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“Sugar Making in Montreal”, October 1852, by Cornelius Krieghoff, 1815-1872, from Wikimedia, HERE.
In
North America, one of the sure signs that spring is almost here, is the sap in
the maple trees starts running, which depending on the weather and your
latitude is between January and March, so either the maple season has just
passed you, has yet to arrive or is now in full bloom where you are. Where I live in Western New York, the maple
sap is now running, because spring is on its way!
The Fairbanks Maple sugar shack, for information on how you too can visit Fairbanks Maple, check out their Facebook page, HERE. Photograph by the Author.
Since
the sap is now running in Western New York, I thought that I would visit
Fairbanks Maple, which is owned by Doug and Linda Fairbanks, to see how they
make maple syrup, and to enjoy a big plate of pancakes with fresh maple syrup
and a wagon ride behind two matched Percherons with my granddaughter.
So, why
does the sap run in the spring?
“So
why does the sap run in the spring”, you ask? Well, that is a good question, sap runs in
the spring and sometimes in the fall, and here is why. Sap flows because of the fluctuation between
cold nights with below freezing temperatures and warmer days with above freezing
temperatures, this creates pressure and suction that is essential for the flow
of sap up from the roots into the trunk and branches of the tree. During the early spring, on warm days when
the temperature rises above 32oF (0oC), a positive pressure
develops in the maple trees that causes the sap to flow out of any wound or
hole in the tree’s bark. As the evening
temperatures drop below freezing, a suction or negative pressure is created
that pulls water up through the roots into the tree, replenishing the sap so
that the next time the temperature rises above freezing it can flow again. Temperatures should rise above 40oF
(4oC) during the day and drop below 20oF (-7oC)
for an ideal sap flow.
“Sugar-Making Among the Indians in the North”, Canadian Illustrated News, May 12, 1883, by William De La Montagne Cary, from Wikimedia, HERE.
Maple
sap makes a traditional sweetener that was first produced by Native Americans. Today when most people think of maple
products they think of maple syrup, however during the late 18th and
early19th centuries the Native Americans and later European Colonists and early
American farmers made most of their maple sap into sugar, because syrup would freeze
in the winter and could spoil after several months during the summer, but maple
sugar would keep for a long time.
A demonstration of Native American technique of making maple sugar at the "Maple Harvest Festival", Beaver Meadow Audubon Center, North Java, NY, by Dave Pape, from Wikimedia, HERE.
Native
Americans originally collected the maple sap in birchbark buckets and boiled it
down into syrup and then sugar by dropping red hot stones into hollowed
logs. Later they adopted iron and brass
pots from the European Colonists, who they taught how to make maple sugar.
For
an excellent resource on early maple syrup and sugar making, check out “How to
Make Maple Syrup: An Important Ojibwa Food”, by Native Art in Canada, HERE
and “Maple Sugaring — A Truly American Tradition”, by This Inspired Wife, HERE.
Making
maple syrup now...
Maple trees with taps and buckets for collecting sap, to be made into maple syrup, at Beaver Meadow Audubon Center, North Java, NY, by Dave Pape, March 18, 2007, from Wikimedia, HERE.
As
a kid, I remember sap buckets hanging from the sugar maples on my Grandfather’s
farm1. Today buckets are out,
and tubes are in! At Fairbanks Maple the
tapped trees, instead of having a bucket hanging from a metal spigot or spile, driven
into a hole drilled in the tree, have tubes instead.
Tapped trees at Fairbanks Maple, Photograph by the Author.
The
maple sap flows from the trees into tubes, which then flow into larger tubes and
then downhill to the collection tanks.
The collection tanks at Fairbanks Maple, Photograph by the Author.
From
the collection tanks it flows into a reverse osmosis machine in the sugar
shack, which extracts much of the water from the sap, before it is boiled,
caramelized and turned into maple syrup.
Interestingly,
Native Americans and other early producers of maple syrup, often would let the
collected sap freeze overnight, and in the morning the ice and much of the
water in the sap was removed. This removal
of the ice had the effect of concentrating the sap, much like the modern method
using a reverse osmosis machine.
