Backyard
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Sugaring
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| Springtime
in Vermont is 'Sugarin' Time.' Each year from mid February to late March,
buckets and pipelines start appearing on sugar maple trees around Vermont.
When the days are warm, and the nights below freezing, the maple sap
starts to flow. This sap is collected and boiled down to make pure maple
syrup. |
| It
all starts by tapping the trees. Large sugaring operations will tap hundreds
of trees, but as few as half a dozen taps can produce enough syrup for
personal use. On a good year, with mature healthy trees, the rule of
thumb is to expect about 1 qt. of syrup per tap. Unfortunately, the syrup
doesn't just flow out of the taps, the sap must be boiled down to it's
essence. It takes between 35 and 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon
of syrup. For the backyard sugarmaker, this can represent many long hours
of work. |
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On
days when there is a good 'run,' the sap is 'gathered' and stored in
a holding tank. I use a 32gal. plastic trash can, buried in snow to
keep the sap fresh. At this point, it is time to start boiling. For
equipment, the backyard sugarer needs a source of heat, and as large
a container as possible. Some folks use large kettles on the kitchen
stove: this will work fine on a small scale. There is also equipment
commercially available for home sugaring such as barrel stoves, and
kits to use on a gas barbeque. I have a small custom built 'arch' with
a 18"x24" pan, wood fired. I have made as much as 5 gallons
in a year on it. |
| Through
the years, my boiling rig or 'arch' has taken on a 'Rube Goldberg'
look. The pan is a basic 3-section pan. The sap is gravity fed from
a 5 gal. wash pail through a spigot, into copper tubing which is coiled
around the stove pipe as a pre-heater. This dribbles hot sap into the
rear section of the pan. As the sap boils and thickens, it is pushed
through the other sections of the pan, displaced by fresh sap entering
the rear. After several hours, I have 'near syrup' in the front pan,
which I draw off and finish off in the kitchen, where I have better
heat control on the stove. |
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There
are several ways to tell if syrup is done. Sap boils at pretty much the
same temperature as water: 212f. As the sap becomes denser, the boiling
point will rise. When it has risen 7 degrees above it's starting point,
it's syrup. A more accurate way is to use a hydrometer to measure the
specific gravity. There are special hydrometers available which are calibrated
for syrup, and this is what I use. The syrup is done when you get a reading
of 32 on the Baume scale at 211 degrees f. The final step is to filter
and bottle your syrup. Now you are ready to enjoy PURE maple syrup. |
Vermonters get their electricity by TAPPING into the power grid.
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