It’s maple syrup season in Holmes County

Most years the maple sugaring season is well under way by now with only a couple of weeks left to tap the sap flowing through maple trees. The most popular thing to do with the sap, of course, is to render it into rich maple syrup, but maple tappers also enjoy making candies and confections like maple cream.This year is a bit different. Individuals looking to get in on the tail end of maple season may run into challenges presented by the unusually warm weather. Steve Sommers, proprietor of Amber Valley Maple Products, explains why the weather is an all-important factor in maple tree tapping.“It’s the cold weather, cold being a freeze, something that makes the tree actually freeze,” he said. “When the tree freezes, it actually pulls water into the roots so the tree goes into kind of a negative pressure.” That pressure is what makes the sap flow. Without the rapid freeze-thaw cycle that is so common in late winter here in Ohio, maple trees produce less sap, which means less maple syrup.Not all hope is lost, however, particularly for a hobbyist looking to get into maple tapping for the first time. “If you are just putting a few taps around the house, then it may be a good thing to do just to get your feet wet and get a feel for what is happening,” Sommers said. “It is my understanding from Cornell and the University of Proctor Maple Syrup in Vermont that if a tree is not tapped, then you should get a good run out of it as soon as you tap it.”When you get right down to it, making maple syrup is easier than it sounds. First, you’ll need maple trees. Sommers, like most maple syrup enthusiasts, recommends the sugar maple. At this time of year these trees can be identified by their bark, which is brown, featuring lots of vertical grooves and ridges. You also can look at the branches. If the buds are red, the tree is a red maple, which can be tapped but typically produces less sap than a sugar maple.The best way to tell if trees are sugar maples is to look at leaves left over from summer. Red maples have red leaves while silver maples have leaves with sharp teeth. The sugar maple has a green leaf that turns to orange with five lobes, rounded at the base (just like the leaf featured on the Canadian flag).In addition to the trees, individuals will need taps and buckets to collect the sap, which can be purchased online or at many locally owned hardware stores.Once the sap is collected, it all comes down to cooking. “Sap is basically water to begin with,” Sommers said. “There is roughly 2 percent sugar from the tree, and all you have to do is boil the water out of it, down to a certain percentage.” He also warns not to do this in a wallpapered kitchen. Sap needs to cook for a long time, which leads to sticky walls and ceilings and a lot of humidity indoors. Most serious maple tappers build their own dedicated maple sugaring shacks to keep the mess out of the house. Hobbyists often do their cooking out in the backyard.Also bear in mind that while maple sugaring is a fun hobby, one will need a lot of sap to produce mass quantities of syrup. “Right now the current volume of sap that I am cooking is 66 gallons to make one gallon of maple syrup,” Sommers said. “Generally each tree may run two, maybe three gallons of sap per day.” The massive quantities of sap required are why many hobbyists will only make a quart or two of syrup each spring just for fun and then source locally produced syrup from larger producers throughout the rest of the year.Individuals not quite ready to jump into maple sugaring or that don’t yet have the trees needed to make all the syrup for the year can find Amber Valley Maple Products, produced in Mechanic Township, in stores right in Holmes County. Locations include the Trailside Deli just south of Holmesville, Hershberger’s Truck Patch near Charm, Baltic Meats and others.