Maple Syrup at Forest Glen Nature Preserve

As family we traveled to Forest Glen Preserve near Westville on Sunday to see how maple syrup is made.

Forest Glen Preserve is the third largest producer of maple syrup in Illinois. They have staff on hand during this open house to explain how the sap from maple trees is boiled down and turned into syrup.

Today was just a demo, however, as the real syrup harvesting and boiling took place in February when the temperatures started to fluctuate above and then below freezing. This fluctuation is what makes the sap flow into the bags and buckets attached to maple trees throughout the preserve.

The first stop was the pancake and sausage dinner served in the Gannett Outdoor Education Center. Mmmmm giant plate sized pancakes served with butter and real maple syrup produced at the preserve!

After pancakes and sausage, we needed a walk, so we headed up the hill to the building where the maple sap is evaporated and made into maple syrup.

 

Inside the building they call the "sugar bush" staff was on hand to explain how maple syrup is made from the sap collected from the trees. An evaporator is stoked with cord wood, and allows the sap to evaporate off the water vapor and eventually turn into maple syrup. 

The syrup harvest was actually quite good this year, with over 150 gallons of syrup produced. Last winter, only 50 some odd gallons of syrup were able to be made, so it fluctuates from year to year depending on the  temperatures outside.

To give you an idea how much sap is needed to make syrup, the staff pointed to 55 gallon drums in the corner of the "sugar bush" building. It takes 43 to 50 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup! We were really amazed at the ratio.

 

 In and around the Forest Glen Preserve, the staff left up the buckets an bags from the last sap harvest to show how it is collected. This sap isn't any good for syrup making and was just for demonstration purposes. The bags are preferred over the buckets because they can be used for the season and then thrown away, as opposed to cleaning and storing all the buckets. There are some smart squirrels out there though, who have figured out how to nibble the corners of the bags and drink the sweet maple sap :) In one day, the staff said that the squirrels can undo that day's work through their craftiness. 

All in all it was a beautiful day to be outside, and we all learned a lot about syrup making. The best part was eating pancakes in the afternoon!