Maple Syruping

A Rite of Spring

by Tom Seymour

The Simmons and Daughters Sugar House. The “arch,” or metal frame that houses the boiling pans that sit over the fire, was beginning to deteriorate after years of disuse. Chris Simmons had it rebuilt and now it is set up in the Morrill sugar house, a family heirloom that continues to serve its intended purpose. Tom Seymour photo

From small backyard operations to family-run operations and huge, sprawling industrial syrup producers, maple syruping is something that anyone with access to even just a few maple trees can participate in.

Maple sap, an inherently sweet liquid, begins circulating in late winter and early spring when daytime temperatures rise above freezing and nighttime temperatures drop below freezing. Then, a “tap,” or a “spile,” a tapered, hollow tube inserted into a hole drilled into a maple tree, collects and channels the flowing sap. The sight of a tap, dripping maple sap into a bucket, is a familiar sight along country roads in spring.

By the time full-fledged spring arrives and temperatures no longer fall below freezing at night, the sap flow shuts off, effectively ending the maple-syruping season for the year. But while sap flows, it’s a busy time for harvesters.

Hobby Syrupers

Anyone, equipped with the most basic hand tools, can tap trees and collect enough sap to make several pints of sweet syrup. Tools needed are brace-and-bit (a type of hand drill), spiles and a hammer for tapping the spile into the tree.

To begin, drill a hole 1 -1/2 inches deep into a maple tree. Do this on the south-facing side for a stronger flow. Then, insert the small end of a spile into the hole and with a hammer or mallet, gently tap until the spile is firm and secure in the hole. If sap is running, it will soon pool up in the spile and drip out the end.

At this point, the hobbyist has several options. Hardware stores sell everything the home syrup producer needs, and among these are special buckets. These come with a hood, specially-designed to keep debris and insects from getting into the sap. Commercially-made metal spiles come with a hook that slips over the tapered end before the spile goes into the tree. This hook is meant to hold the bucket. So if going this route, slide the hook over the spile and after driving the spile in, hang a bucket from the hook.

A less-fancy method of collecting sap is to find a large soda bottle and cut an “X” just below the neck of the bottle. After inserting the spile securely in a maple tree, just push the bottle over the projecting end at the X. To secure the bottle, punch two small holes on either side of the X and with some flexible wire, run the wire through both holes and through the hole in the spile, the holes that would otherwise be used to hang a bucket. With the wire safely through the spile and protruding from both sides of the bottle, just wrap the ends together in the manner of a bread-bag tie. To empty, just unwrap the wire, pull it out and then disengage the bottle. Remove the bottle cap, empty into a clean sap pail (a food-grade 5-gallon pail works great for this, and most hardware stores sell these as well) and go to the next tree.

Buckets (or bottles) need emptying every day and when sap runs fast and strong, it may be necessary to empty two, perhaps even three times daily.

Boiling Down

For the home hobbyist who only collects a limited amount of sap, it’s okay to boil it down inside on a kitchen gas range. An old warning about not boiling sap inside because it makes walls sticky has little validity. Boiling a huge amount, far more than a stove is capable of handling, would be unwise, though, because of the great volume of steam. But a lobster and clam steamer full of sap won’t hurt a thing when boiled down on a kitchen stove.

Set the sap to boiling and wait patiently for it to reduce in volume. It takes approximately 10 gallons of sap to make one quart of syrup. However, the ratio of sap to syrup varies considerably according to sugar content of the sap. A number of factors contribute to sugar content, first of which is the type of tree. Sugar maple, or hard rock maple, Acer Saccharum, has the highest sugar content and red maple, Acer rubrum, has somewhat less. Time of day when sap is harvested may have an impact upon sugar content, as does when in the season sap is harvested, early or late.

For the hobbyist wishing to make more than what is possible by means of a kitchen stove, a portable propane stove works wonders. People use these for cooking lobsters and clams and also, for deep-frying whole turkeys. These generate sufficient heat to boil maple sap quickly and thus, can handle a considerable amount of sap.

However you go about boiling it down, once the sap reaches 66- to 67-percent sugar content at 71 degrees above the temperature of boiling water, it’s ready to decant. A candy thermometer is needed to monitor temperatures, but for the home hobbyist, a simpler method suffices. When sap boils down to only several inches in the bottom of the pan, check it with a tablespoon. Just get a spoonful and slowly pour it back in the pan. If the sap makes streaks as it drains, it is near ready. At that point, take what’s left in the spoon and taste it. If it’s sweet enough, turn the heat off, decant it into Mason jars. You can also filter it to remove maple “sand.” Do this by pouring through filter material available from the store.

For the home hobbyist, nothing is more rewarding than going to the cupboard and opening a jar of homemade maple syrup for use on pancakes and waffles.

