Saturday we went to Stratford Woods for a maple syrup event. They were serving organic, whole wheat pancakes with real locally made maple syrup, farm-fresh sausage and coffee. Delicious!
After breakfast, we took a walk through the site to see how maple syrup is made. Throughout the property, maple trees had been tapped and white plastic buckets mounted to collect the tree sap.
Farther down the trail, we came to the “sugar shack”. Buckets full of sap were collected from the maple trees. Next the maple sap was filtered to remove impurities and debris. Then it was added to a maple syrup evaporator. The evaporator was heated with a wood burning fire. Maple sap was added at one end. The sap gently flow towards the other end due to a slight slope, the sap boiling and becoming more concentrated in the process.
Periodically a sample of the maple syrup is pulled from the evaporator and the maple sugar content is measured with a floating instrument called a hydrometer. The operator uses the hydrometer to see how much of the sap is sugar. When the sap is collected from a tree, it is only 1 to 2% sugar. It’s necessary to evaporate most of the water away to make syrup. Once the liquid is 67% sugar, it’s officially maple syrup — time to bottle it and pour over pancakes.
Maple syrup events occur throughout the state from about mid-February through the end of March. At the beginning of February, we update our article, Ohio Maple Syrup Events, so that it lists the events being held that year.
Additional information
- TrekOhio: Ohio Maple Syrup Events
- TrekOhio: Stratford Woods
- TrekOhio: Delaware County Parks & Preserves
More on Delaware County
Emily Traphagen Preserve
Autumn Visit to Char-Mar Ridge Preserve
Heronry in Delaware County
Shale Hollow Preserve
I love maple syrup and the process. The meal looks delicious!
It was delicious! And it was fun going for a stroll on the property. Besides checking out the sugar maple operations, we got to see the baby lambs and other farm animals. I’m probably going to post about that later today.
BTW your comment was the 1000th comment posted at our blog. 😀
1,000?! YAY! So happy to hear that. And congratulations to you and your husband!
what a cool experience to see! thanks for sharing.
Your welcome, Donna. Thanks for stopping by.
yummy food and add the people and you have a perfect day.
And surprisingly I’ve read that maple syrup is actually good for you: Maple syrup joins ranks of broccoli and blueberries as new 'one-stop shop' superfood | Mail Online
I enjoy all the extra details and information along with the wonderful photographs. Do you know is this will be a good year for Ohio maple syrup production?
Patricia
We were told that they were able to starting tapping early as its been a mild winter in Ohio. Don’t know about Ohio production – you might want to check the Ohio Maple Producers Association site later in the spring for a crop report.
Yummy. I can almost taste it! Thanks for taking us along on the trip.
Thanks, glad you liked the post. Deb is planning a follow-up on Stratford Woods which is a real working farm.