More Maple Syrup Activities

After Lachlan's great description of how maple syrup is made, we should tell you a little of how we have been involved.
It all started with a community festival at the local park ( Parc Coussineau) back in February.  It was our first local outing, and we were keen to meet locals and kids from the school where our children had been for 3 weeks.

It was a very cold day, and we quickly realised there was a queue for something desirable and free.  We had no idea what we were queuing for, and were handed paddle pop sticks.  We soon saw kids and adults wandering off with frozen lollipops of maple syrup, maple taffy (tire d'erable). As Lachlan has described, it is maple syrup, heated to 232 F (approx 112 C) then poured onto snow or ice in a long channel designed for the purpose.  It becomes semi solid, rolled on a stick, and it is heaven on a stick. 


At this stage I asked a few questions. Discovering it was a community run event, I offered to help in the future.  I met Capitainsyrop ( Captain Syrup), a performer, film director (Canadian Race around the World contestant from 1983), comedian and local identity, Mario Bonenfant. He has run an urban sugar shack for 10 years now, bringing traditional knowledge and skills  about maple syrup to the city folk. I helped setup his sugar shacks for a few more local events and was involved in the process of gathering and preparing maple syrup. 

During one week in March, we had 6 or 8 school groups each week attend. They came along to see how maple syrup has traditionally been collected, and then of course, sample some maple taffy. This week was followed by a community event on Saturday 22 March.  Unfortunately it snowed on this day, so only about 750 people attended. They had expected about 2000. Despite the numbers, the snow made an amazing atmosphere.  As this was only two weeks before the provincial election, we had all sorts of dignitaries there, and some very long boring speeches! All in French so we were able to ignore!

What we have learnt.

Maple syrup production has traditionally been done by small enterprises in the forest, and only recently has it become a large scale enterprise. 

A Variety of taps from wooden
to metal and now plastic, with an example
of the plastic tubing system used nowadays. 

In the beginning the indigenous people made the syrup by taping trees with wooden spikes. These then became metal after European settlement and are now plastic. A hole is drilled into the tree at about waist height, about 5 cm deep and about about 8 mm wide. The taps are inserted, tapped tight, and the sap stars dripping out if the temperature is correct (between -5 and 10 C).



Initially the maple water (sap) was collected in wooden containers. This later progressed to tins of about 4 litres, and emptied into sleighs carrying about 400 litres to return to the shacks where the processing (evaporation) occurs. These are called sugar shacks (cabane à sucre). The sleighs progress to become sled trailers behind skidoos, and then again to become modified 4 wheel motor bikes with tracks on each wheel.  Larger operations now have plastic piping collecting the sap.  

The collection of sap needs to be done daily, as the trees can produce about 4 litres per tap per day. This ends up being a lot of work, hence the development of drainage tubes. The tubes are attached to each tap, which in essence creates a reverse drip irrigation system. You start with 6 mm tubes, going to larger and larger ending up with 50-75 mm poly pipe at the shack. Of course if you have 6-7000 taps to drain, this saves a lot of work. Rather than rely on gravity, they have a suction pump which maintains a constant low pressure to clear the pipes. One pump can do about 7000 taps!! 

Raw maple water has about 95-98 % water and some impurities, so after a series of filters the water is concentrated by evaporation to make syrup (no water). The indigenous aboriginals did this by heating granite rocks then placing them in small amounts of maple water, and gradually evaporation made syrup.  It can take 20-40 litres of water to make 1 litre of syrup, so this is a slow process.  Metals arrived and evaporation over a fire in a pot was the next step, but only allowed one batch at a time. Then came a horizontal evaporator, where the water comes in one end, the whole base of the container is heated, and evaporation takes place, and, since it is level, as you drain off the finished syrup at one end, valves allow the more concentrated syrup to move through the 3 or 4 chambers of progressive evaporation until there is no water left. 

The most recent development is the use of an osmotic separator as the first step, then pre-heating this more concentrated water over the horizontal evaporator, then starting the process.  This saves at least half the fuel needed to heat the syrup. It can now take 1 litre of fuel to make 1 litre of syrup.  Much better than cutting all the trees to stoke the fires under a single pot!!!!

At the end of the evaporation, when it has been boiling at 212 F (100 C ) and there is no more steam coming off, the temperature then starts to rise as it is essentially pure sugar. It must not go above 219F (104C)however, otherwise it will turn into maple sugar.  

Hand filled cans. 

The final syrup is then filtered to take out any crystals that have formed from being heated too high (maple sugar- great in coffee!!) ash, bugs and other impurities.  This slightly cools the syrup, so for bottling/canning, it is then warmed again to 82 C, to kill any bacteria. Cans are filled, lids attached to the generic cans, and finally the label of the local sugar shack attached.  Once canned, they are immediately dumped into an ice bath, to prevent any crystallisation occurring inside the can. 

The kids loved putting the lids on the cans. 

There are different qualities of syrup, varying in colour, flavour and purity.  The darker colour is usually earlier in the season and stronger tasting, but dark syrup is slightly bitter and only used in commercial cooking.  As the season progresses the sugar content drops and the colour and flavour are reduced. The best eating is medium.  

So the final stage for Lachlan's favourite treat, the taffy, is to heat the syrup to 234 F (112 C). This takes skill to avoid producing sugar. You then pour it onto fresh snow or ice, lift it with a paddle pop stick and let your taste buds take you on an adventure. We have now come from total ignorance to an appreciation of the process.  

Our varied experiences in the Laurentien's (mountains to the north of Montreal)

The mass market lunch at a commercial Sugar Shack.

The original Cabane à sucre were the traditional family enterprise, where a meal would be served to the family helping, and you would get to taste the syrup straight from the evaporator as a small reward.  Unfortunately some have now become major tourist enterprises.  About a month ago we visited one of these tourist ventures with some of our neighbours.  It was huge, based around the idea of sports, especially ice hockey, and lashings of food. Pea soup, bacon, eggs, potatoes, ham, fried bacon rinds, bread, maple syrup, coffee and finally fried pancakes and maple syrup.  Wow, that blow the diet for that week!.  They had a huge kids indoor play ground with many fully enclosed long slides, indoor hockey rinks, but nowhere did we see the production of maple syrup.  Not even a tree tap or bucket in sight.  

This was half the group at the Shack!

In contrast, last weekend, we went with another neighbour to her friends' family cabane à sucre, in the forest. It had a little shack, with four generations of family, about 20 people, making the syrup. It had the feeling of Italian families gathering to make tomato passata! Heaven. We saw the whole process from tree to the taffy being poured onto the snow and then into our mouths. The kids helped put lids on cans, watched the temperatures as they rose and rose to 232 F, saw all the steam and blazing furnaces. They were educated by a lovely retired teacher, who loves any opportunity to speak English. They were fascinated by the process and entertained by him. As there were dogs around, Sophie refused to go outside the shack, so she and this guy became quite good friends - she invited him to our beach at Malua Bay!

We will have to make maple taffy  (tire d'erable) at the ski lodge in 2015!!!