Your own maple sugar shack’s priceless payback calculation by Jeff Tribe

 Your own maple sugar shack’s priceless payback calculation

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 I was raised on my father’s tales of maple syrup making, the old-school way.

Gathering tanks mounted on stone boats, pulled by horses who would stop and wait as their humans filled pails from handheld brace-and-bit bored taps, hard-boiling eggs for lunch in the roiling sap, making taffy on the snow with darker, late-season syrup.

I’m not sure what he would have made of today’s vacuum pump systems, plastic lines carrying sap leading through reverse osmosis removing a good percentage of water before heading to boiling. I know at least one traditionalist who figures it alters the flavour, and I can see dad lining up with that train of thought.

He learned the craft as a young man with the Topham family outside of Burgessville, taking pride in what they considered the lightest early syrup from venerable hard maples on a high, sandy knoll.

My earliest memories were of repurposed honey pails hanging on trees at the end of our laneway, boiling on our second electric stove in what we called our utility room. It smelled delicious, but I can only imagine mom’s struggles while cleaning sweet sticky residue off the room’s walls.

Quite probably with her encouragement, we took operations outside, dad knocking together a temporary shelter out of plywood and two-by-fours over our barbecue pit. I seem to recall we did the preliminary boiling in a large steel square pan. Multi-purpose in that it also served, either concurrently or subsequently, as a container for cement when we mixed concrete. Dad would boil the raw sap until it showed ‘colour’, beginning to form in what I think of as ‘the large soap bubble’ stage before coming up in the final magic of tiny, caramel-coloured bubbles indicating syrup is just around the corner.

There are thermometers, the Internet telling me syrup arrives at 219 degrees Fahrenheit, but dad simply waited until it ‘flaked’ off his scoop, droplets coalescing after the final transition from thick sap to the real deal.

Our little operation went the way of the dodo as my uncle began syrup making on a larger scale a mile down the road. I made a comeback years after he had retired, a nostalgic return via propane powered turkey deep fryer. It was a break-even prospect at best, fuel costing as much as going to Jakeman’s, however my parents’ joy in eating the first draw of fresh maple flavour, still warm from the fire - two bites of syrup, one of bread-and-butter in the old farmers’ way - made it worthwhile.

The tradition passed with them, making yet another comeback with the arrival of grandchildren. Reluctant to lose a significant aspect of our cultural heritage, I picked up a barrel stove, stainless steel boiling pan - no cement allowed - and converted some used steel roofing, playground equipment and plywood into my own little sugar shack. The fact I’m tapping maples my dad brought along from saplings with selective forest management doesn’t hurt. I keep costs down, chain-sawing limb wood into stove-friendly lengths and reserving the deep-fryer for the final stage when temperature control is crucial. And did my best to hasten the payback period with a freelance article or two and magazine pictorial.

I have a habit of filling a taste-testing bowl directly beneath the strainer bag. My wife likes it on top of ice cream, a Canadian salty caramel version in particular, but I kick it old school, without the bread.

Definitely at the peak of its flavour potential.

In reality, it’s a loonie, maybe toonie-per-hour payback at the best of times. But of course, that doesn’t take into account the quiet knocks of grandchildren - and their father - happening to stop in for a ‘taste of the last batch.’ Or the ones on a European tour lining up a feed of Grandma Tribe pancakes and gampie syrup on their return.

It may not make full sense to the accountant in the family.

But it’s hard to put a price on that.