Food Spotlight: Maple syrup

Maple syrup is one of the oldest agricultural commodities produced in the United States and Canada, mostly in Vermont, Maine, New York, and Quebec.  Native Americans taught sugaring to the settlers.

Maple sap looks, feels, and tastes a lot like water, and in fact straight from the tree it's only 2 to 3 percent sugar.  Most popular maple tree used is Acer saccharum. To get it, you drill a hole with a 7/16-inch bit into a maple tree that's at least 10 inches in diameter.  You drive an iron spigot called a spile into the hole, then either hang a bucket on it or attach a tube system.  You do this in the early spring when the temperatures drop well below freezing at night but rise above freezing in the daytime.  <sap is collected from first major thaw until leaf buds burst at which point the tree fluids carry substances that give syrup a harsh flavor.>
*40 parts sap: 1 part syrup

Syrup is graded according to flavor, color, and intensity.  The grades do not have anything to do with quality or purity, as they all have the same sugar content (62% sucrose, 34% water, 3%glucose/fructose, trace amts of acids and amino acids).  Grade A assigned to lighter, more delicately flavored, sometimes less concentrated syrups that are pouring directly on foods.  Grades B and C are stronger in caramel flavor and are more often used for cooking.

GRADE A: LIGHT AMBER
Light, mild, delicate maple flavor.  Usually boiled from sap gathered at the beginning of the season.  Good for use in cakes and pastries, but way too weak for pancakes.
GRADE A: MEDIUM AMBER
This is the most popular grade in the United States.  It's a bit darker than light amber and delivers a more distinct maple flavor.  It's produced during the middle of the season.
GRADE A: DARK AMBER
Just like medium amber only more so.  Usually produced a little later in the season.  Good on pancakes and waffles.
GRADE B/C
Very dark and very strong.  Made from the very last sap of the season and used mostly for baking or glazing.

Science Explained
-Why the darker amber color across grades?
%sugar declines as season progresses from ~3 % at beginning down to ~1% at end, so late season sap must be boiled longer and thus is darker and strongly flavored.  Longer and hotter boiling promotes sugar caramelization and browning reactions between the sugars and amino acids.

-What are browning reactions?
Browning Reactions in Food  or See Blog: Browning Reactions

-Some recipes call for maple sugar.  How is that made?
Maple sugar is made by concentrating the syrup's sucrose to the point that it will crystallize when the syrup cools.  This point is marked by a boiling temperature of 237-250 F/114-125 C.  ex: cold air holds less water vapor than warm air
Maple cream, a malleable mixture of very fine crystals in a small amount of dispersed syrup, is made by cooling the syrup very rapidly to about 70 F/21 C by immersing the pan in baths of ice water, and then beating it continuously until it becomes very stiff.  Rapidly cooling concentrated sugar solutions results in smaller crystal formation while cooling slowly results in bigger crystal formation.  Beating the mixture continuously aids in dispersing the fine crystals.