The trees are dripping!
The trees are dripping! The sap
is finally flowing and we couldn’t be sappier… er, happier! We’ve tapped one hundred and thirty trees
this year, so 2013 tops our tapping tally to date. Sadly, many of the buckets are still dry and
sap-free, especially the ones deeper in the woods where the temperatures still
struggle to get above freezing. But the
ones that have sap in them are a beautiful sight. It may look like plain old water, and even
taste like it, but it is the nectar of the gods. Or at least the nectar of the god of pancakes,
IHOPysus.
The sap's sugar content is its most important quality.
Red maples, which make up the majority of our tapped trees, typically
have a sugar content of 2.0-2.5%, while sugar maples have a slightly higher
2.5-3.0% sugar content. This makes the
standard sap-to-syrup ratio about 43:1.
Yes, over 40 gallons of sap just to walk out of the boiling shack with
a single gallon of syrup! Sugar content
in the harvested sap declines until it’s boiled, so we boil as often as
possible to maximize our syrup. But we
also try not to boil until we’ve collected over 40 gallons of sap. Our boiling pan is two feet by four feet, so
it takes almost two gallons of boiling syrup just to keep the pan covered and not scorching.
After our first sap collection yesterday we used a hydrometer
to test the sugar content of our haul. One
tree pumped out a whopping 4% sugar - sweet!
But by the time we collected from all the trees, the average sugar
content was 2.3%. Well within normal
range, and with fifty gallons of sap in our barrel, well worth firing up the
wood stove for our first boil of the season.
The fruit of our labors? One
gorgeous gallon of golden goodness. All
hail IHOPysus!
