It’s that time of year again … for maple syrup

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Welcome to mid-February. We have gone past groundhogs, valentines and Family Day. Winter weather is beginning to wear on me, and I am starting to think about spring. To me, one of the best (and tastiest) signs that spring is coming is maple syrup season.

Maple syrup is made by concentrating the naturally occurring sugar in the sap of maple trees.

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This concentration is made by reducing the water content of the sap so the remaining solution is higher in sugar. The process starts with the collection of sap from the trees. This time of year, the trees are converting stored starches in their roots into sugars that move in the sap to the branches. In order to collect the sap, syrup producers tap the trees by drilling a shallow hole in the tree and collecting the sap the comes out.

Once the sap is collected, a producer then puts the sap in an evaporator, which boils off the excess water. Most producers use either wood or heating oil as a heat source for the evaporation. Unprocessed sap will not keep forever so must be processed soon after it is collected. As the water content decreases, the colour changes. The longer the time to boil, the darker the syrup. In order to determine when the sap has become syrup, the producer must monitor the process and watch the temperature of the solution. Maple syrup is made when the temperature of the liquid is around 102 to 103 C. Interesting to point here that water does not boil at the same temperature all the time; this can be affected by altitude and barometric pressure.

Maple syrup has been produced in North America by First Nations people prior to European contact. As time moved forward, the methods of collecting and evaporated to sap have changed, but the end result is the same.

Canada is the world’s largest producer of maple syrup. Quebec is the largest producer in Canada, making 70 per cent of the world’s syrup. Most syrup is produced in the eastern provinces of Canada and the northeast of the United States, but syrup can be made anywhere there are maple trees.

The average ratio of sap to syrup is 40 to 1, which means you would need 40 litres of sap to make one litre of syrup. In addition to syrup, maple sap can be made into other sweet treats. Syrup can be further processed into products such as maple sugar and maple cream.

Locally, we have a number of maple syrup producers. In addition, maple syrup and maple syrup products can be found in local shops and grocery stores. So whether for toppings for pancakes, waffles or ice cream, remember to make it maple.

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Chris White lives in former Harwich Township next door to where he grew up. Chris has been employed in agri-business for 20 years. He is passionate about food and rural communities and agriculture. He can be reached at white.christopherdavid@gmail.com

Remember that here in Chatham-Kent ‘We Grow for the World’. Check out our community’s agriculture website at: wegrowfortheworld.com