Nicebird: Maple Sugaring I: Know Thy Enemy

In maple-sugaring, as in any other kind of warfare, a crucial first step toward victory is simple: know your enemy. Don't let these folksy trappings fool you. For, as Old Ken's grandmother knows only too well, behind these antiquated phones and cross-sections of (possibly totemic?) wood ...

... lives a cutting-edge maple-sugaring operation administered by one of the leading juggernauts and nicest guys in the biz, Willis Wood. As an occasional installment in our ongoing series of contributions to industrial espionage, Old Ken wants to share with you a bit of insight into maple sugar making as the pros do it.

And here is our featured professional, Willis Wood, pointing westward along the side of his recently-constructed sugarhouse toward the outdoor cistern into which sap from some 700 maple trees is collected by truck.

By underground pipes, the sap is then communicated to a reverse osmosis machine, which eliminates most of the water and concentrates the sugar-content. Normally, forty gallons of sap are needed to produce one gallon of maple syrup. But, once the sap is concentrated by reverse osmosis, the ratio can be reduced to eleven to one (as in Willis' case) or perhaps even low as three to one as some other producers claim. Obviously, the less sap required, the more sweet, sweet syrup you can make!

So, once the sap has been concentrated by reverse osmosis, it is pumped into a cistern ...

... and then boiled down in a massive evaporator.

Here, Tina Wood looks on as Willis tests some boiling, concentrated sap in the final chamber of the evaporating pan. So we learned, you can tell that the sap has nearly cooked down to the consistency of syrup when it hangs from the dipper in "sheets" rather than in drips.

Once it is ready, the boiling almost-syrup is drained into a metal jug, which is then carried to the finishing station.

And here is said station. Whereas the main evaporator is wood-fired, the finishing station runs on gas, which is presumably easier to control for the crucial operation of getting the syrup to exactly the correct temperature and viscosity.