Where the sap is boiled into syrup at Fairbanks Maple, Photograph by the Author.
Interesting
facts about making syrup
Tapping
maple trees does not permanently damage the trees and is usually done by drilling
a 7/16” (11 mm) hole about 1½ to 2” (25 to 50 mm) deep into the tree and
inserting a plastic or steel spile into the hole.
You
can drill one tap for each foot (30cm) of the tree’s diameter and sap flows
best on the south side of the tree, as that has greatest Sun exposure.
Only
about 10% or less of the tree’s sap is collected each year and each tap yields on
average only 10 gallons (about 38 liters) of sap per season, and it takes
between 30 to 55 gallons (113 to 208 liters) of sap to make one gallon (3.78 liters) of syrup, which weighs 11
pounds (5 kg).
It
takes one gallon (3.78 liters) of maple syrup to produce eight pounds (3.6 kg) of
maple sugar.
The
sugar content of sugar maple, acer saccharum, sap averages just 2.5%.
“The
Jones Rule of 86” states that if the sap concentration of sugar is 1% then 86
gallons (212 liters) are needed to make one gallon (3.78 liters) of syrup. The sweeter the sap, the less sap is needed,
at 2% sap sweetness only 46 gallons (106 liters) of sap is needed to make a gallon
(3.78 liters) of syrup.
The
sap run ends when nighttime temperatures stay above freezing and the buds
develop on the trees.
Survival
and drinking sap...
An excerpt from “Buddy Sap”, by Howard Austin Edson, page 483.
Usually
in the Northeast of North America where the Sugar maple, acer saccharum,
grows best, during the spring you don’t have to worry about finding water, it
is everywhere! Everywhere you look there
will be snow in various stages of melting, during the day it might rain, the
streams, rivulets and puddles are all full.
In a wilderness survival emergency, your problem might not be finding
potential drinking water, but rather disinfecting it.
Maple
sap is a safe and pure source of water. Oh,
and sugar maples aren’t the only trees that can produce drinkable sap, all the
maples (the genus acer)2, Sycamore trees, platanus
occidentalis, all birch trees (the genus betula), all hickories
(genus carya), walnut trees (genus juglans), popular, beech and
even hophornbeam trees, also known as ironwood, produce drinkable sap. However, syrup producer and researcher David
Moore, noted in “Not Just Maple: Birch, Beech And Other Sappy Trees Make Syrup
Just As Sweet”, that maple and birch trees produce the strongest sap flows.
The
only problem with obtaining drinking water from maple, birch, or other trees,
is that you are limited to only two seasons, spring and fall. This is because during the summer it is too
warm and during the winter it is too cold and only during the spring and fall
will there be the necessary fluctuations between cold nights with below
freezing temperatures and warm days with above freezing temperatures, that is
needed to create the pressure and suction which is essential for the flow of
sap.
The
problem with the fall is that cold nights below freezing and warm days above
freezing just aren’t as common as during the spring and also, the ground is
drier, and the trees need a higher soil moisture level to recharge the sap
flow. This is why during the fall, the
sap will flow less often and with less volume than during the spring.
Also,
if you are using sap as drinking water, remember that it doesn’t keep long
before going sour.
A birch tree tapped for sap, in a wilderness emergency this would be a source of pure drinking water, by Ole Husby, from Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0, HERE.
So,
if it is still maple season where you live, get out and enjoy it!
Don’t forget to come back next week and read “Who Could it be? This animal I did NOT see ©”, where we will
talk about who visited me one night not long ago.
I
hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me
on YouTube at BandanaMan Productions for other related videos, HERE. Don’t forget to follow me on both The
Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE,
and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube. If you have questions, as always, feel free
to leave a comment on either site. I
announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at
bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.
That
is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!
Notes
1
While I remember the sap buckets hanging from the trees, I don’t ever remember
the Sap House being anything other than a fallen down ruin and I don’t remember
my Grandfather ever using it to boil sap.
