Tenneson family takes folks through the process
WHAT’S IN THERE? — Jamie Tenneson lifts the lid on a maple syrup bucket, so children can sample the fresh sap as it drips from the tree at The Evergreens on Sat., March 7. (Star Eagle photo by Melanie Piltingsrud)
By MELANIE PILTINGSRUD
Staff Writer
What major event happens between Valentine's Day and Easter? No, not Washington's birthday. Nor Mardi Gras, Ash Wednesday, nor even St. Patrick's Day. The event is syruping time!
The Tenneson family of The Evergreens Christmas tree farm took advantage of the cool nights and warming days to host Backyard Maple Syruping, a family friendly event, held on Saturday, March 7, showing visitors how to tap their own maple trees, and boil the sap down to make maple syrup.
The event began in an outbuilding at The Evergreens. Visitors, many of whom were children, sat on rows of benches and chairs as Jamie Tenneson explained the structure of a tree, and why sap runs in maple trees in late winter/early spring.
Tennyson said, “I drive through town and see people's houses with big maple trees in the front of their yards, and they could be getting the sap every spring, and boiling it down to make really yummy maple syrup. It's pretty easy to do, but a lot of people just don't know how to do it.
“Plants and trees are unique,” Tenneson explained, “because they can just stand out in the sun. When they're hungry, they use the sunshine to make food in their leaves, and it makes sugar. In Minnesota, where it gets cold in the winter, and the trees lose their leaves, they send that sap down to the roots, and it stays down there all winter long.” When it's still below freezing at night, but the days begin to warm in the spring, trees send their sap upward from the roots.
Tenneson showed audience members a slice from a tree trunk, called a 'cookie.' “The very inside part is called 'heartwood,” said Tenneson, comparing it to a human skeleton. “It's the strong part that holds the tree up.” The bark on the outside of the tree protects the rest of the tree from insects and disease. A tree can withstand small holes in its bark, such as a woodpecker might make, but, Tenneson said, “If you would take all the bark off, and peel it all around the tree, the tree would die because it wouldn't be able to grow that bark back again.
“Right inside the bark is a little layer called the phloem,” Tenneson continued. “That's where the sap flows down in the fall to go down to the roots. Next to the heartwood is another layer called the xylem.” Known as the sapwood, the xylem layer is where the sap comes up from the roots, and it is this layer that people drill into to collect sap to make maple syrup.
The cambium cell layer is the only living part of the tree. Tenneson explained, “The cambium grows new sap wood to the inside, and new phloem to the outside, and when the phloem and sapwood kind of get clogged up and sticky, the sapwood turns into the heartwood, and the phloem turns into bark.
“As the sap comes up from the roots, we're going to catch it,” Tenneson said, showing onlookers the buckets and special lids with spiles that are used to gather sap. A spile is like a small hose that takes the sap from the tree and allows it to run into a bucket underneath.
Tenneson explained that the first people who discovered sugar water in maple trees were the native Americans, who observed squirrels and other animals licking the sap from the ends of twigs they had nibbled. The native Americans also observed sapsuckers, a kind of woodpecker, which bores holes into the bark of maples, and then fly away, returning later to drink the dripping sap and eat the bugs that were attracted to it. The native Americans made their own spiles out of hollowed out twigs, and caught the sap in birch bark bowls. They would then place hot rocks into the bowls, boiling off all the water until it turned to sugar.
Once gathered outside, Tenneson showed visitors various ways to tell a maple tree from other types of trees when there are no leaves on them. She explained that, while some trees grow branches alternately – a lower branch, and then another higher up, etc. - others grow branches opposite each other. Both maples and ash trees grow branches opposite. “So that cuts it down to two kinds of trees,” said Tenneson. “Boxelders do, too, but boxelders are a kind of maple, so they can actually be tapped.” Tenneson said the bark of ash trees is a little deeper notched than that of maples, but recognizing the differences comes with experience.
How do you know a maple tree is old enough to tap? Because tapping a younger tree might kill it, a maple should be 10 inches in diameter before it is big enough to tap. “And for every five inches after that, you can do one tap,” said Tenneson.
Tenneson's 14-year-old son, Friedrich, drilled a small hole upward into the trunk of a maple tree as visitors watched. As Tenneson held a block of wood over the spile, one of the children tapped it with a hammer to insert the spile into the hole. Sap began dripping out immediately, and Tenneson encouraged each of the children to taste it.
“A good maple tree has two and three percent sugar,” said Tenneson. If a maple produces sap with two percent sugar, 98% of the sap is water. Tenneson introduced everyone to the “rule of 86,” which is divided by the percentage of sugar to calculate the number of gallons of sap needed to make one gallon of syrup. “86 divided by two percent would be 43, so it would take 43 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup.” With three percent sugar, it would take 29 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. The amount of sugar in the tree depends on where the tree lives and how healthy it is. “The amount of sugar in the sap makes a big difference in how long you're going to have to boil down your sap to make maple syrup.”
People who want to boil sap from a dozen trees or more do so outside, but, because their farm only has three maple trees, Tenneson boils the sap on her kitchen stove. “Keep the fan on high,” advised Tenneson, “because it will be a little sticky in the kitchen, but it's not terrible.”
It's also important to boil the sap as soon as it is gathered, because unboiled sap will only last for about four or five days before it goes bad.
How do you know when the syrup is, well, syrup? Tenneson said that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit. But the more sugar content in the water, the higher that temperature has to be in order to boil. “When it's boiling at 219 degrees, that's when you're good to take it off.
“And you know that you're done with the tapping when you start finding flies flying all around and ants crawling in and eating the sap,” said Tenneson, “and then the sap begins to turn red. When it comes out of the tree, it changes color, and then you know that the season's over.”
As everyone gathered again inside, Tenneson poured faintly sweet, fresh sap into plastic cups for everyone to taste. Once they had tasted that, she used a spoon to pour thick, homemade maple syrup into the cups, which tasted like maple candy.
One final thing Tenneson explained concerned the color of maple syrup, labeled 'Grade A' or 'Grade B.' “When you buy syrup at the store,” she said, “it's usually pretty dark, but, if you're going to buy real maple syrup, the best stuff is the lighter color.” Grade A syrup is made from syrup with a higher sugar content, which means it didn't have to be boiled as long to make syrup. Grade B syrup is made from sap with a lower sugar content, so it has to be boiled a lot longer. Tenneson's assessment? “I think they both taste good. You can taste a little bit of difference, but to me – I like it all.”