Making Maply Syrup - Somerset County's Richest Tradition

Somerset County, the Roof Garden of Pennsylvania, has long been recognized as the Commonwealth's largest producer of maple products.

Obtained from the sugar maple, one of the most beautiful and stately of American trees, maple syrup was first made by the Indians and continued by the white settlers who followed. The making of maple syrup is truly an American art.

The American Indians celebrated the "maple moon" or "sugar moon" as the return of spring. They hacked the maple trees with tomahawks and collected the sugar water in troughs or crude vessels. The Indians condensed sugar water or sap by dropping heated stones in wooden troughs containing the liquid. The maple industry faced many changes over the years. Hand augers and later power drills were used to drill holes in the maple trees. Into these holes were inserted wooden, and later metal, spiles to catch the sugar water as it dripped, drop by drop, into wooden, metal and later, plastic buckets, known in Somerset County as "keelers". Also, a newer method being used in some maple groves is plastic tubing, which transfers sap from the tree to central gathering tanks.

This process, called tapping, will not harm the trees. If a tree is 10 inches in diameter, it can support one tap; 15 inches, 2 taps; and 20 inches, three taps. An average maple tree will produce15 gallons of sap from each taphole per season.

When the weather is such that there is a freeze at night and a thaw during the day, the sap collecting and gathering follows. Men with carrying pails collect from each tree and empty the buckets into covered tanks hauled on trucks or by tractor. Much sap is pumped from roadside tanks into a tank truck, to be hauled to central storage tanks at the "Sugar House." These have germicidal lamps over them to prevent bacterial growth until sap can be evaporated.

Unlike the Indians, who used heated stones to evaporate sugar-water and the settlers who used large iron kettles fired with wood, we now use fuel oil to boil the water. As the sap flows along in a constant boil, the water escapes in the form of steam, and the liquid becomes sweeter and changes to an amber color with the increasing sugar content. As it comes from the tree and enters the evaporator, sap has about 2 to 2 1/2% sugar content. After this boiling process, it leaves the evaporators with a sugar content of over 65%. Thus, one gallon of maple syrup weighing eleven pounds was condensed from 40 to 50 gallons of sugar water. Then transferred to flat pans for final finishing, the syrup is forced through special filters to remove any accumulated sediment and stored in 550 gal. sterile metal tanks, which have germicidal lamps under the lids. Later it is pumped back to finishing pans, reheated to 185 degrees F, refiltered through pressure filters, and packed into cans, bottles, ceramic or plastic containers.

This final packaging is carried on throughout the entire year and employs several people. After packaging it may travel halfway around the world by mail, or it may appear on your grocer's shelf in your home town.