The Fun of Making Maple Syrup

March 15, 2024March 13, 2024 Cottage Country 76 Views 439 Highway 7A, award-winning, BBQ, boiled, boiler, bucket, Canada, Cavan, CCC Publications, chefs kiss, Communities in Cottage Country, Community, cottage, Cottage Country, Cottage Country Connection, cottage country lifestyle, Cottage Country Lifestyle Magazine, Cottage Country Magazine, Cottage Life, deck, delicious, Easter, evaporator, Facebook, family, February, gift shops, grocery stores, home, Instagram, Jill Staples, Kawartha Lakes, kawartha magazine, Kawarthas, Kawarthas Magazine, Kids, kitchen, Kyoto Coffee, Lifestyle Magazine, magazine, magic, March, Ontario, outdoor, pancakes, Peterborough Farmers Market, pipeline, recipe, sap, sausage, scale, season, shop local, shopping, spile, spring, Staples Maple Syrup, sticky, sugar bush, sweet, Syrup, taps, Things to do, Your Lifestyle Magazine

What screams spring is here more than Maple Syrup! As a child I have fond memories of spending Easter at a family Sugar Bush. Sticky sweet syrup over the fluffiest of pancakes – or my personal favourite, a little breakfast sausage dipped in the sweet stuff. *chefs kiss*

Here at the magazine we have linked up with Maple Syrup Family the Staples, who are well-known in our area for providing many locals with the best Maple Syrup one could ask for. Jill Staples told us that this is the earliest they have seen the sap run – January 30th 2024 to be exact! Generally sap begins to run with the warmer weather of February and sometimes into March. What a sweet start for 2024!

Jill also gave me the lowdown on the basics of making sweet maple magic.

First you need to tap the maple trees with a spile and bucket to collect the sap. Once you have collected enough sap to boil, then the work of boiling it down to syrup begins. Jill warns that this is an outdoor job; if you boil down in the kitchen, everything will become sticky. Choose an outdoor boiler, or BBQ and big pot. It takes 40 litres of sap to make 1 litre of syrup, and about 4-6 hours of boiling. Be sure not to boil too hard or long, as the syrup will boil over or burn! Finished product is when the syrup is 7 degrees above the boiling point of water or a density of 66. Be sure to bottle the finished product hot (180 degrees), or store in the fridge or freezer to keep from spoiling.

These are the basics of making maple syrup on a small scale, the Staples on the other hand produce on a large scale. They have 3500 taps which produces approx. 3500 litres of delicious syrup per year. They have a fully automated system of pipeline with monitors that send alerts to their phone if trouble arises, and it is boiled on a 4×14 evaporator, then hot packed at 180 degrees requiring all hands on deck for the family during the busy season.

Staples Maple Syrup is a family run business based out of Cavan, Ontario. You can find Staples award winning syrup in local grocery stores, Kyoto Coffee, and gift shops, and also at the Peterborough Farmers Market every week.

Be sure to follow them on Facebook and Instagram

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