KIRTLAND, Ohio — As the temps rise this weekend, crews at Lake Metroparks Farmpark are working hard sugaring and pumping out maple syrup for their Maple Sugaring Weekends.
Maple syrup goes through a process before it’s that sugary deliciousness that you put on your pancakes. First, it starts as sap in a Maple tree. The tree is then tapped and sap slowly comes out.
“So I’m going to take a drill. I’m going to tap the tree right about here, I got to tap this tree a little bit to hang the bucket up for the season,” said Andy McGovern, the Lake Metroparks farm parks event manager.
It takes 40 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of maple syrup. You can make the syrup one of two ways: The old fashion way over a back yard cooker or you can do it the more professional way.
“So we have a line systems behind us which is one of the professional ways of doing it. It's completely enclosed and it's a small vacuum system. So it’s gently drawing sap out of the trees, then comes to one collection point and then you could just basically pump it up to the sugar house and you start pouring in our burner,” said McGovern.
The sugar house is where gallons and gallons of sap are boiled, filtered, tested and finally served up. You can get your fresh syrup in jars or as candy and you can only find it during the spring time.
“So, you got to look for the warm days and the cold nights. When you do that, you need to gather 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon maple syrup. So, it can only happen in the springtime because once the SAP reaches the buds of the trees, syrup gets really bitter,” said McGovern.
In other words, get it while you can. For more info on Lake Metro Parks Farmpark, Click here.
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