Post by Okwes on Mar 18, 2008 20:00:54 GMT -5
Sweet smells of success
Grueling days in sugarhouse and ideal weather are key ingredients in production of maple syrup
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By John Dyer
Globe Correspondent / March 13, 2008
NORTH ANDOVER - This time of year, Paul Boulanger remembers the first time he made maple syrup. He was 12 and in his mother's kitchen. Boy, was she mad.
more stories like thisHe could have been doing far worse. But anyone who has ever made maple syrup can guess what happened: "How do you remove wallpaper?" said Boulanger, 37.
Preparing the golden brown syrup involves a lot of boiling - and a lot of steam. Boulanger had been cooking away with a gallon pan, entranced, and didn't notice that his mother's wallpaper was peeling.
"It takes 43 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup," he said. "You are boiling away almost all of it into a sticky wet residue."
Now Boulanger makes all the syrup he wants. He and his partner, Kathy Gallagher, operate Turtle Lane Maple Farm in North Andover, where state officials on Friday kicked off Massachusetts Maple Month, a celebration of New England's sweetest native crop.
"We're one of the few states that harvest maple," said Doug Petersen, commissioner of the state Department of Agricultural Resources who read a proclamation at the event. "We're just lucky enough to be in the right temperate zone. So it's a good thing for us. And it's a fun thing. It's sweet. It goes on pancakes. Nothing is bad about maple syrup."
While most maple producers work in the western part of the state, the northwestern suburbs of Boston have ideal conditions for tree tapping and "sugar making," as cooking maple sap is called, said Tom McCrumm, coordinator of the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association.
Maple trees need frigid nights and warm days, he said. That lets them store sap when temperatures drop and release it by day. Early March to early April is ideal tapping time; the sap turns bitter when leaves appear on the branches.
About 300 farms produce 50,000 gallons of maple syrup a year in the state, Petersen said. They draw 60,000 tourists a year and generate $3.5 million in commerce. New Hampshire's $4 million industry produces about 90,000 gallons annually, according to the Granite State's Maple Producers Association. Vermont is by far the largest maple syrup producer in the United States, producing some 460,000 gallons a year, according to the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers' Association.
It's easy to become fascinated with tree tapping and sugar making. At a recent sugar-tapping event held by the Nashua River Watershed Association in Groton, instructor Steve Hulbert bored a 3-inch hole into the side of a maple tree. Out gushed a clear fluid that tasted of a mild mix of 3 percent sugar and 97 percent water.
"It's amazing how people figured this out, poking a hole in a tree and boiling it down," said Bob Gardula, a Lunenburg resident who attended the event.
Native Americans showed the New England colonists how to tap and boil the sap, Hulbert said. A 10-inch diameter tree can be tapped once, he said. A 20-inch diameter tree can support two taps, and so on. On a good day, a single tap might produce about 5 gallons and doesn't hurt the tree. "We're taking very little compared to what it has to give," Hulbert said.
more stories like thisBoulanger and Gallagher said their sugar making, which they described as a passion they pursue when not working their day jobs, is a pastime for them and their children. "We have this whole thing to dump our hearts into," Gallagher said.
They give tours, and science lessons of a sort, to children who think maple syrup comes from supermarkets, not trees. They also host groups of seniors who remember when New Englanders used maple syrup as their primary sweetener before white cane sugar was mass-produced.
Boulanger and Gallagher have only a few maple trees on their property. So, for the past three years, they have asked and received permission from the North Andover Board of Selectmen to tap trees on town-owned land. The couple have about 500 taps in town, they said.
Using special tubes, they pump sap into a 425-gallon tank they have installed in their truck. The traditional bucket is time-consuming, they said. Then they spend hours in their sugarhouse, boiling, stirring, and, at just the right moment, drawing off distilled syrup. That arduous process is just part of a long chain of production.
"In February, we run the lines and set the taps," Boulanger said. "March is the season when we collect sap and boil it and make maple syrup. In April, it takes a month to clean everything. June and July is cutting wood. December is repairs, because stuff breaks. I'm so burned out in April, I don't make the repairs. Then, in January, we clean again."
Maple trees grow from Michigan to New England and from Pennsylvania to southern Quebec. But syrup production is concentrated in Quebec and New England.
Maple sugar also fits into the organic food craze, said farmer Hank Peterson of Londonderry, N.H. Try a bottle of so-called table syrup, which is flavored with corn syrup and colored brown, and there is no comparison, he said. "Once they get a taste of the real stuff, they're hooked, and that's our future customer."
Peterson said the last few years have been hard on maple-syrup producers. Bad weather - usually too many warm nights or cold days in recent winters - has resulted in a shortage.
McCrumm said maple forests are also under stress from acid rain, road salt, and other pollutants. The average retail price for maple syrup is $46 a gallon, he said; last year, it was about $43 a gallon.
Still, Peterson said, he wouldn't do anything else. "There isn't a one of us who doesn't say, 'That's it; I'm not going to do it again,' at the end of the season," he said. "But come January next year, I'll be right down in the sugarhouse washing buckets."
