1. Maple sap is a sweet, water like liquid that is collected from the maple trees.

2. Rock Maples make the best sugarmaples.

3. A high concentration of sugarmaples is called a sugarbush.

4. The building that the maple syrup is produced is called a sugarhouse.

5. The person who makes the maple syrup is called a sugarmaker.

5a. The person who consumes vast, gut-wrenching quantities of maple syrup is called a maple syrup lame-o.

6. Native Americans were the first sugarmakers and they taught the Europeans all about the process.

7. Native Americans and the first pioneers made maple sugar because it was easier for them to store.

8. Forty gallons of sap is gathered to make one gallon of maple syrup.

9. Maple sugar is made by boiling the syrup longer, to reduce the water content and then stirring until a sugar is formed.

10. Maple candy and maple cream are made of pure maple syrup. The difference is in the temperature the syrup is boiled, the cooling process and the stirring process.

11. The evaporator is the machine used today to boil away (or evaporate) the water from the sap, leaving the rich, sweet maple syrup.

12. All maple syrup regardless of it's grade is boiled to a density (or thickness) of 32.0 on the Baume scale. That temperature is 7 degrees above the boiling point of water.

13. In Vermont, there are four grades of maple syrup that you can purchase: Fancy, Grade A Medium Amber, Grade A Dark Amber and Grade B.

14. A maple tree should be about 40 years old or 8 inches in diameter to be tapped.

15. The sap "runs" when the temperatures fall below freezing at night and then thaws during the day. The freezing point is 32 degrees F.

16. Sugarmakers are always experimenting and looking for new ideas to take better care of the trees in their sugarbush.

17. The trees release their sap in the springtime (March to April) when they start to wake up from the long winter's nap.

18. Maple sap is what the tree uses to make buds.

19. When the trees have made buds, the time to sugar has stopped. The syrup will become very bitter to taste.

20. During the summer the trees make starch which is stored and turned to sugar.

21. Some sugarmakers still use buckets, but new, plastic tubing has allowed sugarmakers to tap trees that are difficult to visit each day that the sap runs.

22. When the sugarmaker sees sugarmaking weather coming in the next week, he taps his trees.

23. Trees are tapped by drilling a hole and inserting a spout to catch the sap in a bucket or pipeline. The spout is carefully tapped into the hole with a small hammer.

24. A new tap hole must be made each year.

25. Healthy trees heal old tap wounds within three years and have large crowns of branches and leaves during the summer.

26. Sugarmakers often walk their sugarwoods looking for signs of disease and determining the health of the trees.

27. For several months before the sap flows sugarmakers work in the woods every day, clearing branches off maple pipelines and roads that will be used during the sugaring season or repairing damage to their pipelines caused by the woodland animals.

28. After the maple season the sugarmaker spends many hours in the sugarhouse cleaning all the equipment so it will be in good repair for the next year.

29. If a sap run is long, a sugarmaker will work through the night and until morning making maple syrup.

30. Maple sap must be kept cold and processed right away to make the best quality maple syrup.

31. Vermont makes more maple syrup than any other state.

 

31 facts about maple syrup?

Go back to consolidating Omni posts!

 

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/100)

Do you know how long it took to read the facts on a Blackberry?

 

I once saw a painting of Canarsie jogging through the woods in April.

Its title was "Spring is Here and the Sap is Running".

 

A long time I hope.

FT is meant to be read on 23" LCD screens like the one I'm gazing at right now and not on some device that can't make up it's mind if it's an MP3 player, a computer or a telephone.

Prepare yourself for my next post which will be the unedited edition of War and Peace.

 

You should have said something

 

I read that book once. It's not a book I kept around thinking I'd read again.

 

I'm waiting. Is this somehow contingent on that 3 a.m. phone call, or did the spooks at Echelon get you before you could follow through?

 

Had to use the Blackberry because I treated myself to McCormicks and Schmicks. At least now I have the laptop up and running (on post-vacation vacation, so I don't have the 21 inch wide-panel like at home).

 

I was just pointing and laughing at another Echelon (the unfinished building that's still nicer than the adjacent Circus Circus). Don't think there are any spooks there, just shattered dreams.

 

Of course maple syrup will freeze solid. You just have to get it cold enough.

I'll leave the discussion of exactly what a "frozen liquid" is to someone else. But I will say that I've gotten some past TSA without any questions. You probably have, too.

 

Yeah.

I just looked it up on www.maplesyrupfreezingpoint.com and it said the freezing point was -378 degrees Fahrenheit. Just slightly warmer than liquid nitrogen.

Very easily obtainable in the average home freezer prior to a trip through TSA security.

 

We have a large tank of it (semi-trailer size) outside our plant. Bring your own jars.

 

We use liquid Nitrogen to insulate liquid Helium so there might be a bit to spare on the next fill.

Dov, with respect to syrup, my brother-in-law has a sizeable production run so ask and ye shall receive! This year is looking to be a good producing year.

 

So why do you need DL? With that Helium, you could just fly your own private blimp.

In fact, that's an idea for a business we could start. Corporate jets have gotten a bad rap of late (thanks to the auto execs flying to D.C.). We could start a corporate blimp service, sort of like NetJets, and promote it as being more socially conscious, green and responsible. We could make a killing!

Who wants to write the biz plan so we can get some venture capitalists to put up a half billion? And then we could get Mikey1003 and GUWonder to design our frequent blimpers awards program...