How Maple Syrup is Made – The Maple Syrup Journey or A Journey of a Thousand Drops! –
Every spring maple syrup producers set out on a journey to make maple syrup. The journey starts with tapping maple trees and the journey continues collecting the thousands of gallons of maple sap and pumping it over and over until it reaches the maple syrup evaporator. There the maple sap boils until it becomes syrup. The syrup is then filtered, re-heated and bottled before it reaches the table.
Take the journey with us on our farm and see how maple syrup is made, including tapping trees with primitive tools, listening to sounds of spring as sap drips in the buckets and flow into tanks. See how the evaporator is fired with a wood fire and boiled and how the canning process works in this journey or real maple syrup – the journey of a thousand drops!
This was recorded on our farm and around our area as we got ready for the maple season, tapped our trees and boiled our sap.
For those looking for a description of what is going on, turn on closed captions.
Are there health benefits to real maple syrup? Here’s a video I did a couple of years ago looking at what research is showing.
One example of research is an April 2016 study in Quebec showing that maple syrup had potential benefits for ALS patients. The lab study showed that worms who were fed a diet high in maple syrup had lower incidents of ALS paralyzation. Of course humans can’t consume all that sugar, but researchers felt the results were promising.
Maple syrup extracts have also been shown to improve the efficacy of antibiotics. McGill researchers in 2015 released a study indicating that maple syrup extracts when added to antibiotics could improve the antibiotics efficacy. The researchers indicated the clinical trials would need to be done but this was a good start.
In 2016 a group of researchers released a body of research at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting showing support for the beneficial effects of natural products on neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s. The findings revealed the potential protective effect maple syrup may have on brain cells against damage.
In another study, researchers analyzed the effects of maple syrup on the cell proliferation, migration and invasion of colorectal cancer (or CRC) cells in order to investigate whether maple syrup is suitable as a phytomedicine for cancer treatment. CRC cells that were administered maple syrup showed significantly lower growth rates than cells that were administered regular sucrose.
Maple syrup syrup researchers also found surprising results when it came to the glycemic impact of maple syrup. At the International Society of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics annual meeting, researchers showed a favorable link between maple syrup and metabolic health. They observed a weak glycemic response to real maple syrup, which would be beneficial at the metabolic level. Indeed, greater glycemic increases lead to higher insulin demands, thereby contributing to pancreatic fatigue, which in turn speeds up the development of type 2 diabetes.
Maple syrup also contains many antioxidants. If you looking for a product to add antioxidants to your diet, maple syrup contains over 20, 13 of which can only be found in maple syrup.
As you can see, maple syrup is a complex sweetener and while more research and studies are needed, the early results are promising. Your purchase of real maple syrup from producers not can benefit you but others as well.
For more information, please see the links below in the description or visit us online at RealMapleSyrup.com.
Here are some amazing facts about maple syrup that you may or may not know that I compiled. If there is a good response, I might put together some other videos as there are tons of amazing facts about maple syrup.
We produce maple syrup on our farm in northeastern Connecticut and have three generations of sugar makers on our farm!
Maple Sugaring (maple syrup production) in the 1820s –
In New England and other parts of northeastern North America maple syrup is produced each spring. Here’s some footage we shot of how they boiled the sap in the 1820s at Old Sturbridge Village in Sturbridge, MA.
In the 1800s we actually produced as much maple syrup as we did until about 10 years ago. Every farm would have a kettle and eventually an evaporator to boil the sap from maple trees to produce maple sugar. This was before sugar was widely available and it gave us sugar that could be used and produced right on the farm.
We continue the tradition ourselves on our farm but this gives us a glimpse of our past. Check out our maple sugaring videos showing our current operation.
Here’s another video showing the inside story of how maple syrup is made.
Sugar makers often talk about “sweetening their pans”. We shot this video to show what that is all about. The raw sap comes in one portion but as more water is removed it is near syrup where it is drawn off.
In the video you can see that sap gets darker (we were making dark syrup this day) as it moves through the evaporator.