Making Maple Syrup

Like many Mainers, my friend David is busy each March, tapping trees, collecting, and boiling sap to produce pure made-in-Maine maple syrup. March is when we celebrate Maine Maple Sunday (weekend). We all look forward to this annual tradition with dozens of local farms and sugar shacks inviting visitors to come and experience the process of making maple syrup. How can you resist the tantalizing smell of the collected sap being boiled to create mouth watering amber colored deliciousness? For David, making maple syrup has been an annual tradition since the early 70’s when his dad moved the family back home to Jordan’s Elm Ridge Farm in Livermore Falls. The elder Jordan raised and sold registered Scottish Highland Cattle for over 40 years. David makes 25-30 gallons of syrup each year for personal use and for friends and family but 40-50 gallons could be a typical season. I was lucky last year to be on the receiving end of this tasty Maine delight. (Hint Hint David… looking forward to this year’s batch).

A little bit of information for those that have never tapped a tree; trees that can be tapped include sugar, black, red, and silver maple as well as box elder trees. Of all the maples, the highest concentration of sugar is found in the sap of the sugar maple. Generally the ratio of sap to syrup for the sugar maple is 40 to 1 (40 gallons of sap yields one gallon of syrup). David offered a few instructions to follow. Ideally, the tap hole should be above a large root or below a large branch on the south side of the tree. If more than one tap is to be placed in the same tree, distribute the tap holes around the circumference of the tree. Be sure to avoid any damaged area of the tree.

To determine if your tree is suitable for tapping, wrap a measuring tape around the tree, four feet from the tree’s base, to calculate its circumference.

• If your tree is 31”, don’t tap it!

• If your tree is over 31” but under 44” round, drill one hole.

• If it’s over 44” but under 60” round, you can drill two holes.

• If its trunk measures more than 61” round, you can drill three holes.

Don’t worry about damaging your trees by drilling. When you drill a hole to tap your tree for maple syrup, it’s generally 2” deep and less than 0.5” wide. For a 50-foot maple tree, that’s just a small hole.

Plus, the area you drill through is filled with millions of small vessels that allow sap to flow. Drilling, done right, will only impact a few of those vessels. After the spout is removed at the end of maple season, your tree will begin to repair itself by growing new wood to cover its tapping wound. Within a few years, the hole will be completely enclosed.

Once the spout is installed, you can add plastic tubing to join with tubing from other trees to all flow into one central container for collection or simply add a bucket per each tree. If the latter, be sure to check on the status of the buckets so as to not overflow.

After collecting your sap, now it is time to boil. A lot of folks use a turkey fryer outside, and boil 5 gallons of sap at a time... David boils his sap using a large cooking pan over wood fire heat to increase the surface area of sap being boiled and therefore increasing the rate of evaporation. For 5 gallons you would need 4 hours of boiling at a nice rolling boil. Syrup is done when it reads 219 degrees or 66% sugar content. You can use a refractometer (an inexpensive kitchen tool) to measure the sugar content. Pour into clean containers like mason jars and then start to enjoy on waffles, pancakes, and have you ever poured it on clean snow to make maple candy? I learned this reading Little House on the Prairie stories in my childhood. Give it a try!

Maine Maple Producers

Want to visit a local farms and sugar shack? For links to venues participating in Maine Maple Sunday, please visit Maine Maple Producers Association website. Please note that some of these places also sell maple syrup products year round via their websites.