Maple Syrup Production

MAPLE SYRUP PRODUCTION

Submitted by Michelle Proscia, Ag Educator New York is the secondlargest maple syrup producer in the country. It’s a great way for farms to diversify and earn some additional income. It’s also a fun activity to do on a smaller scale if you have a few maple trees in your backyard. Maple Syrup can be made from any of our local maple species. Sugar maples are by far the best maples to use. Black maples can also be used effectively. Other maple species have a lower sugar content. Sugar maples have an average of about 2% sugar content. At that percentage, it takes 43 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Equipment for making maple syrup is a cordless drill with a 7/16 inch drill bit, for the traditional sized spout or 5/16 if you plan to use the new smaller sized spouts. You also need spouts to put into the holes you drill. These can be either metal or plastic. Be sure to purchase the correct spout size for the holes you are drilling. You then need something to collect the sap- either a bucket with a cover, a plastic sap collection bag, or plastic tubing. You need a larger foodgrade container for sap storage, a pan with high sides for boiling, a candy thermometer, filter, and containers to store the syrup in. The sap will flow when the daytime temperatures are above freezing and the nighttime temperatures drop down to below freezing. Determine how many taps you can have in a tree by its diameter at breast height, which is about 4.5 feet about the ground. Between 10-17 inches, you can have one tap, between 1824 inches, you can have two taps in a tree. A tree above 25 inches you can have 3 taps. Holes should be drilled between 1.5 and 2.5 inches deep and be angled slightly upward, so the sap runs out towards your spout. Spouts should be pressed or lightly hammered into the tree. Sap should be processed as soon as possible after collection. Sap can be boiled down in a wide variety of ways. More serious operations use large evaporators, but backyard growers can use kitchen pots. Wood is the most costeffective fuel to use when boiling, though a wide variety of fuels 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.