by Joshua Krause, Ready Nutrition:
The freshest, unprocessed, maple syrup comes directly from trees and you can tap into all of that yummy goodness yourself! Not only does maple syrup taste great, but it can be a potent natural medicine with additional health benefits as well!
The sap in trees contains water and dissolved sugars and other nutrients that travel up towards the branches, feeding the developing leaves. But surprisingly, sap is only about 2% sugar or sucrose depending on the species of tree and is also good for bone health. It has been shown to contain 16 times the potassium, 37 times the calcium, and 3.9 times the magnesium of spring water. All 3 of these minerals are essential nutrients for optimal bone health. Just as calcium and potassium are two minerals that function in supporting optimal bone health, they also play a role in regulating blood pressure. Sap also supports a healthy immunes system and is an antioxidant!
*Sap is a clear fluid and it looks like water.
*Other trees to tap include: Heart Nut, Butternut, Beechnut, Hickory, Sycamore, Hop Hornbeam, Bow Elder, Alder, Elm, Gorosoe, Linden or Basswood, and Palm
Sugar Maple tree pictured below:
If you’d like to try to tap a tree and harvest some delicious and nutritious sap for syrup, choose trees that are at least 12-inches in diameter and not diseased or damaged. If a tree is larger, about 24-inches in diameter or more, you can use more than one tap.
You also should bear in mind that most trees are tapped in the early spring (from February through March) depending on the type of tree and your location. Trees are best tapped when the temperature is warm during the day and still cold at night. Typically, the sap flows best with these fluctuations in temperature because this gives the sap a chance to flow up during the day, and down at night. Sap flow usually lasts for about 5 weeks.
First, you’ll need to gather a few supplies:
Make sure you’ve properly sterilized the drill bit, spile(s), buckets, hose, and containers.
If you don’t have anywhere locally that sells spiles, try Amazon. There are several options to choose from. These come as a “tapping kit” with a corresponding hose.
Once you’ve gathered the supplies necessary and know which tree you’re going to tap, it’s time to get started! You can watch the entire process in the video below:
Once you’ve retrieved your tree sap, you have a few options. You can either drink the sap straight from the tree or boil it down into delicious syrup. Some suggest you always boil tree sap to remove any micro-organisms that could be living in the liquid, however, use your best judgment.
For a gallon of maple syrup, you’ll need about 40 gallons of sap. Depending on how many trees you’ve tapped and how much sap they produced this is entirely feasible. Turning sap into syrup is the simple process of boiling the water off so you’re left with the sugary thick and almost candy-like syrup we all are familiar with.
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