Font ResizeTHE SCOOP
What: 'It's Tree Tappin' Time' maple syrup programs
When: 10 a.m. March 15, 1 p.m. March 29
Where: Dodge Nature Center, 365 Marie Ave., West St. Paul
Cost: $7 per person or $15 per family
Information: 651-455-4531 or dodgenaturecenter.org
Target audience: All ages
Crowd pleaser: Tasting maple sugar
Avoid: Missing the window. Maple syrup season is over when the buds leaf out in late March or early April.
Tip: Wear warm clothes and boots for walking in mud.
Other maple syrup events, page 3E
By Maja Beckstrom
mbeckstrom@pioneerpress.com
You know spring is coming when the deer have dropped their antlers, the pussy willow buds pop and nature centers offer their annual maple syrup programs.
On the first day of March, my family followed naturalist Eloise Dietz down a muddy road at Dodge Nature Center in West St. Paul, past a red barn where a cow and a shaggy donkey lingered outside and through a frozen marsh to the "sugar bush," the name given to a grove of trees that are tapped for sap.
As a transplant from California, I didn't know much about maple trees, and my two boys and I were eager to learn how our pancake syrup gets on the table.
"It takes a lot of cookin' and a lot of sap to make syrup," Dietz explained to the three families that had turned out for the first maple sugar event of the season.
Sugar maple trees grow only in
Minnesota is a small player, with about 50 members in the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers' Association, but claims the distinction of being the farthest west and the farthest north of the sugar maple range.
LEARNING THE DRILL
Sugar maples have the highest concentration of sugar in their sap, but syrup can be made from other maple species, too. You just have to cook the sap longer. Dodge taps some sugar maples but mostly box elder, also in the maple family, since those are plentiful on the property.
"Keep the drill even and lean into it," Dietz instructed a young girl as she let each child in our group take a turn cranking the handle of a drill.
We drilled 2 inches into the tree, and Dietz helped a child hammer in a metal spout, called a spile. Many producers use a system of plastic tubing and plastic bags to collect sap. Dodge uses old-fashioned metal buckets. Dietz picked up some wood shavings that had dropped onto the snow at the base of the tree.
"They look pretty dry," she said, rubbing the pale curls between her gloved fingers. "We're right at the beginning of the season, and it's pretty chilly."
The sap wasn't flowing on the day we visited.
The alternating warm days and freezing nights of early spring are what trigger the sap run. When temperatures rise to about 32 degrees, sap thaws and gases in the tree expand. The building pressure pushes the sap through the tree and into the buds. When temperatures drop below freezing, the gases contract and the maple acts like a giant pump, pulling up water and sap through its roots.
Just as air hisses from a punctured tire, sap drips from a tap hole or from any other wound in the tree. It can drip for just a few hours in one day or up to days on end, depending on the weather. A good flow from one tree can produce 10 gallons of sap.
The season can stretch from late February to late March or early April. It's over when the trees leaf out and a chemical reaction turns the sap bitter. Maple sap is anywhere from 94 to 99 percent water, so a huge amount of water has to be boiled off. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.
HISTORY LESSON
American Indians were the first to cook down maple sap. They collected sap in birchbark buckets and processed it into sugar, which was easier to carry and store than syrup.
European settlers learned the technique and used maple syrup to sweeten not only flapjacks but also dishes like Abigail Adams' Boston baked beans.
Abolitionists later promoted maple syrup and sugar as a homegrown alternative to cane sugar, which was produced in the West Indies with slave labor.
Dodge Nature Center still boils a few batches of syrup the old-fashioned way in a large black cauldron outside over an open fire. The fires weren't burning the day we were there, but we still got to taste pure maple sugar.
And we enjoyed being outside. We saw coyote tracks in the snow and a trio of deer standing still as statues among the bare black trunks.
We also visited the sugarhouse, where the clear sap — it looks like water — is poured into a large metal evaporator and allowed to bubble. By the end of the season, the evaporator runs around the clock, billowing clouds of sweet-smelling steam into the frosty air.
