Sap Processing

After sap has been collected from a sugar bush, it is transported to the sugar house and boiled down to create maple syrup. A sugar house contains a storage tank, an evaporator, and a fuel supply.

Fresh sap contains approximately 1-6% sugar, while maple syrup contains about 66-67%. To increase the sugar concentration of sap - and create syrup - many gallons of water need to be removed from the sap. The evaporator is the device that heats the sap and boils off this excess water. Did you know that to produce one gallon of syrup, producers have to boil off 32 to 40 gallons of water?

The storage tanks houses the sap until the producer is ready to use it, and the fuel supply - oil, wood, electricity, or natural gas - provides the heat source for the evaporator. Most sugar houses also contain facilities to store and package their syrup or produce other products such as maple sugar. Many producers give tours or market their products in their sugar houses.