Settlers cooked sap in large cauldrons hanging on tripods over open fires.
The maple syrup industry has evolved greatly since Native Americans discovered how to make pure maple syrup. Vast improvements have been made in sap collecting and cooking methods and syrup-making equipment. The basic process remains the same, however: Boil sap to evaporate water and make sweet, pure maple syrup.
It is generally agreed that Native North Americans were the first to make maple syrup. Various legends describe how maple syrup was discovered:
The “sap-sicle.” The branch of the maple tree broke during the late winter and sap flowed out of it. The dripping sap froze into an icicle. The repeated thawing and freezing of the sap-sickle concentrated the sugars and made the icicle unusually sweet. A Native American tasted the icicle. He or she noticed that the liquid had a distinct sweetness to it and deduced that it had come from inside the tree, rather than from melting snow.
Hatchet job. Another legend involves a Native American hunter who, when he arrived home from an unsuccessful hunt, threw his hatchet at a maple tree. The hatchet stuck in the tree and created a wound. The sap that flowed from the wound in the tree collected in a cooking container that the hunter’s wife had placed on the ground beneath the tree. The next day the hunter’s wife mistakenly thought her husband had filled her container with water and she began to cook with it. When they tasted their meal, they discovered that it was sweet! After examining the tree and discovering the sap flowing from it, they realized what had happened.
Substitution. A woman was cooking supper for her husband. When she became distracted by her quillwork, her boiling pot went dry. She did not have time to melt snow so she poured in some maple sap that she had collected for drinking. Their meal had a delicious sweetness to it. Her husband enjoyed the meal so much, it is said that he licked the pot clean!
It is believed that Native Americans collected sap by slashing the bark of a maple tree and inserting a hollow twig or scraped piece of bark to direct the flowing sap into a wood or bark container sitting on the ground. Native Americans placed hot stones in the sap-filled wooden containers. The heat from the stones prompted evaporation. As the process was repeated over and over, syrup was the eventual product.
Another method Native Americans used to concentrate the sugars in sap was to gather sap and let it freeze. The sugars in the sap did not freeze. When the ice was discarded, a sweet liquid remained, though it was not as flavorful as maple syrup. It takes heat to intensify the natural maple flavor that can be found only in pure maple syrup.
European settlers traded goods with Native Americans for maple sugar, and they eventually copied Native American practices to make their own. Settlers modified the practices of Native Americans by making smaller holes in the trees and inserting spouts made from the hollowed stems of sumac. Sap was collected in wooden and clay buckets; we display some very early clay sap buckets in our store showroom. Eventually wooden spiles and wooden buckets were replaced by metal or plastic, thus moving syrup making into the modern era.
In 1764 the Parliament of Great Britain passed the Sugar Act, imposing high tariffs on cane sugar imported to the colonies. Maple sweetener, which many colonists could make for themselves, became very popular because of its low cost and availability. There was also some moral opposition to buying and using cane sugar because it was largely produced by slave labor in the British West Indies. During this time, maple sap was primarily concentrated into sugar, which was very popular.
Around the time of the Civil War, sugarcane crops were established in the United States, and it was not necessary to import as much sugar. The Sugar Act was eventually repealed, and cane sugar replaced maple sugar as the dominant sweetener in the United States. The maple producers shifted their focus from sugar making to syrup making and began to promote the use of pure maple syrup.
Early syrup makers transported sap in the wooden buckets it was collected in, using shoulder yokes to carry them from the trees to the cook site. As sugar bushes grew in size, it became more difficult to transport sap by hand. Syrup producers hauled sap in wooden tubs, mounted on sleds or wagons and pulled by horses or oxen. Eventually wooden tubs were replaced with metal ones and horses were replaced with tractors. The Andersons’ sugar bush utilized a wagon and horses until the early 1960s.
Even prior to World War I, producers attempted to collect sap more efficiently than the one-bucket-per-spout method. They used metal tubes, similar to the way sap is collected via modern plastic tubing systems. Although the metal tubing systems proved to be troublesome — leaky, hard to clean, and somewhat difficult to install — they paved the way for modern plastic tubing.
To produce syrup, some Native Americans boiled sap in clay pans over open fires. Settlers copied this practice by boiling sap in large metal cauldrons that hung on tripods over open fires. Syrup made in these large cauldrons had a very strong flavor and dark color due to the length of time the sap was exposed to heat. Settlers found that finishing the syrup in smaller batches in multiple cauldrons resulted in lighter-colored syrup with a more desirable and even delicate flavor. Producers today still finish syrup in separate pans.
Settlers cooked sap in large cauldrons hanging on tripods over open fires.
Producers found that cooking sap in flat-bottomed pans increased the rate of evaporation. By the mid-1800s, flat-bottomed pans and firebox arches had become popular. Originally developed to process sorghum syrup, the Cook Evaporator was patented in 1858. Improvements were, and continue to be, made to original evaporator designs. Even with modern technology, however, the fact remains that sap must be boiled and evaporated by heat to create the distinct color and flavor of pure maple syrup.
The syrup-making season is a short but busy one. If you have 50 taps and want to produce the most syrup possible, you’ll need to commit at least 10 hours of work per day when the sap is running. Sap doesn’t run every day during the syrup-making season, but in an average season you can collect sap for 10 to 15 days over a 4- to 6-week period. If a 10-hour syrup-making day seems impractical for you, lessen your workload. You need to make only as much syrup as you want. It’s not uncommon for people with as few as one or two yard maples to make a small amount of maple syrup. If you’ve collected more sap than you want, you may be able to sell it to larger syrup producers or give it away. Here’s how much syrup you can expect to produce in an average season:
Per tap, 1 quart
From 50 taps, 12.5 gallons
From 150 taps, 37.5 gallons
From 500 taps, 125 gallons