Today we decided to take a walk and visit the Sugar Bush and Sugar Shack.
I was out of Maple Syrup and wanted more. Although it's expensive is has to be better for you than anything with high fructose corn syrup in it.
We weren't hungry so we skipped the pancake breakfast and ventured out into the cold to take a tour. A hay ride was offered for a ride into the bush.
We still have a lot of snow and it was below zero so the sap in the bucket was frozen.
The taps and buckets were hanging on the trees to show us how it used to be done.
The North American Natives were the first to discover maple syrup and sugar. They would collect the sap and put it into a hollowed out log and then drop rocks from the fire into the sap to evaporate the water. It was a very long process but the only sugar/sweets the Natives knew about.
When the Europeans arrived in North America they brought pots and pans and learned from the Natives how to make syrup and sugar. They used their big cauldrons to do it in.
Empting all those buckets was a long and labor-intensive process so now the modern way to collect sap is through plastic tubing. The route is downhill and the sap runs from the taps, through the tubing down to where it is processed.
In the sugar shack, the sap is collected in large plastic containers and reverse osmosis is used to remove some of the water from the sap.
This shortens the cooking time and man-hours used to tend to the fire and watch the evaporation process.
When the syrup is ready, it's removed and the remaining syrup is boiled down to make maple sugar.
Once it's ready it's taken to the kitchen to be strained and bottled. Canada produces 80% of the Maple Syrup produced in North America, New England produces 20%.
From there it goes to the Sugar Bush Store and is sold to all of us who love Maple Syrup and Maple Sugar.
Written and photographed by Marilyn S (PaintsOnSlate) HP Photosmart 635
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Comments: 77
Thanks, Marilyn!
When I lived in upstate NY, I knew a women that would make the best candy from it, if we would gather the snow. We had to pack it in a big metal pan/tub like you water animals with, and she would boil the sap/syrup (and whatever else?) and then drizzle it onto the hard packed snow. It would harden into a taffy like state, and man.... was it good. I can't remember at the moment what she called it, but I think it was a traditional favorite at one time around there.
Thanks for the article, very informative together with neat pics.
yummmy maple syrup... mmmmm .... thank you for sharing this ...
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As to John S.'s comment: we made sugar snow, too, and there was a hard candy one woman called "maple crackle."
The Marathon (NY) Maple Festival is April 5-6; we'll try and get some photos, too.
We hadn't been to the Sugar Bush in years since our children grew up but I wanted to photograph the process and share with you so my husband said he'd go with me. it was cold!!
When the kids were small after seeing the process we tapped our trees too and started with several gallons of sap and boiled it down to two pint jars of syrup and continued to make enough sugar for everyone to taste.
I would suggest DON'T DO THIS AT HOME - ha ha ha ha. When it was finished I looked up and we had maple syrup dripping from the ceiling. It was a job to clean up the mess.. but it was fun and the kids had a good time.
My husband, Jeff, grew up in Quebec and they did the same tour every year as a child.
I grew up in the west and have never been to the process but one year I plan to do a vacation there at this time of the year. Susan
The sugar maple and the black maple are the two trees most tapped for sap.
All trees have sap but only the Maple has sap that is sweet and can be used for sugar and syrup. I don't remember what kind of Maples we had in the home we made the syrup in but a friend who taps his own trees told me we would get good syrup from my trees so I tapped them.
So do you have maple trees out west? Even if you do, you don't have the climate to produce syrup - Long cold winters and a slow spring.
According to the info told to us yesterday, Quebec produces 80% of the syrup from Canada and Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick produce the other 20%. that is a total of 80% of what is produced in North America
In the US, Vermont is the biggest U.S. producer,followed by Maine, New York, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Combined they produce 20% of the North American production.
I find it interesting it is only produced in North America.
Thanks for adding the info, Marilyn.
I'm so jealous! Why don't you mail me some of that?! LOL My brother-in-law is from New York orginally and he has family that still live there. He and my sister buy this huge jug of syrup there when they go for a visit yearly. That is the best syrup EVER!
Also, just remembered something else from my college botany classes. The reason we get sap is that the tree stores this nutrient rich cocktail in its roots over the winter, and when the weather gets like Marilyn described above, it triggers the tree to get it flowing from its roots to produce buds etc. This flow cycles dramatically up the tree's vascular system in the Spring, depending on cycles of cold at night and sun-rich days. So it is also the deep winter snow climate in wintertime that is crucial to an abundance of sap, and the type of weather the tree experienced through the summer growing months. Somehow, and I can't remember why, the soil density where the maple's roots exist in, seems ideally suited in the northeast Americas... something perhaps also to do with it being an "old forest." There are also a lot of subspecies of maples that don't seem so suited to maple syrup production. That may be the species prevalent in Montana, as Ellie queried about. They don't do all that well in very rocky soil, if I remember.
I love pure Maple syrup!
I LOVE maple syrup!
Thanks for taking us along, your photo essay is featured on Take a Walk with Me
When I was little, we had lots of maple trees - so my Dad thought to go out and tap them, bring in the sap and then Mom and I could boil it down. He did and we did and though it sure looked like one heck of a lot of sap, I think we maybe got "one tablespoon" of syrup out of it.
Thanks for the memories, Marilyn :)
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thanks,
Marilyn