There’s a big misconception out there when it comes to maple syrup production.
Over the years, we’ve heard numerous stories from syrup makers of people showing up unannounced wanting to see the process firsthand. Unfortunately, that’s not exactly how it works.
Sure, if you see steam billowing from a sugarhouse, syrup is being made, but it’s not one of the things that happens all day, every day.
Like any other agricultural commodity, there’s a season for sap collection and syrup making. And like anything else where Mother Nature is involved, it varies from year to year.
So we checked in with Bruce Treat of Treat’s Sugarhouse in Bow, who is also the treasurer of the N.H. Maple Producers Association, to get some tried and true info about sap and syrup.
When it comes to tapping, you can really put them in the trees at just about any time you want. This year, Treat started his on Feb. 23.
“I wait until we’re right on the verge of the season,” Treat said.
For the sap to run, you want warm days with high pressure and sun, coupled with cold nights. In other words, a rule of thumb is 40 degrees during the day and 25 at night.
“There’s all sorts of exceptions to that depending on what part of the season you’re in,” Treat said.
On average, the sap season is about six weeks, and Treat expects it to run a total of about 18 days over that 35- to 40-day period. As you can probably guess, it’s all weather dependent.
“You have to be able to process the sap without your operation freezing up,” he said.
And one question people always ask is, “How much sap does it take to create syrup?”
Well, Treat told us about the Rule of 86. If your sap is 2 percent sugar, then it takes 43 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. If it’s 4 percent sugar, that number goes down to 21.5 gallons of sap. Each tap will on average produce about a quart of sap.
When it comes to the process of actually boiling the sap to make syrup, it needs to be at 219 degrees at sea level, so there’s some pretty precise calculations each producer has to make.
And believe us, there’s a lot more to the entire process (it’s like a chemistry lesson), so you should probably go check out a few operations during Maple Weekend and learn from the pros.
