidants.
One study found 24 different antioxidants in maple syrup.
Around 1/3 cup (80 ml) of pure maple syrup contains
· Calcium: 7% of the RDI
· Potassium: 6% of the RDI
· Iron: 7% of the RDI
· Zinc: 28% of the RDI
· Manganese: 165% of the RDI
The Native Americans are credited with discovering that sap from maple trees could be processed in this way to make maple syrup and we owe them a debt of gratitude!
If you want to take a deep dive into the science behind maple sap exudation this is an excellent research article:
If you have children or grandchildren that would enjoy learning more about sugaring, I recommend the children’s book “The Sweetest Season” by Elissa Kerr
A succinct “how to” book that I used as a beginning reference is “Start to Finish Maple Syrup” by Brian Cunningham. It is a quick and easy read!
Am I selling syrup now?
Ha! No way…. And here is why:
My expenses were:
11 green propane tanks x $10= $110
5 gallon propane tank $50
Filters $30
Evaporator pan $25
Spiles and Tubing $15
Pails (and more pails) $20
Kindle books $10
Firewood $100
Hydrometer $10
Candy thermometer $6
Canning Jars $12
expenses TOTAL $388
If I charged 10/hr. for my time that would be 14 days x 8 for 112 hours and a salary of $1120 dollars
For a grand total of $1508 if I want to make a $5 profit on each of my 16 pint jars I would have to sell them for $99.25 each!
In summation, I enjoyed the process immensely and I think it will go much more smoothly next year (with less expense). If I get the opportunity to do it again I will but I would only put in 2 taps instead of 4. I collected about 70 gallons of sap and got 2 gallons of syrup.
As a woodworker, I try to use lumber responsibly and plant trees every year. I enjoy all of the incredible gifts that trees give us and enjoy highlighting the attributes of certain species from time to time. For 10 years I have taken for granted the 100+ year old Norway maples in our back yard; enjoying their shade but not relishing their little seeds taking root in our gutters every Spring. This Spring they more than compensated me that minor inconvenience. I think I will be planting more Maple trees this year!
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