Page 295 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Canada

Collecting the Sap
The Maple Syrup Process sap rises. The sap is gathered over a period of about
Cuts are made low in the trunk of the maple trees
▼
sometime in the late winter or early spring as the
two to three weeks in buckets or in tubes and taken
directly to the sugar shack, where it is processed.

Maple-leaf-shaped Boiling the Sap
bottle of Canadian ▶ After the harvesting, the
maple syrup
excess water in the sap is
boiled down. Boiling maple sap
involves 84 pts (40 liters) of
sap to create 2.2 pts (1 liter)
Did You Know? of syrup. The sap bubbles over
a wood fire (maple wood is
The maple leaf is the best) until about 98 percent of
national symbol of its water content evaporates.
Canada, officially
established on the Stirring the Syrup
flag in 1965.
▼ Modern processes use mechanized evaporators
to boil the sap and draw off the steam, but even
hi-tech methods still require a final hand-stirred
simmering. The gold color and maple flavor
develop as distillation takes place.

Bottling
▶ Finally, the syrup is
graded according to
quality; clear golden
fluid, produced at
the start of the
season, is the
most prized, and is
Sugar shack, a building generally bottled.
used for making maple
syrup, in Elmira

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