Maple syrup is a sweetener made from the sap of maple trees. It is most often eaten with pancakes or waffles, but can also be used as an ingredient in baking or in preparing desserts.
Real maple syrup comes from eastern Canada, particularly Quebec, and the northern United States, especially New England, New York State and the Great Lake states. Most maple trees, even boxelders, can be used as a source of sap, but sugar maple and black maple are the most favored.
Production is concentrated in February, March and April, depending on local weather conditions. To make the syrup, holes are bored into the maple trees and hollow tubes termed spiles or spouts are inserted. These drip the sap into buckets or into plastic pipes.The sap is fed from the storage tank to a flat stainless steel pan to boil it down until it forms a sweet syrup. The sap/syrup flows among the baffles of the pan, gradually becoming sweeter as it flows, and is drawn off when it is a minimum 66% sugar content. The process is slow, because most of the water has to boil out of the sap before it is the right consistency. It takes approximately 40 litres of sap to make one litre of maple syrup.
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