My Mother remembers my Grandmother boiling down sap into syrup in
roasting pans on the kitchen stove and thinks that excess sap from trees near
the road might have been bartered to other farmers for maple syrup or sugar. I also remember my Grandfather talking about
a tragic accident that took place in the Sap House, when his father’s sister,
my great aunt Josephine, died after falling into the boiling sap.
2
Except the Norway maple, acer platanoides, which produces a milky sap.
Sources
Austin Edson, Howard; “Buddy Sap”, Bulletin
151, April 1910, from the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station Burlington,
VT, [Free Press Printing Company, Burlington, VT, 1910], page 483, https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qac-7oeQZx2XplTojkn0LKzf9KRogwNgjd580chtzzbMUydbwZI26B1fiM1eX0TY8GbIJkOvz4XYpQOVkyLq9vKQvB3hNmvk3qkQlVLpWPgrmDwxyhe6YkjgZwrbX0ASeOD2BUV1jSO2EXhPEmA6ZE43qjrfRJRzJIUmVmvLO_709p9HCDKlmi3phfKqfW5jUuvrYKg7Mas9S9PjvBVQxoYahXxTxHDzhp5YF8WziBGoPb-nwcw,
accessed March 26, 2022
Bascomb, Bobby; “Not Just
Maple: Birch, Beech And Other Sappy Trees Make Syrup Just As Sweet”, April 9,
2021, [© Allegheny Front], https://www.alleghenyfront.org/not-just-maple-birch-beech-and-other-sappy-trees-make-syrup-just-as-sweet/,
accessed March 26, 2022
Cary,
William De La Montagne; 1840-1922, “Sugar-Making
Among the Indians in the North”, Canadian Illustrated News, May 12, 1883, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup#/media/File:Sugar-Making_Among_the_Indians_in_the_North.gif,
accessed March 19, 2022
Koelling, Melvin R.; “Sap
Yields from Fall And Spring Tapping of Sugar Maple”, U.S. Forest Service
Research Paper NE-115, 1968, https://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/research_papers/pdfs/scanned/rp115.pdf, accessed March 26, 2022
Krieghoff, Cornelius, 1815-1872, “Sugar Making in Montreal”, October 1852, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sugar_Making_in_Canada,_1852._By_Cornelius_Krieghoff_(1815-1872).jpg,
March 19, 2022
Husby, Ole; Flickr, CC
BY-SA 2.0, https://www.flickr.com/photos/khianti/26073695404/,
accessed March 24, 2022
MacWelch, Tim; “Survival
Skills: How To Get Water And Syrup From Trees”, Outdoor Life, February 12,
2013, [© 2022 Recurrent], https://www.outdoorlife.com/blogs/survivalist/2013/02/survival-skills-how-get-water-and-syrup-trees/, accessed March 26, 2022
Pennsylvania Maple Syrup
Producers Council, "Real Maple Syrup, a Natural and Nutritious
Choice", [© Pennsylvania Maple Syrup Producers Council 2022], http://pamaple.net/maple-info/,
accessed March 24, 2022
Native Art in Canada,
“How to Make Maple Syrup: An Important Ojibwa Food”, [© Native Art in Canada
2006-2021], https://www.native-art-in-canada.com/how-to-make-maple-syrup.html, accessed March 26, 2022
This
Inspired Wife, “Maple Sugaring — A Truly American
Tradition”, [© 2022 - This Inspired Life], https://thisinspired.life/maple-sugaring-american-tradition/,
accessed March 26, 2022
Wikimedia, “Demonstration of Native American technique of making maple
sugar at the "Maple Harvest Festival", Beaver Meadow Audubon Center,
North Java, NY”, by Dave Pape, March 18, 2007, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maple_sugar_demonstration_3.jpg,
accessed March 26, 2022
Wikimedia; “Maple trees
with taps and buckets for collecting sap, to be made into maple syrup, at
Beaver Meadow Audubon Center, North Java, NY”, by Dave Pape, March 18, 2007, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Maple_sap_buckets_-_Beaver_Meadow_Audubon_Center.jpg, accessed March 26, 2022
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