Maple syrup is a great resource found in many parts of North America, it is natures way of supplying the new buds, on the trees, with water. You are not going to take a lot of that water away from the trees if you are tapping them, the tree produces a lot of sap in the spring months. The best part of learning how to tap into that magical tree is the pure syrup you have your house! Truly nature's gift!
This year we tapped our silver maple and our box elder and I have been cooking sap for most of March! Tonight I cooked down another 4 quarts from the silver maple; thus far we have about 3.5 pints of syrup. I also just started cooking down our box elder sap, the sap from the box elder took a little longer to collect but I ended up with another 4 quarts from the box elder. Keep in mind we are talking about two different species of trees, but both fall into the maple family. The two trees are still tapped and I will be checking on them today, 3-30-2019. I have been surprised to see the buckets full when I walk out to them but the weather has held causing the syrup to run. Basically, having a daytime temperature of 40 degrees f and below freezing at night will cause the sap to run. What I am finding in collecting the sap and cooking it down is the sugar content has varied each time I have cooked down the sap; the first taps I found it to be a darker syrup while the second tap collected is a more lighter color. The flavor has also varied, the first tap definitely had a maple flavor (this is all from the silver maple), but the second round had a rich honey like flavor with a hint of butterscotch!
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| This is the syrup from our first collection this year. |
Our winter in Wisconsin (just like the rest of the US) was an interesting winter; the months November and December looked like drought years and January didn't look great. Basically the snow fall was fair at best! February came and suddenly we were besieged with all kinds of weather, rain, snow, rain and ice! It was at that moment I had a feeling we were going to have a lot of sap! The moisture was definitely going to make a difference!
Our collection of sap and cooking it down for syrup is really just a hobby that we get to enjoy later. We are not collecting vast amounts to sell or use but if we were, we would need to source other trees on the property! One of the factors for tapping a tree is the age of the tree; they should be around 40 years plus before you start tapping them for the prized syrup. The bark should be well developed, keep in mind you don't want to harm the tree and causing disease to the tree from drilling tap holes. The developed bark keeps the tree safe and you can fill in the holes fairly easily; younger trees with undeveloped bark creates an easy area for the tree to become diseased. This is why a lot of cities prohibit trees from being tapped, the cost of removing diseased trees and the spread of disease to the trees could be a costly. You should look for trees that are old enough, and trees that you can legally tap if they are not on your property. Box elders are definitely a weed tree, thus I am not too concerned with tapping one that may be a bit young! Generally tapping trees in the maple family will work best and you can scout the trees during the summer months, looking at the leaves of the trees and the bark formation. Interestingly there are other trees that are tapped or the sap is taken from the tree through the branches; I have not tried these but apparently you can tap butternut, birch, sycamore and Douglas fir trees! The Douglas fir has the sap run from the tips of the branches. I came across this information from James Beard award winning Sean Sherman's book, The Sioux Chef.
This year I did some research on tapping methods and what I found changed everything in the way I tapped our trees. The picture of the horse drawn carriage carrying syrup pots through the woods as the farmer collected syrup, may have been the way years ago, it's not today. I believe the industry realized there were better ways to collect sap and the modern collection methods adopted were more efficient. Instead we now have a network of tubing running from one tree to the next and the taps are minimal at best causing less invasive issues with the trees and at the same time maximizing the collection efforts. Instead of having a bucket hanging from the tree with a tap dripping into the bucket; you now see taps that are very small with tubing attached to the tap. This method does not allow waste and at the same time keeps the sap fairly clean. The industry also has syrup bags instead of buckets for collection. The bags are attached to a clip that has an area for the tubing to connect. I am not really a fan of this; what do you do with the plastic bags at the end of the season and are they even reusable? Instead I have buckets with lids that I drilled a 5/8 hole into and push the tubing through the holes. Prior to using the buckets I cleaned and sanitized them thoroughly, thus preventing any kind of contamination. I have to admit transporting the sap from the trees to the house has been a pain but for now it is working out pretty good. Keep in mind a 5 gallon bucket of sap weighs approximately 40 pounds! Lugging the sap as it is swishing around can be exhausting for an old guy!
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| Drill with 5/8 drill bit, rubber mallet for tapping the tree, food grade tubing, tap for the tree and a connector used to have two taps into the tree. |
Cooking down the sap has also been a learning curve. We have a 3 gallon pot that I cook the syrup in over a butane burner. What I really need is a wider cooking vessel that will reduce the sap faster. What I have been doing is cooking it down in the pot and when it has reduced down to about half, I transfer it to a smaller pot and finish cooking it down in the house. The key I have learned is that if you cook it too fast you can have sugar burn on the side of the pot, causing it to change the flavor and look of the syrup. If you reduce it slowly you get less caramelizing from the sugar on the side of the pot and the flavor is truly from the sap. I am now taking the temperature of the syrup as it reduces and when it reaches a temperature of 219 degrees f it is ready to strain into the vessel you are going to store the syrup. I have looked at the Brix level of the syrup and it has been around 66 on the brix scale. You can look up the scale for a better understanding but basically it is, "The Brix scale indicates the percentage of sugar in the maple syrup. The Baume scale is a measure of how dense the maple syrup is related to the density of water. The correct density for maple syrup is a minimum of 66% sugar (66°Brix/35.6°Baume)." https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjg0OnypqrhAhUSI6wKHa3pAVwQFjAFegQIDBAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.leaderevaporator.com%2Fpdf_files%2Fsyrup-hydrometer.pdf&usg=AOvVaw3V9Amh5nm3B0YRLp8bX07T
If you don't want to go to all that trouble you can taste the syrup as it cooks, definitely a bonus in cooking your own sap down! I would recommend not only tasting but to cool some down and look at the viscosity of the syrup, is it the right consistency?
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| Box elder sap cooking down in our shed. |
The history of maple syrup is filled with all of kinds of legends! Most of the stories go back to the Native Americans. I found this one and find it kind of interesting; A different legend, retold in The Atlantic Monthly’s April of 1896 issue, tells of a woman named Moqua. It states that she was cooking moose for her husband Woksis. When her boiling pot ran out of water, she refilled it with maple sap. The boiled down sap formed syrup in the pot. “History” Michigan Maple Syrup Association. Retrieved 5 December 2017. https://web.archive.org/web/20110525093903/http://www.mi-maplesyrup.com/about/history.htm
Whether it is true or not? I bet that moose tasted pretty darn good!
At the end of the day I find that the goal to forage, and find foods that are right in our backyard to be interesting and fun to cook. It is always an adventure and an opportunity to learn something new! Gaining new insight on not only finding foraged foods but gaining new insight on the best way to garner the foods and process them is fun! Cheers!
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