Tapping & sapping comes early

Mar 18, 2010

Carmine and Laurel Minutillo of Parham show their son Richard the ins and outs of maple syrup making

Last week’s sunny days and chilly nights had maple syrup makers out in force tapping trees and gathering sap prior to this week’s weather taking a wet and mild turn.

For the Minutillo family of Parham, maple syrup making has been a family tradition for the last seven years. They taught themselves how to make syrup with the help of a booklet from the Ministry of Natural Resources and with practice.

Though they only have 12 taps on just five trees they manage to gather enough sap to produce roughly 10 litres of syrup a year, which is plenty for them. Behind the house is their sugar shack, which houses a old wood stove on which they boil the sap.

Carmine said it takes about 100 hours to boil down. “We boil it down in these pots here until it starts to get thick and wants to boil over and then we finish it off in the house.” Once it reaches the right consistency they filter it through cheesecloth and felt to get rid of the sediment.

Laurel explained, “The syrup we end up with is quite dark and I think that the wood smoke gives it a richer flavour. We give some of it away but eat most of us ourselves and love it on waffles.”

Tappers are taking a break now and hoping for the weather to change so the sap begins to flow once again.