February 4, 2010
I spent two hours at Rockwoods Reservation in an advance training class learning about their maple sugar program. Three local Missouri Master Naturalist Chapters were represented.
We gathered around a fire and listened to park naturalist, Kevin McCarthy talk about the history of everything maple-sugar, syrup, preparation...
This is a bucket of fresh maple sap. It is mostly water and doesn't have much of a sweet flavor (yet!).
The oven in the sugar shack. This is where the magic takes place-maple sap becomes maple syrup. It goes from clear to amber, water to caramel, boring to delicious. It takes 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup! Because 39 gallons are evaporating, this is a process best left for the outdoors. All of that evaporation could do some serious damage to one's home!
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