Victor woman taps into syrup secrets

VICTOR — To maple or not to maple, that is the question in syrup making, according to Master Gardener Elisa Bardole.

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Bardole’s maple syrup presentation at Victor Public LIbrary last week was the first Master Gardeners presentation of 2025.

The sap from a maple tree is 2% sugar, Bardole told her audience Saturday. “They are the ideal trees to use,” she said.

“I use red and silver maple at my house,” said Bardole. She also taps her walnut trees.

“I’m not a black walnut fan of the nut,” said Bardole. Her husband likes walnuts, but she doesn’t, so she’s happy to have found another use for those trees.

The syrup from a walnut tree doesn’t taste like the nut, said Bardole. She can’t tell a difference between syrup from a walnut and syrup from a maple and will combine the sap when she’s low on one kind or another.

Sap can also be collected from birches, sycamores and alders. Bardole has heard that syrup from sycamores have a butterscotch flavor. She planted one a couple of years ago, but it's not big enough to tap yet.

A tree should be at least six inches in diameter before it’s tapped, said Bardole. As the tree gets bigger, it can take several taps.

Forty gallons of sap from a maple makes one gallon of syrup, Bardole said. More sap is required from other trees because the sugar content of their sap is not as high.

Making maple syrup is not a cheap hobby to start, said Bardole. You have to buy drill bits, spiles, bags or buckets and tubing to collect the sap, pots in which to boil it down, a thermometer or refractometer and filters.

You’ll also need jars in which to can the syrup or freeze it. Bardole said. She finds everything she needs at Theisen’s.

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Bardole hangs large blue bags on the trees that produce a lot of sap. The bags have to be replaced every year or so because they wear out as they rub against the trees, Bardole said.

Bardole uses tubing and buckets to collect sap from trees that don’t produce sap as quickly.

Regardless of the type of spiles used, they are placed at an upward angle. Gravity delivers the sap to the collection containers.

“Mine are quiet right now,” Bardole said during the Feb. 8 presentation.

Iowa is Iowa, and the weather determines when sap flows. The tree should be in the sun, and the ambient temperature should be below freezing at night and above freezing during the day so the sap will flow.

Bardole tapped one of her maples two weeks earlier and it had produced nothing. This year may have had too many warm spells, said Bardole. The trees may be out of sync.

The black walnut was doing fine, she said.

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Bardole pours sap from her bags and smaller buckets into a larger bucket which she keeps in the shade so the sap stays frozen. Sap can be stored outside — or in a root cellar or cold garage — seven to 10 days, said Bardole.

Then Bardole moves the sap to smaller containers which she freezes. She’ll partially thaw the sap, pour off the liquid, refreeze it, thaw it again and pour off the liquid off a second time.

The ice crystals separate from the liquid sap, leaving behind a more concentrated sugar solution which requires less boiling time when the sap is processed.

Bardole didn’t do the partial thaw the first year she made syrup, and it took about 15 hours to process the sap. With the partial thaw method, she’s reduced processing to about 11 hours, she said.

“I will end up with five to 10 gallons of sap I’m going to use,” said Bardole. She makes eight or nine jars of syrup, “which works just fine for us. I just do it for us.”

Bardole usually processes the sap on a weekend when she has a lot of time to devote to it.

Bardole doesn’t recommend boiling the sap in the house because it can make everything sticky. She had a stove installed in her garage for syrup making.

Bardole boils the sap in large pots and adds sap as it boils down. The sap is clear when it comes out of the tree, but it takes on a caramel color as it boils down.

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Once she gets the sap boiled down to one big stock pot, Bardole takes it inside and starts sterilizing jars, but she’s still got two hours of boiling before the sap reaches the right sugar content.

Bardole runs the sap through a filter, but she’s not fanatical about it. There’s nothing wrong with having some “sugar sand” at the bottom, she said.

Bardole uses a refractometer to determine when the syrup is ready for canning. A refractometer should show 66-68% sugar content, according to USDA and Canadan standards, she said.

“I like that method better than the thermometer” said Bardole. If you miss the correct temperature, it crystalizes and you’ve made maple sugar.“

Bardole removes the syrup from the heat, pours it into jars and screws on the lids. Bardole doesn’t use a water bath because the heat from the syrup seals the jars.

She uses a ceiling fan to cool the jars.

“This method works for me” Bardole said, but there are many ways to store maple syrup.

“You can freeze this too, if you don’t can,” said Bardole. “I’ve never frozen it.”

The syrup won’t freeze solid because of the sugar content, she said.

Syrup will keep in the refrigerator for a year even if it's not canned or frozen, she said.

Once trees start budding, syrup makers should stop collecting sap, Bardole said. The trees will need it.

Trees heal quickly when the tap is removed, she said.

Making her own syrup is time consuming, said Bardole, but she’d rather make it herself because she knows what’s in it.

“I’ve been doing it for years, and I’ll never go back to store bought,” Bardole said.