Driling sugar maple tree

Maple sap collection bag

Tasting maple sap for seetness

Carrying sap to sugar shack.

Evaporating excess water from sap at sugar shack.

Learning about maple sugaring at the Monroe County Environmental Center

A cool Sunday morning begs for a stack of hot cakes drizzled with warm maple syrup. Pennsylvania’s maple trees have been providing their sweet syrup for hundreds of years. At the Monroe County Environmental Center, you can watch maple trees being sugared while learning about the history of our traditional sweet treat.

A large cluster of maple trees is called a sugarbush. Sugar maples are the best producers but most maples produces the sweet sap. A single maple tree produces between 5 and 15 gallons each sugaring season. It takes 30 to 50 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.

The maple sap can easily be mistaken for water. It is clear is not noticeably sweet. This is because the 90% of the sap is water. The collected sap must be heated to evaporate the water and concentrate the syrup.

“We offer an historical perspective on maple sugaring,” explained Environmental Educator Karen Boyle. “We run programs to educate students as to why the sap is in the tree, how we collect the sap, and how the sap is cooked. There are several stations, over our 100 acre sugarbush, where we teach student groups about the history of maple sugaring.”

Jenifer Rituper was explaining to a student group how the native Lenapi tribe used maple sugar. “The Lenapi would carve a “V” notch in the tree with a sharp tomahawk,” said Jenifer. “They attached a reed to the tree and collected the sap in birch bark containers.” Then Jenifer poured the sap into a dug out log and added hot rocks from a nearby fire. The heat form the hot rocks caused the sap to boil rapidly and, eventually the sap would become first syrup, and finally, maple sugar.

The indians used the maple sugar both for sweetening their foods and as a source of energy as we use candy today.” continued Jenifer. “This also caused them to have bad teeth.”rian Hardiman demonstrated the method that the early settlers used to make maple syrup. The settlers had some iron tools and used them for maple sugaring. Brian made a spout by boring a hole in a twig of sumac with a hot sharpened metal rod. Brian used a 1/4 inch diameter auger to drill into the trees at a height of 3 to 5 feet and a depth of 3 inches. “The smaller hole is better for the tree,” noted Brian. “When you cut the tree with an ax, the tree eventually gets attacked by insects or disease and dies. The small hole of the auger doesn’t kill the tree. If we tap the tree in a different spot around its diameter each year, the tree will live longer than we will.”

The Center has 120 trees in their sugarbush. Trees are tapped from mid February to late March, depending on temperature conditions. The best conditions are warm days with night temperatures that are below freezing. The freezing and thawing cycle drives the sap from its storage in the roots to the developing buds high in the branches.

The maple sap is collected in galvanized buckets, using clear plastic bags, or connected by tubes to a central container. The containers of sap are heavy and must be carried through the woods to the sugar shack. The sugar shack houses the evaporating pan. Here, the sap is slowly heated by a wood fire until concentrated into syrup. In the final stage, when the concentrated sap reaches 219° F, it turns into syrup.

Maple syrup comes in different grades. Grades reflect the time of the season when the sap is harvested. The lightest color is graded as “fancy” in order of increasing darkness, the grades are: A medium, dark, and B.

Most maple syrup is made in only six states: Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. “Pennsylvania maple syrup is as good as you can find anywhere,” said Karen.