MAPLE SYRUP PRODUCTION bag, or plastic tubing. You need a larger foodgrade container for sap New York is the secondstorage, a pan with high largest maple syrup sides for boiling, a candy producer in the country. thermometer, filter, and It’s a great way for farms containers to store the to diversify and earn syrup in. The sap will some additional income. flow when the daytime It’s also a fun activity to temperatures are do on a smaller scale if above freezing and the you have a few maple nighttime temperatures trees in your backyard. drop down to below freezing. Maple Syrup can be made from any of our Determine how many local maple species. taps you can have in a Sugar maples are by far tree by its diameter at the best maples to use. breast height, which is Black maples can also be about 4.5 feet about the used effectively. Other ground. Between 10-17 maple species have a inches, you can have lower sugar content. one tap, between 18Sugar maples have an 24 inches, you can have average of about 2% two taps in a tree. A tree sugar content. At that above 25 inches you can percentage, it takes 43 have 3 taps. Holes should gallons of sap to make be drilled between 1.5 one gallon of syrup. and 2.5 inches deep and be angled slightly Equipment for making maple syrup is a cordless upward, so the sap runs drill with a 7/16 inch drill out towards your spout. Spouts should be pressed bit, for the traditional or lightly hammered into sized spout or 5/16 if the tree. Sap should be you plan to use the new processed as soon as smaller sized spouts. possible after collection. You also need spouts to Sap can be boiled down put into the holes you drill. These can be either in a wide variety of ways. More serious operations metal or plastic. Be sure use large evaporators, to purchase the correct but backyard growers spout size for the holes can use kitchen pots. you are drilling. You then need something to Wood is the most costcollect the sap- either effective fuel to use a bucket with a cover, when boiling, though a plastic sap collection a wide variety of fuels Submitted by Michelle Proscia, Ag Educator
Page 10
Extension Connection
March 2022
can be used. The sap becomes syrup when the sugar content reached 66%. This occurs when the sap temperature is 7.1 degrees above the boiling point, which is slightly over 219 F. Once you have syrup, you should filter it while hot then bottle for storage when it’s at 180 degrees. The bottle should then be stored in a cool, dry location. Making syrup is a lot of work, but there are ways to make it more efficient. You can increase the amount of sap you collect per tree by using a vacuum tubing system. Using an efficient evaporator will boil the sap down more quickly and use less fuel. Using a reverse osmosis filter can remove a portion of the water before you boil, making boiling significantly faster. You can even plant maple trees bred to have higher sugar contents though it will take many years before these trees are large enough to tap.
Source: “Maple Syrup Production.” Cornell Cooperative Extension. Accessed February 17, 2022. http://warren.cce.cornell.edu/ home-page/natural-resources/ maple-syrup-production.
