To celebrate Michigan’s oldest agricultural activity, more than 20 members of the Michigan Maple Syrup Association invite Michiganders to experience this unique process during the Annual Michigan Maple Syrup Weekend.
Upper Peninsula: April 11-12
- Besteman Maple Products, Rudyard
- Michigan Maple Farms, Rudyard
- MSU Forestry Innovation Center, Escanaba
- Postma Brothers Maple Syrup, Rudyard
- Twisted Tap Sugar Shack, Pickford
The respective farms (listed below and attached) offer a variety of family-friendly activities that provide a chance for people to get a firsthand look at how maple sap is collected, boiled down and turned into sweet maple syrup and other maple treats.
Many of the farms offer tours of their operation, including tree tapping demonstrations, samples of their products, recipes for the use of maple syrup and local maple syrup products available to purchase. Attendees are reminded to wear boots as mud and snow may still be abundant this time of the year.
Later in the season, two well-established festivals are also planned including the Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival (April 24-26) and Shepherd Maple Syrup Festival (April 26-26).
Pure Michigan Maple Syrup Facts
- There are an estimated 500 commercial maple syrup producers in Michigan with some 2,000 additional hobby or home-use producers.
- Michigan law requires that processor of maple syrup must be licensed.
- Only about 1 percent of Michigan’s maple forest resource is used in maple syrup production.
- Maple syrup is the first farm crop to be harvested in Michigan each year – starting in February in the southern counties and running well into April in the Upper Peninsula.
Maple Sugaring Tidbits
- The production of pure maple syrup is the oldest agricultural enterprise in the United States, dating back to the earliest Native Americans.
- Warm sunny days and freezing nights determine the length of the maple season.
- Freezing and thawing temperatures create pressure and force the sap out of the tree – with a very rapid rise in temperature (25 to 45 degrees) to enhance the sap flow.
- While the sugaring season may last 6-10 weeks, the heavy sap may run only 10-20 days.
- The budding of maple trees makes the maple syrup taste bitter. Thus, production ceases.
- A maple tree needs to be about 35-40 years old and have a diameter of 10 inches before tapping is recommended.
- In an average year, each taphole will produce about 10 gallons of maple sap, enough for about a quart of maple syrup.
- It takes approximately 40 gallons of maple sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup.
- Maple sap is a slightly sweet, colorless liquid with an average sugar concentration of 2-3%.
- A gallon of standard maple syrup weighs 11 pounds and has a sugar content of 66.5%.
- Maple syrup has 50 calories per tablespoon and is fat-free. It has no additives, no added coloring and no preservatives.
- Maple syrup is classified as one of nature’s most healthful foods.
- Maple syrup has may minerals per tablespoon: 20 milligrams of calcium, 2 milligrams of phosphorus, 0.2 milligrams of iron, 2 milligrams of sodium, 35 milligrams of potassium.
- Maple sap is boiled to remove the water and concentrate the sugars in a process called evaporation.
- In a conventional evaporator one cord of hard wood is required for every 25 gallons of syrup produced.
- Tubing collection systems with vacuum can increase average sap yields approximately 50 percent.
- Maple sap becomes maple syrup when boiled to 219 degrees Fahrenheit, or 7 degrees above the boiling point of water.
- Maple syrup is one of the few agricultural crops in which demand exceeds supply.
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