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MAKING MAPLE SYRUP AT RYERSON WOODS
A Little History
Maple syrup and maple sugar are the oldest agricultural commodities in America. Their history dates back to the Native American Indians in the Great Lakes Region, New England and the St. Lawrence River Valley. At the first sign of spring, they would cut gashes through the bark of the maple trees and collect the sap in wooden vessels, birch bark baskets or iron kettles (obtained through trade with the French voyageurs). Families would drink the sap, especially after hard winters, or boil it down to season their food.
Heated stones were dropped into leather bags or hollow logs filled with sap to reduce the sap to syrup—a very labor intensive and slow process. Some sap was allowed to ferment into vinegar or an alcoholic drink. Children were treated to birch bark cones filled with maple sugar when syrup was boiled down even further. Or on snowy days, hot maple sugar was poured in the snow to produce ‘jack wax’ candy.

The early settlers learned the maple sugaring process from the Native American Indians and made the process more efficient with the use of drills and tin pails. Although commercial sugar camps today may use plastic bags or an extensive network of plastic pipes to collect the sap, and large stainless steel collecting vats and evaporators, the basic process has not changed much in 400 years.
What is Sap?
Sap is made of sugar, minerals and (mainly) water. Sugar is manufactured in the leaves through photosynthesis, the chemical process that creates ‘food’ for the tree’s growth. Water is drawn into the tree’s system through its roots and carries the sugar throughout the tree. In the fall, sugar is carried down to the roots and stored as starches over the winter. When spring arrives, the starch is converted to sugar again and carried up to the twigs and buds to start the growth process over again.
Sap flows through the trees all spring, summer and fall, but only the early spring sap is used for syrup production. As the trees begin their growth, chemical changes occur in the sap which make it unsuitable for syrup production. Late season "buddy sap", produces syrup with a very disagreeable flavor and odor.

Although all trees have sap, only a few have a sugar concentration high enough to produce syrup. Red and silver maples, box elders, hickories and birch trees have been used, but the trees with the highest sugar content are the sugar and black maples. Even so, sugar and black maple sap is only 2-2.5% sugar--it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup!
Making Maple Syrup
1. Find a healthy maple tree at least 10” in diameter. You can mark the maple trees in the summer when their lobed leaves are easy to recognize. Or identify the maple trees by their opposite V-shaped branching and gray bark. The only other trees with opposite branches are ash (U-shaped branching), dogwood (smaller understory trees with horizontal branching) and horse chestnut (coarse twigs with sticky buds).

 

2. Drill a 7/16” hole about 2” deep, at a slight upward slope, 2-3 feet above the ground.

 

 

3. Insert a spile – a hollow spout.

4. Hang a covered, zinc-coated bucket from the spile.

 

5. Collect the sap within 24 hours before it begins to ferment.

 

 

 

6. Pour the sap through a strainer into a cool storage tank.

 


7. Boil the sap to produce syrup. At Ryerson Woods, we use an evaporator.

  

 

 

 

8. Boil it further to produce maple candy.
Fun Facts
  • Sap flows best when there are freezing nights and warm sunny days (40°-45° Fahrenheit).
  • An average single tap hole will produce 10-20 gallons of sap in a season.
  • A maple tree may have as many as 200,000 leaves which produce about 1.5 -2 tons of glucose per year.
  • On mild days, maple trees give off about four gallons of water every hour – at least 12 tons of water per month!
  • Maples do not yield their maximum sap output until they are about 80 years old.
  • The sugar content of syrup is 66.5%.
  • Most commercial pancake syrups are made from corn.
  • Maple syrup is only produced in northeastern North America where spring is late and long.
Click Here for a Maple Syruping Glossary

(photos courtesy of Sue Auerbach)

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Pustelnik Designs and Friends of Ryerson Woods