Maple Sugar: The American Sweetner

Maple Sugar : The American Sugar

One of the things that amazes me is this. How did people look at a maple tree and figure out how to make maple sugar. When you see a sugar maple, it pretty much just looks like a tree. And not even a remarkable tree. How on earth did the Native Americans figure out that you could tap the tree, extract the sap, boil it down, and end up with a shelf stable sugar? In any event, this is one labor intensive activity. Yes, I have tapped my sugar maple trees and made maple syrup. And let me tell you one important fact. Whatever you pay for maple syrup, it is a deal. It takes gallons of sap to make a tiny little pint of maple syrup. I think the stuff should be in price range of gold. It

To make maple syrup, you need to extract the sap of the maple tree. Today, holes are drilled into the trees and sap runs into tubes like the one you see here. Imagine that it starts with someone making a hole in a tree, and attached a tube.... that is already so much work it makes my head spin.

Tubes run the sap into even yet bigger tubes.

And these tubes run into really big pipes that run the sap to the cook house.

All the tubes from acres and acres of land covered with maple trees end up in the back of the sugar shack, where it is collected, and pumped into the shack for processing.

Then the sap gets pumped into the sugar shack and the process of sugar making begins.

The maple sap gets shot into a big cooking device that slowly evaporates out the water. As the water disappears, the sugar content of the remaining liquid increases. After many hours of heating, you end up with a thick sugary syrup.

We are talking about hours and hours of evaporation to get to the point of syrup!

And finally, you have enough water eliminated that you have what we think of when we think maple syrup.

And finally finally it gets poured into jars of various sizes. The incomprehensible part is how much work goes into the production of maple syrup. When you pour some, remember this!

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