Making maple syrup is not at the hand of anyone. The process is not particularly difficult, but it requires very specific conditions and, of course, access to maple trees. In order to obtain various maple syrup grades, you need to cook the sap of a maple on fire, caramelize it, to be more specific. Here are several details on how it is made.
Before describing how to make maple syrup, it is very important to emphasize the fact that it is not maple-flavored syrup that it is discussed here, but the pure and natural maple syrup grades produced with no additives or preservatives. Maple-flavored syrup is the product that can most commonly be found on the shelves of hyper-markets, but it is no different from the numerous other syrups and toppings produced mainly from chemicals, which are not qualitative and which are a danger to people’s health. In contrast, natural maple syrup is of very high quality and it is actually recommended for a healthy diet, containing many minerals and antioxidants.
So, how to make maple syrup? First of all, you require a maple orchard. Maple trees store in their roots large quantities of starch during autumn, which they transform in sugars until the winter is finished. The substance they thus produced is the tree’s nourishment for the spring. The very same substance can be tapped from maple trees and then transformed into syrup by people through cooking processes. Nevertheless, only one bottle of syrup will be obtained from forty bottles of sap tapped from the tree. Like all natural products, large quantities of the raw substance are required for obtaining an average or even small quantity of different maple syrup grades or the end product.
Those who know how to make maple syrup are also aware of the fact that it takes a lot of time. The sap that is collected has to be filtered and, afterwards, boiled down. The cooking process, as it has already been mentioned, transforms very large amounts of sap into one bottle of syrup so it is boiled for quite a long time. Adding it to the months it takes nature to do its job and the time it takes to tap the sap and filter it, the entire process is really time-consuming. The syrup is boiled for more or less time depending on which one of the maple syrup grades is meant to be obtained.
Light, medium and dark amber are the three main maple syrup grades, also indicating the colors the syrup can have depending on the grade it has. While light syrup is produced to be directly eaten by the consumer, as a topping or as a salad ingredient, the dark amber grade has a very strong taste and is used in baking and cooking. Medium syrup is more translucent and less strong in taste than dark amber, but slightly darker and stronger in taste than light syrup, of course, and it can be used according to each person’s taste both for eating and in cooking. Once you are familiar with these grades and you know which you should choose, what is more important than knowing how to make maple syrup is knowing the best recipes that include pure maple syrup as an ingredient or knowing how to use it.

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