Old-Fashioned Maple Syrup (Updated)

In this post, when I say "old-fashioned" about maple syrup, it's not just a marketing term. The month of March is the time for making maple syrup, when the sap is running, and not too far from us is a living history museum that demonstrates the making of maple syrup the way the natives and early pioneers used to do it.

The natives of course discovered that maple sap is sweet and can be boiled down to make a sugary liquid syrup that hardens on contact with snow to become maple sugar. It was sugar they were after, rather than syrup, since sugar will keep through the summer while syrup quickly goes bad in warm weather.

Since the natives did not have iron pots or tools, they used natural materials to create their implements. After tapping the trees and collecting the sap in birchbark containers, they put the sap into a hollowed-out log.

A Hollowed-Out Log



Obviously this one is a spare that is not being used right now. Those charred branches you see at the top left have a special purpose in making syrup the native way. They are used to carry red-hot stones over to a hollow log full of sap. The stones are heated up in the embers of a very hot fire. You can see some stones being heated up underneath the logs in the following photo.

Heating the Stones



The addition of hot stones causes water to evaporate out of the sap, eventually creating the thick, sweet syrup that is ladled onto the snow to harden as sugar.

Update: On a second visit closer to the end of March, I was able to get these photos of the later part of the process. The first one shows a log with hot rocks just added. You can still see the steam. The second one shows a log full of maple syrup made the way the natives did it.

Hot Stones Added to Sap



Maple Syrup Made the Native Way



When Europeans arrived bringing metal pots and tools, the process became a bit cleaner and more refined. The boiling step was done in large kettles over open fires. The liquid was boiled in kettles of progressively smaller size as it became less watery and closer to syrup.

Boiling the Sap



Update: I was able to get a photo of the contents of the smallest kettle. The pioneers would have used a small amount as syrup for pancakes, after filtering it through cheesecloth. The rest would be boiled down to sugar and poured into molds for storage.

Maple Syrup Made the Pioneer Way



In addition, the collection of sap was done in covered metal buckets, similar to the kind that are still used in small operations today. (Larger modern operations use lengths of tubing to convey the collected sap directly to the boiling house, or sugar shack, located in the bush.)

Update: I added a couple of photos that show a close-up view of how the sap is collected in the covered buckets.

Buckets Are Attached to Every Sugar Maple Tree



The Sap Is Collected Drop By Drop



It Looks Like Water in the Bucket


Photos belong to kbgardenblog.blogspot.com and may not be used without attribution.