Maple Sugaring
Old-fashioned Techniques Yield Sweet Reward for Syrup Makers
On a February morning, rows of sugar maple trees stand like guards on duty. It's still winter here in New England, but the harvest season is about to begin. All that's needed is a sunny 40-degree day following a freezing-cold night to spur on the running of the sap, and the maple sugaring season has started. There's no idle time for Eleanor, Stuart and Roger Adams and partner John Matthews, Jr. (pictured from left to right in photograph above) at the Windyhurst Dairy Farm, located near Westmoreland, New Hampshire, where they gather maple sap and turn it into liquid golden, sweet-tasting maple syrup.
The Native Americans can be credited for creating an interest in sugaring techniques with their happy discovery that an icicle dangling from the occasional broken branch of a maple tree tasted sweet. The process for making maple syrup today is an interesting marriage of both old-fashioned and modern techniques that go hand-in-hand. Metal sap buckets and collecting tanks are used in place of wooden ones, and evaporating pans have replaced the traditional iron kettles for boiling the sap into maple syrup. However, some farmers still prefer to use the old-fashioned methods, such as gathering the sap by hand in buckets. (Others drive tractors through the woods to collect the sap.)
During the sugaring season, which can last from two to six weeks, the Adams family scurry to tap over 7,000 trees on their 250-acre farm, while caring for their herd of 100 dairy cows. The family members work quickly, since the sugaring season ends when the leaf buds swell on the trees. The Adams collect an impressive quantity of sap each day. (It takes 40 gallons of sap to boil down to one gallon of syrup). Sugar maples must be at least 50 years old before they can be tapped, and even the oldest trees can't take more than four taps per season. It takes four trees to yield enough sap in six weeks to produce one gallon of maple syrup.
Once the sap is collected, it is transferred to the sugaring house and boiled down to maple syrup. Stuart Adams and partner John Matthews oversee the maple syrup operation, which includes keeping the fire stoked in order to get the sap boiling. Cooking evaporates the water in the sap; the water must be removed so that only sugars and minerals-the building blocks of maple syrup-remain.
SPECIAL THANKS
Roger and Eleanor Adams
Stuart Adams
John Matthews, Jr.
RECOMMENDED READING
See Michael Vyskocil's article "Sweet Reward" featuring tasty maple syrup recipes in the February 2007 issue of Home Cooking magazine.
Adams Family Maple Sugaring
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