Seasonal Job

For some people, late winter and early spring are down times, with not an awful lot going on. Two groups come immediately to mind; game wardens and commercial fishermen. Maple syruping has become a seasonal occupation for a number of Maine game wardens and recently, some commercial fishermen have become interested.

One game warden, Chris Simmons of Morrill, Maine, has a family-run maple syrup business that serves several purposes. It provides a change-of-pace for Chris and also, brings his family together for a common purpose.

Chris, his wife Shelly and four daughters (ages between 10 and 20) operate Simmons and Daughters Maple Syrup, 261 Weymouth Road, Morrill, 342-2444. Here, the family runs between 700 and 750 taps, which Shelly says is large for a family operation, but not at all large for commercial harvesters. By the way, Chris says his family is perfectly capable of carrying out the syruping chores if and when he gets called away on warden business.

The Simmons got into the maple syrup business quite naturally. Shelly’s father, also a Maine game warden, once owned a 40-acre sugarbush (woodlot with sugar maple trees). The “arch,” or metal frame that houses the boiling pans and sits over the fire, was beginning to deteriorate after years of disuse. Chris had it rebuilt and it now sits in the Morrill sugar house, a family heirloom that continues to serve its intended purpose.

The height of the syruping season ignites a string of intensely-busy days and nights for Simmons and Daughters. The family uses a gathering tank that they pull either by snowmobile or ATV, going from one tree to another, emptying sap-filled buckets into the tank. Chris said they run about 500 buckets and the rest of the taps are hooked up via a plastic “pipeline” made of surgical-grade tubing and available from hardware stores.

Boiling sap requires constant attention. During the busiest times, neighbors pitch in to monitor the sap and add wood to the fire. “It’s a community event,” Chris said.

One of the Simmons’ daughters with a sampler pack of the maple syrup the family makes. Tom Seymour photo

Sap Traditions

Maple sap has some traditional uses in addition to its time-honored role in maple syrup and maple sugar production. Old-timers refer to the sap as a “spring tonic,” and swear by its efficacy in thwarting illnesses. For this, the sap is only partially processed. It is consumed by the cup or waterglass-full during the boiling process, where it is somewhere near halfway boiled down, not yet syrup but sweeter than unprocessed sap. On busy syrup-making days, most everyone visiting the sugar house gets their cup of spring tonic. This comes from the middle evaporator, the one where the sap is only about half processed.

In addition to a springtime tonic, Chris Simmons attributes his and his family’s overall good health to their regular consumption of maple syrup. “Syrup is an antioxidant,” Chris said. “We don’t get sick during maple syruping time or even in haying season. We work hard, get overheated, go from hot to cold conditions, sleep only a little and yet we never even get a cold.”

Chris also said that tea made from maple sap is the best tea in the world. “If only we could figure out a way to market it, we’d make a fortune,” he said. This is something that anyone with a maple tree can easily put to the test. Just boil a cup of sap and steep a teabag in it.

Maple syrup comes in different grades. In Maine, these range from Grade A light amber to Grade A extra-dark amber. Chris Simmons pointed out how tastes vary according to what part of the state a person lives. The majority of those hailing from the southern part of Maine prefer light-colored syrup, while people from the balance of the state generally prefer their syrup the darker the better.

Large-scale commercial maple syrup producers mostly use fossil fuels to process their sap. But family groups and smaller producers such as Simmons and Daughters, render their sap down with a roaring wood fire. Does choice of fuels make a difference in taste? Indeed, some are sure of it.

Shelly Simmons is convinced that syrup made over a wood fire has a definite smoky taste and she feels that this adds to the allure of the product. Others, though, appear to see no difference. It’s probably a question that will never have a satisfactory answer.

One thing is for certain, though. People love their maple syrup. The Simmons say that they can sell every pint they produce and could easily sell more if they only had it. For their customers, the product comes in tightly-capped Mason jars. As for the fancy glass bottles, those shaped like a maple leaf, Chris Simmons said that each Maple Syrup Sunday they put up three or four of the decorator bottles, but always have a few left at day’s end. A producer in southern Maine, though, sells his syrup primarily in the decorator bottles. It’s all the same product, just different packaging.

For a hands-on maple-syruping experience, try visiting a local maple syrup producer in your area on Maine’s Maple Syrup Sunday. This always falls on the fourth Sunday in March, which occurs on March 23 this year. On this day, producers open their facilities up to the public.

The Simmons have people from all over the state visiting their sugar house on Maple Syrup Sunday. Among these are some commercial fishermen from Kennebunk.

For more on this, go online and type in: Maine Maple Syrup Sunday. Lacking an online connection, contact your local University of Maine Extension Service.

And to get a closer look at Simmons and Daughters place, go to their Facebook page: Simmons and Daughters Sugar House.