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Maple Syrup Season
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(Published February, 2001)
Many folks in Indiana don’t even realize that maple syrup is produced here. While we are at the southern edge of maple country, it is estimated that Indiana produced around 4,000 gallons of syrup last year. Though Vermont produced around 450,000 gallons, if you’ve ever tasted Pure Indiana Maple Syrup, you know that it is equally delicious. If you’ve never seen maple syrup produced, be sure to attend a Maple Syrup Festival this year. The last weekend in February and the first weekend in March, Parke County will hold its annual festival, and Centerville (Wayne County) will hold a maple syrup and pancake breakfast. Wesselman Woods Nature Preserve of Evansville will sponsor a Sugar Bush Festival on March 3rd and 4th. See our Calendar of Events for more information on these. Making Maple Syrup All it takes to make maple syrup is a mature sugar maple tree (Acer saccharum) or two, a suitable climate like Indiana’s, and some equipment. The first step is to identify a sugar maple. While any of the maples native to the northeast produce sap in the spring, the sugar maple has the highest sugar content, at around 3%. Keep in mind that it’s easier to identify the sugar maples before the leaves are gone for the winter. The sugar maple can be identified by the shape of its leaves, and also by its brilliant pink, yellow, and orange fall foliage.
Tapping the Tree
The tap, or spile, is tapped firmly into the tree and a bucket hung from the spile to collect the ever-so-slightly sweet sap. Most maple sugarers call this “water” because that’s about what it tastes and looks like. A cover is used to keep rain, snow and debris out while the sap is collected. On a sunny day the sap may run out the spout in a continuous stream.
Cooking It Down
As the syrup thickens it goes to a finishing pan, and is cooked to a precise consistency. At this point it needs to be carefully watched. One test for doneness is the “aproning” test. When a spatula is placed in the syrup it should run off with an aproning effect, rather than by drops. It can also be checked with a thermometer and heated precisely to 7 to 7 1/2 degrees above the boiling point of water, or tested with a hydrometer until it reaches a specific gravity of 32. When the syrup is finished it should be taken off the heat and filtered again, then quickly bottled. Cooking past the syrup stage makes maple sugar, and hard, crystallized rock candy. Maple cream is made by stirring cooked syrup.
Indiana Maple Syrup Association The Indiana Maple Syrup Association is open to any maple syrup producer, from novice backyard sugarers to professionals. Their focus is producing quality maple syrup in Indiana. The association provides opportunties, through its annual meetings for members to meet together and discuss the production and marketing of Hoosier maple syrup. Membership includes subscriptions to the Tapline, the IMSA newsletter and the Maple Syrup Digest, a quarterly publication of the North American Maple Syrup Council. Each year the IMSA runs a sugar shack at Pioneer Village during the Indiana State Fair. Fairgoers can sample Pure Indiana Maple Syrup, buy products, and see first-hand how maple syrup is produced. For more information see www.indianamaplesyrup.org. |
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With frosty nights and warm days, February brings weather to Indiana that is ideal for making maple syrup. It’s true, Indiana may not be as widely known for its maple syrup as Vermont, Maine, or Quebec. In fact, when the Indiana maple syrup makers sent a representative to the North American Maple Syrup Council, our state was likened to the Jamaican Bobsled team. But unlike Jamaica and bobsledding, Indiana has a suitable climate for making maple syrup. 
Making maple syrup is really a simple process: collect sap from the maple tree, then boil it down to the right consistency. There is nothing added to “Pure Maple Syrup”. Equipment to collect sap ranges from the simplest bucket or even milk jug hung from a tap in a tree to high-tech tubing systems with vacuum extractors. The sap can be cooked down on systems ranging from a kettle over an open flame to gas-powered, fluted evaporating pans. 
The tree should be at least 10” in diameter. Larger trees can hold more than one tap. A rule of thumb is one tap for every additional 8” of diameter. A hole is drilled into the tree with a 7/16” drill bit, to about 1 1/2” into good wood. The hole is drilled at a slight angle to allow the sap to run down the “spout”. 
Some producers have replaced the traditional galvanized syrup buckets with plastic bags. Elaborate tubing systems are also used today, connecting trees throughout the “sugar bush” or maple forest. The tubing acts as a pipeline carrying sap to a holding tank.
The sap then gets boiled down until it becomes syrup. It is filtered, then put into an evaporating pan and heated, usually over a wood fire. The evaporator is sometimes housed in a “sugar shack” or “sugar house”, often located in the woods, which makes it a “sugar camp”, where the syrup is made. The evaporating process can take several hours. Most syrup makers have memories of camping out in the sugar shack all night, feeding the fire. 
If you’ve ever tasted maple syrup you know that there is nothing like it. If you haven’t, you need to treat yourself better! You shouldn’t have to go far to find “Pure Indiana Maple Syrup”, and once you’ve tried it, you won’t want to settle for less.