Maple Magic Day!

What a fun weekend!

I volunteered at the farm for their Maple Magic Day. Regina set me up at the Native American site where I demonstrated how Native American's would boil Sugar Maple sap into sugar. Gerd, who was just planning on staying a little while ended up staying the whole day. He really loves to play with fire.

So how did Native American's make sugar? Well, they didn't have any metal or glass, so their method of gathering and boiling sap is different than the colonial or modern methods. For instance they couldn't boil the sap over the fire. Clay pots weren't sturdy enough to support the sap over the fire I guess.

To get to the sap Native Americans would use a stone hatchet (or tomahawk) to cut a V-like wedge into the tree. The sap would flow out into a hollowed out log and then the Native Americans would gather the sap using either leather or birch containers, bringing the sap to larger hollowed out logs in a Maple Camp.

The whole community would work around a large fire. They would take rocks and place them on probably wet spruce branches near the fire. Not IN the fire we've learned. Rocks in the fire pick up ash and make the sap black with soot. The heated rocks would be added until the sap was boiling, eventually boiling the sap down to a dried crust within the log. The crust would be scooped out and powdered to form a type of brown sugar.

Native American's would take the brown sugar and add bear fat, which sounds disgusting, but as one visitor pointed out, it's not unlike candy which uses butter and sugar. They would form their mix into shaped cakes and store or trade their sugar.

It was through trade that the Native Americans in Massachusetts found out about Sugar Maples. They're not native to this region. Tribal members traded for the trees and planted them, despite the knowledge that a tree takes 40 years to grow large enough to tap.

The arrival of the colonists changed the sugaring process. Colonists like the Native Americans continued to make sugar instead of syrup because it was easier to store. Although they did have some glass, glass bottles were rare. It was much easier to store a solid.

With iron, however, they brought drills. The colonists were able to create a drilled hole, which takes far less time to heal on a tree. With the smaller holes they could tap a tree each year without endangering the tree. Although it didn't take long to develop metal spiles (the thing that goes into the tree to create a spout for the sap) colonists first used hollowed out branches of a Sumac tree. Sumac's are fibrous and easy to hollow and they also have a smooth but tough outer surface.

Colonists also brought buckets with them. They could hang the buckets on the trees and would send their children with a yoke to go and collect buckets during sugaring season. Adults would form an outdoor fire pit with a triad of cast iron pots. All three pots would be full of sap and boiling, but they were different sizes. The smallest pot would be filled with the middle sized pot as water evaporated. The middle pot would be filled from the large pot as it evaporated. The largest pot would continue to be filled with new sap from the trees. The result of this was that the smallest pot would have the most condensed sap.

After the sap turned to a thick syrup the colonists would pour the syrup into wooden molds and cool the molds quickly to solidify the syrup into a solid. Although not as solid as sugar, and more in the form of sticky blocks, colonists could still store the sugar without the use of glass containers.

Modern syruping still uses the same kind of method, except in an evaporator. One large pan has compartments that the sap flows through until it reaches the syrup pan. Although some evaporators are electric, others are still wood fired. Farmers started to make syrup instead of sugar as the price of imported sugar continued to drop. If you really wanted to, you could boil your maple syrup down into sugar, but why do that when sugar is much cheaper?

Here are some fun facts about Maple Syrup/Trees

* Sap is 97% water, 3% sugar whereas syrup is 66% sugar and 34% water
* It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup
* All trees can create syrup, but they wouldn't taste as good, or they'd take longer to create syrup. Sugar Maples have the highest concentration of sugar in their sap.
* Sap for syrup runs only when temperatures get down to 20 at night and up to 40+ during the day. The night temperature is a minimum! If it's too warm the sap won't return to its roots at night. The day temp is a minimum. If it's too cold the sap won't run up the tree.
* Sap is collected as it runs UP the tree to the leaves. The hole in the spile is on the BOTTOM not the top.
* Sugar Maples must be at least 40 years old or have a 10" diameter to be tapped. Anything smaller would inhibit leaf growth and could kill the tree.
* Larger trees can have more taps, but you still need to make sure the diameter is big enough to support multiple taps.
* You can tap a tree each year as long as you don't tap on or within a few inches of the last tap. The tap will scar over after 4-5 years and that area is once again viable for tapping.
* There's evidence that tapping Sugar Maples is actually good for the tree, in a similar way to pruning or nursing. A tree that's been tapped may produce more sap the following year than one that hasn't been tapped before. There's evidence to the contrary as well, but both arguments are anecdotal.
* There is no single calculation to figure a tree's sap production. Sap is highly dependent on the weather and the health of the tree so each year a tree may produce a different quantity which makes it difficult to analyze sap production.