"A Perfect Day" - Words from a Syrup Maker

Like surfers waiting for the perfect wave or gamblers looking for the perfect hand of cards, maple syrup farmers wait and dream about the perfect sap day.  A day when all the forces of nature combine to produce that elusive flood of maple sap.

The ideal day begins the night before with clear skies and calm winds.  The stars twinkle as the temperature slowly drops to -5C.  The snow is frozen hard by morning but the rising sun soon starts it to melt.  By 11AM, the maple trees have thawed and sap starts to drip from the spiles. By 1PM, sap is running hard,  as much as one litre per tree per hour.  The sky is brilliant blue dotted with a few puffy clouds.  A gentle west breeze shakes the tree branches.  Temperature hovers around +5C.  Sap runs hard until evening when the sun drops below the horizon, the breeze stops and the temperature again drops below freezing. 

That’s the textbook recipe for maple syrup making nirvana.  But seldom do things unfold according to the book.  Last year (2012) didn’t have a single day even close.  This season has been better but we’re still waiting for that "perfect day".  Maybe it will happen, maybe it won’t and it’s that uncertainty that makes syrup making so much fun and so addictive.

                                                                                                                   - Ken McCutcheon 

How Maple Butter Is Made

To make our delicious McCutcheon's Maple Butter, we begin by boiling our Maple Syrup down even thicker so that it is reduced by an additional 50%. This thick toffee-like syrup is then chilled in a pan over ice water for a number of hours. We must be very careful when transferring and lifing the pan as any sudden bumps or knocks can cause unwanted crystal to form.

Then, the chilled and concentrated syrup is churned constantly and slowly for at least an hour until very fine crystals form and it reaches the desired buttery consistency. Timing and temperature are crucial.

Maple Butter is made entirely from the sap of Sugar Maple trees and must be kept refrigerated, even before opening, to maintain it's lovely, creamy consistency.

The Sugar Master At Work

Photo by: Roger Messenger

Here's To Your Health...

Some of our customers can't wait to enjoy their jug of McCutcheon's Maple Syrup!

How To Begin WoodCarving with a Utility Knife

Wikihow, a shared knowledge website, has a section on how to begin carving with a utility knife, they suggest using a soft maple as a beginner wood. Just make sure it is soft, carving the harder maple woods is NOT easy. Their tip is that if you can mark the wood with your fingernail, it's probably easy enough to carve.

This blog does not endorse carving wood or using a utility knife without proper knowledgeable supervision. Really! Don't chop your hand off because of us!

Tasting Maple Syrup ... for Science!

From Scienceblog comes an article about the effects of technology on the taste of maple syrup:

Tim Perkins, director of UVM's Proctor Maple Research Center in Underhill Center, has decided to find out. This week, he and his staff will start boiling sap at a new research building to test exactly what effect new technologies have on the chemistry, flavor and quality of maple syrup.

"This is the only such facility in the world," Perkins says. "Nobody since the 1940s has done these kinds of experiments, and the industry has changed a lot since then."

...

And maple syrup science really is a nose -- and mouth -- science. The technical term is organoleptic. "Which means you put it in your mouth and taste it," says Perkins, smiling. "We get people who know the flavor of maple syrup, and off-flavors, and they try each one." Laboratory tests using gas chromatography provide a breakdown of the many compounds in the syrup, which supplements the tastebud approach. "These air injectors appear to make the syrup lighter," Perkins says. "The real question is: how do they impact the flavor?"

Maple syrup is a natural product, but it is not simple. The interplay of seasonal tree biology, boiling temperature, microorganisms, sugar chemistry, storage time, final container -- and a long list of other subtleties -- makes each glinting amber-to-chocolate bottle nearly as distinct as varieties of wine. "Syrup is not just concentrated sap," Perkins says, describing how the sugar in the water is broken from sucrose into glucose and fructose, darkened by bacteria, and carmelized by heat.

North American Maple Syrup Council annual meeting

250 Canadian and American maple syrup producers will be meeting in Green Bay, Wisconsin for the North American Maple Syrup Council annual meeting and International Maple Syrup Institute.

Maple Tree Identification

Some good info on how to identify major maple tree species.

Kottke on cleaning up Maple Syrup spills

Last year, Jason Kottke had a maple syrup spill and requested advice from his readers. Here is a quick summary of some of the (mostly serious) suggestions on how to clean Maple Syrup:

• pour a bunch of salt all over the spill (kosher or table, whatever you have), then leave it for a minute or so. the salt will soak up most of spill, keep it from spreading and make it much more manageable for cleanup.
• pour a bag of flour onto it and walk away for a while. come back with the dustpan and a spatula
• take a wet dish cloth, put it on the syrup and use an iron on the dish towel
• find two hard, flat items (i.e. a dough scraper and a spatula) and put them at opposite 45 degree angles, sweeping together until they are flush. voila, syrup squeegee
• Place a large piece of wax paper directly on top of the puddle of syrup so you get a good stick. With a spatula or paint scraper or whatever you've got handy, begin to flip the wax paper over by spooning the syrup onto it. Pretty soon you will have transfered all the syrup onto the wax paper and you can dispose of it quickly *and* easily.
• Liquid nitrogen, and a chisel. Quickness depends on wether you keep liquid nitrogen around. Easy depends on how brittle the floor is.
• pour some diet coke on it - the carbonation cuts right through and is a great cleaning aid, a can yields less fizz than from a bottle.
• take out some ice cube trays, or drop a bunch of cubes into a metal container along the lines of an 8x8 cake pan, then cover the pan with a dish towel to insulate. come back in an hour, and the syrup, while not frozen, should be much more manageable.

Go read the full entry ... the real thing is much funnier than this summary.

Maple Syrup info on Wikipedia

Simple entry on Maple Syrup is available on Wikipedia, including info on the difference in Grades between Canada and the US

Found an entry for Birch Syrup which I had never heard of before. Apparently it is 5 times more expensive than Maple Syrup. Huh!