Maple Sugaring

Last weekend we ventured out to a state park to learn the art of maple syrup. I first learned about this a year ago, but being without a car made it difficult to do. So I jumped on our second chance. It's been a few years since we converted from Aunt Jemima to the pure stuff and we're even bigger fans now. We now understand why it's so expensive too!

They first taught us how we can distinguish a maple tree. In the summer you can do it by the leaves, but in the winter when you tap the tree (in it's sleep state), it's a little trickier. It's the branches...they have opposing branches as opposed to alternate branches. Interesting. Rachel found a Red Maple leaf.
They taught us how to drill the hole and "tap" the tree (hammer the spile into the hole)
You hang a bucket on the spile and watch the sap ooze out. Sadly, this winter was too mild for the trees to produce much sap, so we didn't see any as I had hoped. But, we bought a spile and we have some Maple trees in our backyard, so we're going to do it next winter. Supposedly it looks just like water, because it is...96% water. They say it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. So yes, we'll collect it for the sake of the process, but then we'll just go buy some at the store. And that is why it is so expensive, including the trees being only in the Northeast and Canada
To get the syrup from the sap all you have to do is boil it and let the water evaporate away. The different Grades of syrup are just when it was tapped during the season. The early stuff, Grade A, is lighter and, Grade B has a richer maple flavor.You can tell it's done, not by the color, but by the temperature...once it reaches 6 degrees higher than the boiling point of water (or something like that) Here's Tommy doing the math.
Then we had a taste test to compare the difference between the store bought corn syrup stuff, to the stuff they tapped in the preserve. No comparison! Tommy had to do a few extra dips to make sure he knew which one he liked best.
We finished off the night with pancakes for dinner, of course. And when Jake goes to Trader Joe's there's always some extra treats in the bag...Maple leaf cookies (which were so yummy) and Maple flavored shredded wheat. I love it!