Beaver Lake Nature Center shows the community how to make maple syrup in their own backyard

By Riley Bunch

Contributing Writer

Early spring temperatures this year have caused the snow trails of Beaver Lake Nature Center to begin to melt and the sap for maple syrup production to start flowing a month in advance. Now, on weekends all throughout March, the community has been invited to share in the sugarbush experience through demonstrations by expert staff.

After a short walk into the forests of the nature center, following the golden maple leaves posted on the trees, visitors can find multiple stations set up to educated them on the history of maple syrup and demonstrations on how to make their own.

Traditionally, sap starts flowing up to feed the buds of the sugar maple trees from the third week in February to the first week in April. The past two years have proven different, with sap starting its flow as early as mid-January.

Peeling bark is the telltale sign that a tree is ready to be tapped. Beaver Lake Nature Center, which only taps sugar maples, starts tapping a tree for its sap when its size has reached 12 inches in diameter, which can take up to 30 years of growing.

“It’s like donating blood. We don’t harm the trees,” said Ken Weston, station leader and nature center volunteer. “We never take more than 10 percent.”

Weston has years of experience. In high school, he worked for a man who owned a sugarbush. Often he would find himself checking upwards of 125 trees per day during sap collecting season.

At the first station of the maple demonstration, Weston pours fresh sap into small Dixie cups for the group to try. Surprisingly, the liquid is clear and very low in density. Similar looking to sugar water, fresh sap is 98 percent water.

A quick walk to the next station brings the group face-to-face with veteran volunteer Tony Vertucci, who began helping in many aspects of the nature center in 1996.

“So what do you want to know about tapping trees?” Vertucci asked, drill in hand. “It’s not about age, it’s about size.”

Vertucci explained how large maple syrup-producing companies run pipes from tree to tree collecting sap as soon as it begins to flow. On the other hand, the small production scale at Beaver Lake gives them the opportunity to start tapping trees after the season has begun, when they are ready, not when the tree is. Their backyard operations run day-to-day and primarily by hand.

Vertucci demonstrated drilling about two and a half inches deep into the tree and removing it to start the flow of sap to be collected by a bucket.

“I tell people not to crank the drill backward as they remove it, but keep it going forward to pull out all the shavings,” Vertucci said while sharing a variety of tips and tricks. It is important, he said, to make sure the spiel you put in your tree is a tight fit, so your bucket doesn’t fall off while you’re not around.

In a high-producing year, each tap in will give about 10 gallons of sap. The ratio needed to make maple syrup is 40 gallons of sap for every one gallon of syrup. After you’re done, there’s no need to patch the tree; it will heal itself in two years.

“So, you put the tap in the tree, put the bucket on the tap and sit back and let mother nature do what she does,” said Vertucci.

The process is far from over after collecting the sap; in fact it has just begun. Ben Towbridge, one of the associate naturalists at Beaver Lake, was on boiling duty for the day.

“It’s an all-day affair. Whoever gets boiling duty for the day is going to be there for a while,” said Towbridge as he carefully loaded firewood into the backyard-style boiler.

Homemade maple syrup boilers consisting of a large metal vat propped carefully on top of a fire are very labor intensive. The process can take up to a full day to boil one batch of sap. The boiling allows the liquid to evaporate its water contents and thicken until it runs like a “curtain.”

Towbridge carefully watches and tests the viscosity until the liquid has a higher sugar content. Higher-tech evaporators allow a constant flow of syrup in and out of the machine yielding higher production rates.

The small-scale operation of Beaver Lake does not produce enough maple syrup to sell in its gift shop. The primary goal of maple syrup production at the nature center is to show people how to make syrup in their own backyard. A gallon of such carefully processed syrup can cost up to $55.