For the past two years my kids have toured Ledge View Nature Center in Chilton where they toured their maple syrup operation. As part of the tour, the guides shared some history of maple syrup with the students including how sap was discovered and first made into syrup. There are lots of versions of the story, but the story my kids learned and seem to enjoy the most goes a little bit like this... a Native American chief threw his tomahawk at a maple tree where it stuck in the tree and stayed over night. A bucket happened to be below the tomahawk that was stuck in the tree and the clear liquid that came out of the tree dripped down into the bucket. Later, the man's wife went to collect water to make supper and went to grab the bucket by the tree. She saw the clear liquid in it and thinking it was water, she cooked the family's venison in the sap. Early settler's learned about maple trees and how to make syrup from Native Americans those many years ago and as time goes by many are getting back into the seasonal hobby of collecting sap to boil down into their own syrup.
Ralph's parents are among those taking up the hobby and have been making maple syrup on their property in the north woods of Wisconsin for the past few years. It's always a fun process to see first hand. Over Easter weekend we were able to help make the sweet treat.
The Stowells started collecting the sap in February this year when freezing nights alternated with warmer days of sunshine and a little thawing took place that helped make the sap flow. They tapped just over 40 maple trees this year and collected 140 gallons of sap up until Easter weekend. Above, Oliver checks out a bag that's collecting the sap.
Taking a walk through the woods, the kids inspected how much sap was in each bag. New this year, the Stowells lined each bag with duct tape to deter squirrels from chewing into the bags. Once the clear liquid is collected, it's slowly poured onto the outdoor pan where the liquid is cooked down slowly over a fire.
Starting the fire outside around 8 a.m. on Saturday, the Stowells cooked the 140 gallons of sap all the way down until the remaining portion could be cooked inside the house in two large pots on the stove. They cooked the sap outside on the big fire until 1 a.m. Sunday morning and then finished the process later in the day. Nearing the end of the process the liquid was filtered several times. While the the sap continued to cook on the stove closer to the final product, the Stowells consistently checked the sugar content level closely to determine when the syrup could be bottled. Below, Abby checks the sugar content with a hydrometer.
When the sugar content is at the right level, the family puts the syrup in hot quart jars and seals them. Out of 140 gallons of sap, they made about 19 quarts of syrup. It's a lot of hard work for a little sweet treat. Like so many things that are home grown, it's difficult to eat syrup from the store after having this homemade stuff. I've found preferring the homemade syrup is similar to preferring eggs laid from our own pasture-raised chickens. I just can't eat store-bought eggs anymore, I've become an egg snob. I think my children feel the same about maple syrup now and are a little spoiled with Grandpa and Grandma's product.
They can certainly tell the difference between the real stuff and other popular syrup brands in the store. We ran out of Grandpa and Grandma's maple syrup recently, but bought some other Wisconsin maple syrup for our Sunday pancake breakfasts. The other weekend Oliver noticed the different jar and asked my Dad as he poured syrup on his pancakes, "Grandpa, is that the stuff from the trees?"
It's hard to beat the real stuff, especially when it's good on so many things, pancakes, waffles and our kid's new favorite...ice cream. :)
