Making Maple Syrup and Survival©

 

 

“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 32^oF (0^oC), 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 40^oF (4^oC) during the day and drop below 20^oF (-7^oC) for an ideal sap flow. 

 

Making maple syrup then...

 

“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 18^th 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