The Sweet Stuff

Posted on Tuesday March 20th, 2007 at 3:45 PM (March 20th, 2007)

You know it's Springtime in Central New York when the maple sap flows. Warm days and freezing nights are needed in order to induce sap flows. Any kind of maple can produce sap but usually only Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum) are "tapped" because of the high sugar content in the sap.

A maple syrup production farm is called a sugarbush or the sugarwoods. Sap is boiled in a "sugar house" (also known as a "sugar shack" ), a building which is louvered at the top to vent the steam from the boiling maple sap.
The process is slow, because most of the water has to boil out of the sap before it is the right density. It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup, and a mature sugar maple produces about 10 gallons of sap during the 4-6 week sugaring season.

eXplore! was invited to bring a camera to one of the areas finest sugar shacks. We enjoyed the hospitality of Tibbitts Maple Products of New Hartford NY.

We encourage eXplore! viewers to celebrate the arrival of Spring by enjoying some LOCALLY produced maple syrup.

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