Spring means maple syrup production

Apr 01, 2015 at 12:22 am by Observer-Review


Spring means maple syrup production ADVERTISEMENT

Spring means maple syrup production

DUNDEE--With the coming of spring weather comes the flowing of the sticky sap used to make maple syrup. While recent cold temperatures have hindered spring projects, maple syrup producers have already begun the process of collecting sap to use in a multitude of maple products.
"It starts with gathering the sap from the trees," said Luke Patterson of Twin Brook Maple in Dundee, who has been making maple syrup for 10 years. "You have to drill a hole in the tree, and then somehow you have to collect the sap with either a bucket or pipeline. I use pipeline with a vacuum. It goes up to the tank, from there it will go into the evaporator, which takes your sap, which is somewhere around 2 percent sugar content, all the way up to about 67 percent sugar content by evaporating the water that is in the sap. It just leaves behind the concentrated sugar."
Patterson said he taps about 800 trees for sap, which can produce some 250 gallons of syrup from these trees in an average year. He said this time of year in the early spring is usually the best time for producing syrup.
"You need nights that are cold, but not real cold," Patterson said. "If it is somewhere around 25 degrees, that is plenty cold enough. It needs to freeze overnight, and then the next day it needs to warm up above freezing and then the sap will then run. During the freezing period in the tree, the water and the sap comes up out of the roots into the tree, and that is where the sugar is stored down in the roots. As it freezes, it draws more moisture out of the ground and mixes with the sugar in the roots and then the next day it will continue to pull that out."
Patterson said there has been "about a week or so" where it there has not been much sap to collect. He said so far the production "is not bad," adding the sugar content is higher because of the colder nights.
"On different days, depending on the weather, the sugar content will change," Patterson said. "The sugar content right now is actually pretty high. That is good. It takes less sap to make a gallon of syrup. Right now it is close to 3 percent where you only need 30 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup, as opposed to if it was closer to 2 percent, then you are up around 40 or so."
Patterson said in addition to syrup he also makes maple cream, maple candies and maple granulated sugar, adding the candies tend to be the most popular aside from syrup. He said he enjoys being out in the woods working, adding the hardest part is having to deal with the knee-deep snow.

$element(adman,groupads,YatesRight12)$


$element(adman,groupads,YatesRight6)$


$element(adman,groupads,YatesRight5)$


$element(adman,groupads,YatesRight3)$

Sections: NEWS 1