A Little Bit More
As the poster points out, maple sap must be boiled down to produce maple syrup. Although the ratio does vary at times, approximately 40 gallons of Sugar Maple sap must be boiled down to produce just 1 gallon of maple syrup. If one uses a different kind of maple tree, there is less sugar per unit of sap and the ratio is higher than 40:1. Collecting sap, hauling sap to the cooking shed (often called a sugar shack), and boiling it down to the right concentration requires a great deal of time and effort. It’s easy to see why real maple syrup is so expensive.
When the white settlers arrived in North America, they were confronted with many new animals and plants that were new to them. Native Americans, on the other hand, were quite familiar with their environment and helped the settlers find food, raise crops, and fit in to this new continent. One of the foods introduced to settlers was sweet water and it proved to be a most welcome addition to the pioneer’s diet.
Prior to the pioneer’s arrival, all collection of maple sap had to be done with non-metal tools – Native Americans used no metal. Once Europeans arrived, however, metal was expensive and in short supply so initially, settlers used native techniques to both collect sap and then boil it down to syrup. The settlers often boiled the syrup down even further producing maple sugar as this was easier to store, and had a longer shelf life than the syrup. Keep in mind that there were no sugarcane fields where sugar could be produced and shipped to the settlers – sugar was in very short supply and highly prized.
As time passed, the settlers began using a variety of metal tools to collect sap and had more efficient metal boiling pans to boil their sweet product. Today, maple sap collection and preparation is done on a much larger scale than in pioneer days and various devices such as plastic tubing connecting tapped trees to the sugar shack greatly reduces the manpower needed to convert sap into syrup. But no matter how you view it, then or now, it’s still a wonderful addition to our diet!
Activities
Taste Test
Objectives: Firshand experience with maple syrup
Materials: Commercial pancake syrup, real maple syrup, nut cups, paddles
An excellent way to make maple syrup production a little more real for students, aside from visiting a sugaring operation, is for students to take a taste test to see for themselves what the difference is. You may find the results of this “taste test” are not what you or your students expect but it’s lots of fun and all will want to participate.
1. Purchase a bottle of grocery store pancake syrup (this will be cane sugar with only a little, if any, maple syrup), and a small bottle of real, 100% maple syrup.
2. Off to one side so the students can’t see what you’re doing, fill two small, identical containers (paper nut cups work well) labeled A and B, one with the real and one with the imitation syrup. You’ll also need a small paddle in each to place syrup on fingers.
3. Have your students line up in a row with clean hands ready for your instructions.
4. Instruct all students that they will be tasting two syrups, one labeled A and the other B. Tell them that one of the two is real maple syrup, the other is an imitation but you won’t tell them which is which. Tell the students that they will be asked to think about each one as they taste it and then after tasting the two, decide in their own mind, not out loud yet, which of the two (A or B) they prefer.
5. Have an adult place a drop of syrup A (you choose which is which) on an outstretched finger and instruct the students to taste immediately.
6. Have a second adult place syrup B on an outstretched finger and again instruct them to taste immediately.
7. Once all students have tasted both A and B, ask the students, with a show of hands, which one they prefer – A or B. Once you’ve tallied preferences, you can tell them which was the real one and which was the imitation. You may be surprised, as I was when I first did this, to find that many/most of the students prefer the grocery store imitation to the real thing. This is a good time to discuss individual tastes. You may want to explain that there was no “right” answer to this taste test. Obviously, if one prefers syrup B to A, that is the right choice, for them – tastes vary!
Key Concepts
Identification, Structures and Functions
Questions
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Posted by richard ball on March 26, 2006 at 10:16 AM
Q: who first knew to heat the sap from the maple trees,to make syrup??.Why and how did this come about,
A: Native Americans showed the settlers how to make maple syrup, the settlers didn't discover it for themselves. It's too bad we don't know the details but there are many "stories" about how maple syrup was discovered but no one knows for sure. It's always interesting to wonder just how people are able to discover things like this. I guess given enough time and a curious mind, humans are able to do lots of wonderful things. Thanks for asking.
Posted by Robert Haber on February 24, 2005 at 10:08 AM
Q: Hi I was very interested in the sweet water page could you please tell me the complete nutritional-mineral properties of maple sap we use to sell suyrp years back but lost our evaporator and are thinking of selling just the sap. What do you think of this and is anyone else doing it?
thanx :-)
A: Maple sap is basically sugar water. Yes, it does have trace minerals and even vitamins but not much. Here is a site that has quite a bit of information on what you will find in maple syrup - www.massmaple.org Keep in mind that the sap has a much lower percentage of these ingredients than the syrup - but then, you already knew that.
I really like the idea of selling the sap rather than going through the arduous process of evaporating gallons and gallons of water and I have heard of others doing just that. You'll just have to find out who in your area is interested in buying your sap. Best of luck.
Posted by Cindy Brean on April 24, 2003 at 09:21 PM
Q: is their a conversion chart of some kind that will figuire how many gallons of syrup were made by the test of the sap.
A: I think you're asking if there is a chart that will convert the sugar concentration in sap into a figure that tells how much sap is needed to make a gallon of syrup. Am I right?
To the best of my knowledge, there is no conversion chart, the sap is simply boiled down until the proper syrup concentration is reached. The concentration of sugar in sap varies over time and collectors know this - early sap flow is more concentrated than later flow. Sap is boiled to concentrate the sugars and once the mixture is reading about 219F, the sap is at the proper consistency for syrup.