AMC Outdoors, January/February 2007
Do-it-yourself maple syrup
You crunch around a corner on a still-frozen gravel road and spot wisps of steam rising from a tiny, wood-shingled shack. A warm cloud thick with the aroma of boiling sap engulfs you. You’ve made the trek to northern Vermont, where maple products bring in more than $225 million annually thanks to sweet-toothed tourists. But if you’ve got a decent-sized sugar maple at home, you can set up your own syrup operation without leaving the driveway.
A READY SUPPLY Check around the house—you may already have all the equipment you need:
- drill with 5/16-inch bit
- metal or plastic spile (spout)
- food-grade rustproof bucket or container with cover (clean plastic milk jugs work)
- pan for boiling sap
- candy thermometer or hydrometer
- cheesecloth
- canning jars for storing syrup
TAP DANCE While it won’t hurt the tree if you tap too early, the tap-hole will dry out in about six weeks, explains Tim Wilmot of the University of Vermont’s Proctor Maple Research Center. So plan accordingly. In northern New England, saps starts flowing in early March or when the days have been consistently warm with still-freezing nights; it happens sooner in more southerly climes. Rely on the expertise of sugar makers in your region—don’t start drilling until they do.
When you’ve established that your tree is ready, drill a 5/16-inch diameter hole in the trunk, two inches deep. Sweep out any loose wood and tap a spout—called a spile in syrup circles—into the hole. Hang your bucket or jug from the spile to catch the sap. A lid will keep rainwater and critters out. Allow sap to drip for up to 40 days and collect it in a sealable container.
BOILING POINT Now you’re ready to cook. Collect your sap and boil it in a large stainless steel pot or pan. “You can start with a pot on the kitchen stove,” says Wilmot, “but it’s a primitive and messy way.” Consider that sweet steam: Forty gallons of sap boils down to one gallon of syrup, which means 39 gallons is evaporating somewhere—ideally not inside your house. It’s best to assemble your supplies over an outside fire in a firepit or on a barbecue grill or camp stove.
As soon as your sap comes to a boil, take the temperature. Syrup reaches the correct density when it’s 7.1 degrees hotter than the boiling point of water—at sea level, this is roughly 217 degrees.
“Too dense and it will crystallize; too light and it will ferment,” says Wilmot. Watch to make sure the syrup doesn’t scorch or boil over; a smear of butter around the inside rim of the pan can prevent the latter. Strain the syrup through cheesecloth directly into your storage containers. Freeze it indefinitely or store it in the refrigerator for up to six months.
Wilmot offers beginners a few caveats. Be realistic when setting goals. A sugar maple with a single tap will produce 10 to 20 gallons of sap at most (yielding between two pints and a half-gallon of syrup), so don’t plan on giving gallons away as holiday gifts next year. Also, sap is like milk and spoils quickly, especially in warm weather. Start boiling ASAP. And never mix old sap with fresh, he warns. It’ll all go bad.
- Madeleine Eno
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