The husband’s family has a quaint little sugar shack in Ontario where the sap from approximately 300+ taps covering over 10 acres of land boils. Sadly though, maple syrup season only lasts about 10 days in this part of Canada and each year I’ve just been too busy with babies or, in last year’s case, spring temperatures have become too warm too quickly causing the sap not to run. Not this year. This year I cancelled all other plans as soon as word came in that “the sap is flowing,” loaded up my gang of pancake enthusiasts and headed north for a sweet family adventure.
As it turns out, this past Sunday was near perfect conditions for collecting sap. The night before had below freezing temperatures (about -5° C) causing the tree to push the sap into its roots, and about +5° C during the day, which has the tree pulling the sap up into its limbs. The tree knows that it has to keep the sap moving otherwise it will freeze causing the trunk to expand and crack. It is this natural up and down movement of sap that allows our taps to flow. Last year we had a warm front hit Ontario mid-March which caused the sap to travel up to the limbs and stay there. The tree shifted its energy on growing buds and we saw no sap. A sad, sad year for local maple syrup lovers.
Welcome to the sugar shack. It may not look like much from the outside but this is where the sweet, sweet magic happens.
There are two routes that my in-laws use to collect the sap from their maple trees:
1) Using spiles (taps) that drip the sap into a covered collection bucket
2) Running a series of tubes (a pipeline) connected to multiple tapped trees downhill into large barrels.
Whichever way the sap is collected from the trees, the goal is to fill this bad boy:
This is the trailer vat. It is connected to the back of a 4-wheeler traveling the trails of tapped trees and carrying the cumulative collected sap back to the sugar shack.
These tarp-covered barrels collect the tree sap pouring through the pipelines. The pipeline technique seems to be a more efficient route to collection, assuming you have some downward assistance from gravity and the wildlife hasn’t nibbled through the rubber pipes or something bigger like a moose, deer or bear hasn’t simply torn right through them.
We travel by ATV to each of the 12 barrels along the forest trail, pouring the collected sap into the trailer vat. Nothing quite like bonding with your children at a brisk 10 km/hour.
This barrel was nearly spilling over with overnight sap from approximately 10 trees. This is a testament to good sapping weather but remember, one of these giants barrels will boil down to only a single gallon of syrup.
That is a ratio of 48:1 gallons of sap to syrup.
Off to the next barrel. Edie enjoys the perks of being my photography assistant for the day.
Using 3-gallon buckets we scoop the sap from the barrels and pour it into the trailer vat. Once light enough, we lift and pour from the actual barrel. Every single drop counts.
Proudly sporting her “bush tutu”, Alice guides us back to the sugar shack with all of our collected sap.
Using a submersible pump, we move the collected sap from the trailer vat and into a 48-gallon jug waiting at the entrance of the sugar shack.
Pump it. Pump it real good.
From one jug to another, the sap is pumped through these hanging mesh filters to collect any forest debris such as twigs, leaves and dirt.
At this stage I needed to give the sap a curious taste. Not much to report back, it kind of just tastes like water with just the slightly hint of sweet.
We transfer the filtered sap to the evaporator, which is a 12” deep trough sitting atop a roaring fire.
The sap is brought to a rolling boil, removing the threat of bacteria, and removing most of the water to create a thick sweet syrup. I’m told that there is no set amount of time that sap needs to boil for, “no two batches are the same”. Many contributing factors, such as amount of water in that day’s run of sap and the amount of moisture in the air, determine just how long the sap needs to boil until it reaches the finishing stage.
As it boils, the translucent sap begins to turn into that more recognizable amber colour. The darker the hue, the sweeter it is likely to taste.
A hydrometer measures the density of sugar to water; the higher the reading, the more sucrose in that batch of syrup. The reading on the hydrometer is what indicates when it is ready to move to the final phase: jarring.
Through one last filter, the now maple syrup remains on a consistent heat using Bunsen burners and pours easily at about 100° C into sterilized mason jars. The high heat of the syrup will seal the jars without the need for boiling.
The liquid gold in each of these mason jars was sap running through trees just the day before. How cool is that?!
Naturally sweet, locally collected and loaded with healthy antioxidants; real maple syrup is an excellent replacement for white sugar in many recipes and the featured star of some of this family’s favourite treats. Get your hands on some pure maple syrup this season and think outside the pancake platter. I’m certain you will be singing its praises as well. One tip: add bacon.
You can skip the unique cakes if it’s not your thang but I think all sweet lovers will appreciate the smooth, rich outcome of the maple syrup buttercream. Trust me, you want to lick this maple syrup buttercream.
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I took the plunge and made the bacon cupcakes and consider myself a skeptic converted. This only goes to help prove the maxim that any foodstuff is only ever improved by adding bacon 🙂
Great explanation of the whole process, Dana. Not many people get to see it from start to finish like that. Sure makes you appreciate why a bottle of this liquid gold is so much more expensive that *shudder* table syrup.
We both had bacon and maple syrup on the brain. We made it into an ice cream: http://www.theicecreaminitiative.com/maple-syrup-bacon-ice-cream/
Isn’t the pure stuff worth every penny? We love it! You really did make me shudder with the mere mention of the other. 🙂
We need to talk about your guest ice cream post. I’ll be in touch soon, Karina.
Dane
It SO is worth it! Real maple syrup is carefully rationed in our house.
And you know I’d love to talk about ice cream…