How to Make Maple Syrup

Tapping maple trees yields maple sap, but maple sap is just the raw material for maple syrup. To convert the clear, watery sap into flavorful, thick and tasty maple syrup, it must be heated and reduced. Just allowing it to evaporate at room temperature will yield a sugary liquid, but won't give you maple syrup. For that, it needs to boil down.

From Maple Sap to Maple Syrup

Boiling maple sap not only evaporates out most of the water, but causes chemical changes that give the sap its color and flavor. Larger scale maple syrup producers generally have specialized evaporating pans and other equipment to produce large batches of maple syrup at a time, but for the novice who is only looking to make enough maple syrup from a few trees in their backyard for themselves and their family, very little special equipment is required once the sap has been collected.

Equipment Required to make Maple Syrup

Just remember that it takes a little over 40 gallons of maple sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. Sap should be kept refrigerated until you are ready to process it down. Even refrigerated sap should only be kept a couple of days to avoid spoilage. To make maple syrup in your kitchen, you'll need a stove, a large sauce pan, cheesecloth and a good candy thermometer. The thermometer is very important, as it will let you know when the sap you've collected is actually maple syrup. Choose a good stainless steel saucepan instead of one with a non-stick coating.

Boiling the Maple Sap

The first step is to pour maple sap into your saucepan. You're going to let it boil vigorously so be sure not to fill it so much that it will boil over. It's a good idea to pour the sap through several layers of cheesecloth before putting it into the saucepan to catch some of the larger particulate matter that found its way into the sap collecting bucket. You can use high heat to boil the sap down faster, but be sure not to let the level of liquid in the saucepan get too low or it will scorch and turn into a sticky, smelly mess that is difficult to clean from your pan.

Sticky Steam

Boiling down maple sap into maple syrup takes a very long while and depends upon two factors: how much sap you're reducing, and the exposed surface area of the boiling sap. More sap equals more time and more surface area means less time since the sap will evaporate faster. While the vast majority of what boils off as steam will be water, the fact that you can smell a little sweet syrupy smell means that a least a little bit of that steam is sugar. If the steam, therefore, is not vented outside, through a stove hood, for example, you may find that every surface in your kitchen gets just a wee bit sticky. This is one reason why old-time farmers boiled their sap in a special sugar house designed and built just for that purpose. With very small batches, you don't really have to worry about this, it's mainly a concern for those who make many batches or very large batches as the sugar content in the steam is really very, very small.

Reducing the Maple Sap

As the maple sap boils down, keep adding more fresh sap to the saucepan. After a while, you'll begin to notice the liquid in the saucepan getting thicker and developing a brown tint. That means you're nearly there. Continue adding sap periodically until you have none left. As the liquid becomes thicker, use your candy thermometer to check the temperature. As you know, water boils at 212 degrees, or a bit less at higher altitudes. Maple sap will boil at just about the same temperature, since it is 98% water. However, as the water evaporates out, a higher and higher percentage of the remaining liquid is sugar instead of water. This means that the actual boiling temperature will rise over time. You'll need to keep checking the temperature as you get near the end.

Stop Before it Gets too Hot

When checking the temperature of the boiling sap, don't let the end of the thermometer touch the sides or bottom of the pan as this will result in an incorrect reading. The boiling temperature of finished maple syrup is 219 degrees. If the temperature doesn't reach 219 degrees, then it won't be 66 percent sugar content and it can't "legally" be called maple syrup. For home use, though, I'm not one to quibble -- 218.5 degrees looks, smells and tastes like maple syrup to me. Getting too hot on the other hand, can spell trouble. At roughly 219.5 degrees the sugar concentration is too high. This can result in sugar crystallizing out of the maple syrup when it has cooled down and is stored in the refrigerator.

Final Filtering

Once you've got the syrup to the right temperature, take it off the stove and immediately while it is still very hot, filter it through the cheesecloth again. You'll need to keep a very close watch on it toward the end to keep it from scorching and being ruined. The temperature can rise very rapidly at the end stages and you can end up with hours and hours of wasted time and effort if it does. It is prudent to reduce the heat toward the end to a point just enough to keep the syrup at a light boil. The final cheesecloth filtering should remove any remaining particulates. While it is still hot, it will flow easily enough to pass through the cheesecloth filter, and, from there, through a funnel into the jar or bottle in which you intend to store it.

The Shades of Maple Syrup

Allow the syrup to cool at room temperature. When it has thoroughly cooled, then seal the jar or bottle and place it in the refrigerator. Maple syrup comes in many different shades of brown from a almost clear to very dark amber. Generally, the earlier the sap is collected in the spring, the lighter the maple syrup will turn out to be. If you make several batches of syrup from the same tree in the spring, you'll most likely see a noticeable difference in the color of the finished product between the early and later batches. The darker syrup also has a heavier taste and many prefer early season syrup for its more delicate flavor.

Homemade Maple Syrup

While all maple syrup is good, none tastes better than maple syrup that you make yourself with the sap you collected from the maple trees in your backyard. If you package it in several small bottles or jars, you can share it proudly with family, friends and coworkers.