eGarden © 2005 Ed Mues

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on February 9, 2005

It's Almost Sweet Water Time: MM-MM Good!

Within the next couple of weeks, the conditions should be perfect. The warmth of the sun will heat up the branches of the sugar maple trees during the day, and the resulting pressure will force the sweet sap out of the holes bored into the trunk. As the temperature drops into the freezing range at night, the suction (vacuum) will draw more sap into the same cells that gave it up. And so, for several weeks, probably into early April, maple sugaring will be Sullivan and Ulster County's sweetest industry. Canada's and Vermont's, too, but let's stay local.

Maple syrup is a high quality specialty food that has been an important staple since colonial times. "Sweet water" is the translation of the term our native Americans used for the sap that flowed from a wound in a sugar maple tree each spring. It is believed to be one of those "happy accidents", as so many of our great discoveries turn out to be. Visualize it: a tomahawk is placed in a tree and left overnight; the sweet sap runs out and collects in a bowl or gourd near the base of the tree; this is then tasted or placed into food that is cooking and the discovery is made. The North American Indians taught the early settlers, and the same techniques of harvesting and processing continue today.

The sugar maple, Acer saccharum, is one of the stateliest of our deciduous hardwood trees. The most common tree in New York and the official N.Y. State tree, it is often referred to as rock maple and hard maple as well. Its wood is valued around the world. When it comes to maple syrup production, New York ranks second in the nation behind Vermont.

Severe weather and heavy snow can greatly impact on the number of gallons produced in a particular season, because the number of taps and the tree accessibility can be seriously reduced. In some years of heavy snow fall and ice build-up, bulldozers and tractors are necessary to provide access to taps and get the sap out of the sugar bush, as it is often called. A close look at the tree trunks reveals a history of the snowfall. Some healed over tap holes will be but two feet above the soil line, a year of little or no substantial snowfall. Some healed over tap holes might be six or seven feet above ground indicating the snow was really deep at tapping time.

New York is currently the fourth largest producer in the world. In 1992 it produced a record 400,000 gallons. It won't be long and your drives around the countryside will be punctuated with sightings of taps and buckets on trees. The Justus Asthalters usually do their tapping on President's Day weekend. (See below).

Some small home grounds producers may have fewer than 100 trees to collect maple sap for evaporation into delicious maple syrup. They usually harvest the sap the old fashioned way, carrying sap buckets to a more centrally located gathering station.

There are large production operators, too; some have hundreds of acres with thousands of taps. These require well organized and sophisticated systems for collecting and large scale evaporation. A really big operation doesn't use buckets to collect sap. Instead, thousands of taps are tied into miles of plastic tubing connected to vacuum pumps running to collection tanks. The sap then runs to oil fired evaporators and LP gas finishing pans. The result is the production of thousands of gallons of high quality maple syrup in a single season, the exact amount dependent on the length of the season and the health and vigor of the trees tapped. Mild sunny days and cold frosty nights are the conditions that produce the best sap flows.

Collecting maple sap and cooking it down for syrup can be fun, educational and, of course, very tasty. Trees are often tapped in mid- February, but the most abundant sap flows are usually in March. The whole thing is very temperature related. Four to six weeks is usually as good as it gets. In April, once buds begin to swell as a result of warmer nights, most producers discontinue collecting because the sap becomes "off" or "buddy" in flavor as the sugar content declines.

There are many "maple sugaring" celebrations and educational tours. The majority take place in mid-March. There are nearly 550 members of the N.Y.S. Maple Producers Assn. and they are having a Maple Weekend March 19 and 20. To learn more about this, log onto Mapleweekend.com and they will provide you with connections to producers all over the state. Next year you can start your own production if you are so inclined.

A closer look reveals that on a good day a single tap can yield about a gallon of sap. On average, it will take 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. That comes down to one to two quarts of syrup per tap hole. Evaporating off all the water was originally done outside over a fire of seasoned wood as the fuel. Stones or even cinderblock can be used to hold the pot of boiling sap. Most people today, set up a sap house with special ventilation roofs to let out the steam. It also offers some shelter from the cold weather and provides a more comfortable environment. I recall I spent some time with Dot and Ray Muthig of Neversink in 1994. They have been tapping trees in their sugar bush since 1958, just as their great grand parents, grand parents and parents had. They were all farmers and this was the farming activity for March. Every March.

The syrup is a treasured barter item at the market. For years they used an evaporator of English tin, but eventually moved on to a new stainless steel one. In a heavy sap flow in March, the usual "sugaring" day ran from 7 A.M. to 11 P.M. Thank goodness for setting up the sap house, which could, with some forethought, accommodate a small kitchen where most of the meals could be taken during the very long days of March's "sugartime". Dot and Ray take almost all their meals at the sap house in March. Coincidentally, the annual meeting for the snowmobile club takes place right there at the sap house. It is, of course, a pancake supper. Pass some of the fresh maple syrup over here, won't you? Yummm!

Clean equipment, fast handling and evaporation are the keys to top quality syrup. If sap is allowed to stand for a period of time at above freezing temperatures, microbial action begins to break down the sucrose into invert sugar, and saps with high invert sugars result in low grade, poor flavor syrup. This is the reason why serious maple syrup producers put in 16 hour days. It guarantees their syrup will be of the highest quality. To be called "maple syrup", it must be produced from 100% pure maple sap and must be at least 66% sugar by weight.

Come mid-March, if you are interested in seeing a successful operation going at full-tilt. Contact in advance, please, any of the following: the Muthig Farm at 292-7838; Cole's Sugar House in Ferndale at 292-8117; Valley Sugar House in Grahamsville at 985-7739; Sugar Brook Maple Farm in Kerhonkson at 626-3466; Justus Asthalter Maple Syrup in Parksville at 292-8569. If you're just interested in purchasing maple syrup, cream, jelly, candy, or other local maple products, visit the Farmers' Markets, spring through late fall. If you have to have it fresh as fresh can be, call the above folks.

Each green leaf on a maple tree is a factory where water and carbon dioxide are changed into sugar by the sun's energy. When a tree is tapped, about 10% of the tree's sugar is removed. Not enough to hurt the tree, but plenty to be thankful for this small miracle. An ideal sugar tree has a wide, deep crown open to full sunlight. This results in the highest sugar production. In late winter the sugar is at its highest concentration. As a sign in the Muthig's sap house reads, "New York Sugar Makers Never Die - They Just Evaporate", usually in March.

From The Garden of Ed. Submitted for publication in The Towne Crier on February 9, 2005

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