Like most things sweet and beautiful, the beloved Maple Syrup you love to put on your pancakes had a humble beginning. At some point, it was 98% water and only 2% of that surgery goodness you enjoy. So how did we come about that delicious sweetener that everyone loves?
Maple syrup is produced from the sap of the sugar maple tree. The product you purchase online or from your favorite grocery store is produced by boiling the initially watery sap until it is just the right. Here’s how it is done.
Find the tree
The first step would be to identify the sugar maple tree. This is usually done before the trees lose their leave in the fall. This way, when the farmers come back during maple syrup season (between February and April) they can find the trees more easily.
Tap the sap
A hole of about 1.5 inches is drilled into the tree on its south side. The hole is typically drilled at about 4 feet from the ground at a slightly upward angle using a drill bit. Then a spout or spile is gently tapped into the drilled hole. This helps to tap the sugar maple sap into a container. The sap is actually a mixture of water produced by the tree during winter and stored in the tree tissues through winter.
Boiling the sap
The collected sap is boiled indoors. This is done on a stove, for a small scale, or in the case of a large-scale Vermont maple syrup maker like Maple Mountain Sugarhouse on an evaporator in the sugar house. A hydrometer or candy thermometer is used to measure the concentration of the liquid. It is officially maple syrup when the reading shows the sugar content is 66% or 219 degrees (on the thermometer)
Filter and Preserve it
The hot syrup will be filtered using cheesecloth or felt. The syrup is bottled or canned while it is still hot to preserve it.
The best Organic maple syrup is a completely natural product containing no additives or any chemical constituent. It is painstakingly produced by evaporating sap from sugar maple trees to get the concentrated syrup that you can use for your pancakes and a wide range of other applications. One more fun fact: it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. That’s a precious jar of sweetness.