For information on how to identify and tap maple trees, and for recipes using maple sugar and syrup, visit the website of the the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association at massmaple.org or the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association at nhmapleproducers.com
Grueling days in sugarhouse and ideal weather are key ingredients in production of maple syrup
Email|Print|Single Page| Text size – + By John Dyer
Globe Correspondent / March 13, 2008
NORTH ANDOVER - This time of year, Paul Boulanger remembers the first time he made maple syrup. He was 12 and in his mother's kitchen. Boy, was she mad.
more stories like thisHe could have been doing far worse. But anyone who has ever made maple syrup can guess what happened: "How do you remove wallpaper?" said Boulanger, 37.
Preparing the golden brown syrup involves a lot of boiling - and a lot of steam. Boulanger had been cooking away with a gallon pan, entranced, and didn't notice that his mother's wallpaper was peeling.
"It takes 43 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup," he said. "You are boiling away almost all of it into a sticky wet residue."
Now Boulanger makes all the syrup he wants. He and his partner, Kathy Gallagher, operate Turtle Lane Maple Farm in North Andover, where state officials on Friday kicked off Massachusetts Maple Month, a celebration of New England's sweetest native crop.
"We're one of the few states that harvest maple," said Doug Petersen, commissioner of the state Department of Agricultural Resources who read a proclamation at the event. "We're just lucky enough to be in the right temperate zone. So it's a good thing for us. And it's a fun thing. It's sweet. It goes on pancakes. Nothing is bad about maple syrup."
While most maple producers work in the western part of the state, the northwestern suburbs of Boston have ideal conditions for tree tapping and "sugar making," as cooking maple sap is called, said Tom McCrumm, coordinator of the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association.
Maple trees need frigid nights and warm days, he said. That lets them store sap when temperatures drop and release it by day. Early March to early April is ideal tapping time; the sap turns bitter when leaves appear on the branches.
About 300 farms produce 50,000 gallons of maple syrup a year in the state, Petersen said. They draw 60,000 tourists a year and generate $3.5 million in commerce. New Hampshire's $4 million industry produces about 90,000 gallons annually, according to the Granite State's Maple Producers Association. Vermont is by far the largest maple syrup producer in the United States, producing some 460,000 gallons a year, according to the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers' Association.
It's easy to become fascinated with tree tapping and sugar making. At a recent sugar-tapping event held by the Nashua River Watershed Association in Groton, instructor Steve Hulbert bored a 3-inch hole into the side of a maple tree. Out gushed a clear fluid that tasted of a mild mix of 3 percent sugar and 97 percent water.
"It's amazing how people figured this out, poking a hole in a tree and boiling it down," said Bob Gardula, a Lunenburg resident who attended the event.
Native Americans showed the New England colonists how to tap and boil the sap, Hulbert said. A 10-inch diameter tree can be tapped once, he said. A 20-inch diameter tree can support two taps, and so on. On a good day, a single tap might produce about 5 gallons and doesn't hurt the tree. "We're taking very little compared to what it has to give," Hulbert said.
more stories like thisBoulanger and Gallagher said their sugar making, which they described as a passion they pursue when not working their day jobs, is a pastime for them and their children. "We have this whole thing to dump our hearts into," Gallagher said.
They give tours, and science lessons of a sort, to children who think maple syrup comes from supermarkets, not trees. They also host groups of seniors who remember when New Englanders used maple syrup as their primary sweetener before white cane sugar was mass-produced.
Boulanger and Gallagher have only a few maple trees on their property. So, for the past three years, they have asked and received permission from the North Andover Board of Selectmen to tap trees on town-owned land. The couple have about 500 taps in town, they said.
Using special tubes, they pump sap into a 425-gallon tank they have installed in their truck. The traditional bucket is time-consuming, they said. Then they spend hours in their sugarhouse, boiling, stirring, and, at just the right moment, drawing off distilled syrup. That arduous process is just part of a long chain of production.
"In February, we run the lines and set the taps," Boulanger said. "March is the season when we collect sap and boil it and make maple syrup. In April, it takes a month to clean everything. June and July is cutting wood. December is repairs, because stuff breaks. I'm so burned out in April, I don't make the repairs. Then, in January, we clean again."
Maple trees grow from Michigan to New England and from Pennsylvania to southern Quebec. But syrup production is concentrated in Quebec and New England.
Maple sugar also fits into the organic food craze, said farmer Hank Peterson of Londonderry, N.H. Try a bottle of so-called table syrup, which is flavored with corn syrup and colored brown, and there is no comparison, he said. "Once they get a taste of the real stuff, they're hooked, and that's our future customer."
Peterson said the last few years have been hard on maple-syrup producers. Bad weather - usually too many warm nights or cold days in recent winters - has resulted in a shortage.
McCrumm said maple forests are also under stress from acid rain, road salt, and other pollutants. The average retail price for maple syrup is $46 a gallon, he said; last year, it was about $43 a gallon.
Still, Peterson said, he wouldn't do anything else. "There isn't a one of us who doesn't say, 'That's it; I'm not going to do it again,' at the end of the season," he said. "But come January next year, I'll be right down in the sugarhouse washing buckets."
For information on how to identify and tap maple trees, and for recipes using maple sugar and syrup, visit the website of the the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association at massmaple.org or the New Hampshire Maple Producers Association at nhmapleproducers.com