How a Maple Syrup Evaporator Works

How Maple Syrup Begins

Real maple syrup starts out as sap that's collected from trees that are tapped in the winter months. The sap drains into buckets that are hung from the spouts inserted into the trees. It takes many gallons of sap to produce a single gallon of maple syrup; this is part of the reason why real maple syrup costs so much more than the maple-flavored syrup substitute found in most grocery stores. The other reason for the cost difference is the amount of labor that goes into turning the sap into syrup.

Boiling Down the Sap

When a bucket fills with maple sap, the sap is collected and dumped into a holding tank. Once the holding tank is full, the sap is transported to a sugaring house, where all of the equipment is kept. The sap is poured into a maple syrup evaporator; that's where it is boiled down. The evaporator is crucial to the maple-syrup-production process. Maple sap is mostly water, and all of this water must be boiled out of the sap to concentrate the sugars into syrup.

How the Evaporator Turns Sap Into Syrup

When the sap is poured into the maple syrup evaporator, it is first heated through with steam. The evaporator produces steam, and a series of pipes transports the cold sap through this steam. Once the sap is heated to almost boiling by the steam, it is delivered to large, flat pans where it is boiled until the water evaporates, leaving the sugary syrup behind. The syrup is then drawn into containers and filtered to remove any impurities. After it's filtered, the syrup is bottled and ready to consume.

Resources

• Vermont Maple Syrup
• RealMapleSyrup.com