Maple Sugar

The neighbors behind our farm have a "Sugar Shack" in their woods where they make maple syrup each spring. Making syrup has been a lifelong tradition for Jim. He made syrup with his father and uncle when he was a boy, and eventually built and ran his own sugar shack when he was in his teens. Today Jim and his son Jimmy make maple sryup together each spring. Jim's wife takes some of the sryup and boils it farther to make maple candy - a sugary favorite of mine! Our kids like to go back and help him when they can.

Jim's operation is pretty traditional. Trees are tapped with a hand brace and bit, buckets are hung and the sryup is collected as often as daily when the sap is running fast. There are many "sugar maples" in the woods surrounding the shack so collecting enough sap isn't a problem! The collected sap is brought back to the shack and put into a large tank where it is transferred by pump to the tank inside the shack. From there the sap flows as needed into the boiler.

The boiler is fired by wood, lots of it. To keep the sap boiling lots of heat is needed. It's a full time job cutting, splitting and hauling enough wood to keep the boiler running at full speed. Most wood is taken from the surrounding woods from dead and fallen trees.

Making sryup is an easy process to understand. Essentially, sap is taken from the trees and boiled to remove most of the moisture and concentrate the sugar and flavor. To get 1 gallon of sryup, it takes 40 gallons of sap. Now you know what all the wood is for! To the right is a picture of the boiler - it's hard to see because of all of the steam in the shack. The sap enters on the far end and moves through zig zag passages in the boiler toward the near end as it concentrates. The smell inside the shack when sap is cooking is fabulous. The sweet taste of boiling sap in the air on a cold damp day is one I will always remember. I feel fortunate that I have Jim's shack to go to and take my kids to to learn about this old tradition.

When the sap is very near syrup concentration, the last section of the boiler is shut off from the other sections and is left to boil for a short time longer. The specific gravity of the syrup is tested as it boils and when a predetermined point is reached, the time to drain off the liquid gold is reached! A traditional method for determining when the sryup is ready to pour is shown here. A ladle is taken and poured. When the sryup "sheets", it's time to pour.

Here is the final product being drained from the boiler. Every couple hours Jim drains about 2-3 gallons of syrup. There's nothing like the taste of syrup hot out of the boiler - I had to test it several times to make sure it tasted OK!