Maple Syrup is known in Lewis County as "liquid gold". Lewis County is New York State's largest producer of maple syrup. Both maple sugar and maple syrup are important cash crops in Lewis County. During the New York Maple Weekend, tapping of the trees, gathering of the syrup, and boiling and bottling of the maple syrup can be witnessed. Over 100 years ago the sap was collected in wooden pails to be loaded on horse drawn wagons, and taken to the sugar shanty where it was boiled over fire wood. And long before this Aboriginal's were tapping trees for the sweet water. It was the native people who taught the colonists how to tap the maple trees. Trees were found a few miles north of Lowville, NY to have had tappings like those of the Indians. Maple sugar was easier for the Indians to carry than the maple syrup making the sugar their focus. At first the maple sugar being produced by the early settlers was for their own use, but like all the other agricultural crops, the maple sugar and syrup were soon being produced for sale. Sugar making fit nicely into the farmer's off time from planting and harvesting crops.

In July of 1918, during World War I, rationing of sugar was started throughout the country. Farmers were urged to make as much maple sugar and syrup as they could.

The weather plays a very important part in the maple syrup industry. The sap is sweetest as the thaw starts, and later in the thaw the sap becomes bitter and unusable. The sap runs best from the tap when the days are 40 degrees after a previous night of below freezing temperature. The boiling of the sap was time consuming. The outdoor shack built to boil the syrup in, also known as the sugar shack , sugar shanty, or sugar house was started in the 1850's. It can take about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup, depending on the concentration of the sap, which is about 98 percent water.

Modern methods and several improvements have been made in all areas of the process. One example of these improvements is the plastic tubings that can carry the sap directly to the evaporator.

The maple trees are tapped when they are 30 to 40 years old and can continue to be tapped until they are about 100 years old. There are a variety of maple trees that can be tapped: sugar, red, black, and silver. One to three taps can be inserted into each tree. In one season a tree can produce 9 to 13 gallons of sap. This is only 7 percent of the total tree?s sap. The season can be 4 to 8 weeks long depending on the weather.

Calorie-wise, maple syrup is similar to sugar. It is mainly sucrose and water with some fructose and glucose. Nutritional-wise, maple syrup has significant amounts of manganese and zinc. It has small amounts of potassium, calcium, vanillin, hydroxybutanone, propionaldehyde, and amino acids. Malic acid makes the syrup slightly acidic.

There are two major grades of maple syrup in the United States. Grade A has three sub-grades, Light Amber, Medium Amber, and Dark Amber. Grade B is the darkest syrup. Usually the darker syrups are used for cooking and baking, but not always. It is often a personal choice as to which grade is preferred. The first maple syrup of the settlers was of the darkest color when the sap was tapped with wooden spouts and collected in wooden buckets, and boiled in large iron kettles over an open wood fire. With today's evaporators, the sap can be boiled down faster. Generally, the longer the sap boils, the darker the color. Maple syrup has a variety of uses such as a substitution for sugar in several recipes, making frostings, served over pancakes, waffles, cornbread, french toast, ice cream and other foods.

Learn more:
Cornell.edu FAQ
MapleWeekend.com