As the sap cooks, it turns golden and acquires its characteristic maple taste. Then, the syrup is transferred to a finishing tank, where it is allowed to reach 219 degrees.
At the end of the 1 1/2-hour program, a volunteer passed a tray of mini paper cups filled with syrup. The box elder syrup was caramel brown, darker than the Grade A maple syrup our family uses on our waffles. And it had a more intense maple flavor that I liked.
"Mmmmm ... delicious," said my 5-year-old as he poked his tongue into the folds of his cup and lapped up every last drop of liquid gold.
AREA MAPLE SYRUP EVENTS
-- Carpenter St. Croix Valley Nature Center
Address: 12805 St. Croix Trail, Hastings
Contact: 651-437-4359 or carpenternaturecenter.org
Hours: 1 to 3 p.m. today and March 16
Cost: $5 for adults, $3 children younger than 10
Reservations: Required
Program: "Making Maple Syrup": Learn to identify maple trees, how syrup is made, tap trees and watch how sap is processed into sugar in evaporator.
-- Fort Snelling State Park
Address: 1 Post Road, off Minnesota 5 near Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport
Contact: 612-725-2389 or 612-725-2724 or dnr.state.mn.us
Hours: 1 p.m. today, Sunday, March 15-16, March 22-23, March 29-30
Cost: Free (with $5 state park daily permit)
Program: "Maple Syruping in Your Back Yard": Workshop appropriate for older children on the history of making syrup and how to tap trees and process sap.
-- Harriet Alexander Nature Center
Address: 2520 N. Dale St., Roseville
Contact: 651-765-4262 or ci.roseville.mn.us
Hours: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. March 15, 22 and 29
Cost: Free
Program: "Tree Tappin Time": Volunteers collect sap and cook maple syrup. Drop in to watch, ask questions and taste. (Note: Call Thursday or after each week to confirm weekend weather will allow tapping.)
-- Lee & Rose Warner Nature Center
Address: 15375 Norell Ave. N., Marine on St. Croix
Contact: 651-433-2427 ext. 10 or smm.org/ warnernaturecenter
Hours: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. March 16 and 23
Cost: $5 for adults, $3 for children 3-12 years, free for kids 2 and younger
Registration deadlines: March 13 and 20
Program: Maple syruping open house: Demonstrations every hour, on the hour. Learn the history of maple-syrup tapping, tap a tree, watch the sap cook and taste syrup. Arrive five minutes before program starts.
-- Maplewood Nature Center
Address: 2659 E. Seventh St., Maplewood
Contact: 651-249-2170 or ci.maplewood.mn.us
Hours: 1 to 4 p.m. March 29
Registration deadline: March 26
Cost: Free
Program: Maple sugar trip: Meet at nature center and carpool one hour to Ellsworth, Wis., where Lyle Stockwell, owner of SS Sugarbush, demonstrates how his family has tapped trees and made maple syrup for more than 100 years. Taste sap and syrup, see buckets and tubing and watch sap cook. Opportunity to buy syrup.
-- Wild River State Park
Address: On the St. Croix River, northeast of North Branch
Cost: Free (with $5 state park daily permit)
Hours: March 15 & April 5, March 16 & April 6, March 22 & April 12 or March 29 & April 13. March tapping dates start at 1 p.m.; April cooking dates run 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Program: "Maple Syrup From Tap to Table": Two-day, hands-on workshop lets you make maple syrup using techniques that have changed little in the past century. To earn your share of syrup to take home, you must attend a tapping workshop in March and a cooking workshop in April, and must schedule one additional visit to the park to help collect sap.
Registration: Required to participate, but anyone is welcome to drop by and watch without signing up.
Contact: Dave Crawford, park naturalist, at 651-583-2925 or at dave.crawford@dnr. state.mn.us.
-- More: Other state parks offer maple syrup demonstrations during March and early April. Check the Department of Natural Resources Web site at dnr.state.mn.us.
Some maple syrup producers are open during March and early April for tours and open houses and for buying syrup. For directories, check the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Producers Association Web site (wismaple.org) and the Minnesota Maple Syrup Producers Association (mnmaple.org).
