The plink, plink, plink of sap hitting the bottom of a metal bucket is music to Sheryl Pedrick's ears, she says. That means there will be a symphony in the woods around Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton in the weeks ahead.
The education coordinator at the gardens has been tapping the maple trees the old-fashioned way — with a hand drill and metal spouts and stainless steel buckets that she's collected from farm sales — and before the season ends in March, she will have collected 30 or 40 gallons of sap and boiled it down until it becomes the delicious amber-colored syrup that puts Aunt Jemima to shame.
"This time of year," she says, "the roots are starting to send the sugar back up through the tree to start the buds. And we have the freezing at night and the thawing during the day that creates the pressure you need for the sap to flow."
The process will be on display this weekend when Pedrick and Ladew volunteers lead a series of tours on Saturday and Sunday along the nature trail on the 250-acre estate bequeathed to the public by Harvey Ladew. Adults and children alike will see trees tapped, sap collected and then help with the boiling process at an outdoor fire just like the colonials would have used.
Maple syrup is a treat Native Americans introduced to the settlers, who contributed the iron kettles. Native Americans reduced the sap to syrup by putting stones heated by fire into wooden vessels containing the liquid.
Today, farmers often collect syrup during the winter to supplement their income from summer crops. Because they might tap hundreds of trees, they often do it using plastic tubing, giant vats and gravity.
We associate maple sugar with Vermont and Pedrick has visited maple stands there, but she says climate changes mean that more and more of our maple syrup is coming from Canada.
"They have the cold to do it," she said.
The trees she has tapped are the offspring of the maples planted by Ladew 50 years ago in his more formal gardens, considered one of the five most beautiful gardens in the country. Since a tree should have a circumference of at least 31 to 32 inches, those "babies" are only now large enough to tap.
Any maple tree will produce sap for syrup but it is the appropriately named sugar maple that will give you the most syrup. That's because its sap contains twice as much sugar — 2 percent compared to 1 percent — as other maples.
That 1 percent or 2 percent is the reason all the sap Pedrick collects won't produce enough maple syrup for a decent pancake breakfast. (Visitors for this weekend's tours will taste maple syrup — with pancakes — but Pedrick will have had to purchase it.) A dozen gallons of sap from a sugar maple might produce a quart of syrup, while it would take 24 gallons from red maple trees.
The trees carry evidence of other sap gatherers, too. The yellow-bellied sapsucker will peck a series of holes in the bark of a maple tree just deep enough to release some sap, which attracts insects to eat.
"We don't know for sure, but he might like the sap, too," said Pedrick.
Each tree can be tapped every year — although not in the same spot — and really large trees can be tapped for two, three or four buckets at a time.
"But it is like giving blood," Pedrick. "You don't want to take more than it needs to live.
Her equipment is clean and sterile, and the spot where the tree is tapped will scar over. Almost as soon as the drill is removed, the sap starts to ooze out. The sap bucket is covered to keep rain, squirrels, insects and debris out, but Pedrick still strains it through cheesecloth and into large stock pots before boiling it down.
As the water evaporates, she says, her home fills with steam, and as the sap boils down, she can detect that familiar sweet maple smell. She moves the sap to smaller and smaller pots until her eye, or her candy thermometer, tells her that it is the right consistency. The goal is 66 percent sugar.
Farmers have sap houses, she says, where most steam escapes through a cupola on the roof and the rest runs down the walls like rain.
"It boils away really fast at the end," Pedrick says. "If you don't pay attention, you could have maple candy instead of maple syrup."
Cooking with maple syrup
Maple syrup is a favorite ingredient in desserts and in any recipe involving sweet potatoes. But it is also a delightful addition to glazes for salmon or poultry or mixed with barbeque sauce for pork. Try it in chocolate chip cookies or in baking powder biscuits.
And it doesn't just come in a bottle. Tonewood Maple in Vermont sells a solid maple sugar cube, to be shaved by a microplane over ice cream, fruit or cocktails. And in flakes, to be mixed into yogurt or a noodle salad. The company also cooks the sap down to a thick buttery curd for toast.
Chef Clayton Miller, executive chef at Wit and Wisdom, offers these tips for cooking with maple syrup.
•It's important to consider the flavor profile you're going for and focus on the quality of the maple syrup. Maple syrup can change over the year, depending on the time it was harvested. You have to keep in mind that you may have bought your maple syrup from the same purveyor but the bottle you got in June may be entirely different from the one you got in January.
•There are really low-end, watery maple syrups on the market, and then there are very expensive, superb-quality thick syrups. Bliss is a purveyor that's become really popular for its aging of maple syrup in cask barrels.
•When using maple syrup in cooking you really have to consider its sugar content. A higher sugar content can alter a dish's flavors when cooked at high temperatures. Depending on how I am using the syrup, I might cut it with water, wine or vinegar. I also might add in various spices like vanilla, star anise and of course salt to lend to the savory element.
•The best way to use maple syrup is when you can cook using a low temperature where it imparts the flavor. Ingredients that are more fibrous like pork brisket or pork belly are perfect because they can be cooked low and slow, opening up and absorbing the flavors.
Maple-poached and oak-fired pork chop
For the maple poaching liquid:
2 cups maple syrup
1 cup medium dry sherry
1/2 cup bourbon
1/2 cup water
4-inch piece of fresh ginger (cut in half)
2 chipotle peppers
1 vanilla bean
2 bay leaves
1 tablespoon salt
Combine all ingredients and bring to simmer for 1 minute. Cover and allow to steep 30 minutes. Maintain at 155 degrees F.
For the pork chop:
1 12-ounce center cut pork loin chop
3/4 cup salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 gallon of water
Combine water, salt and sugar. Once salt and sugar are dissolved, place pork chop in brine for 1 hour. Remove chop from brine and pat dry with paper towel. Place pork into maple poaching liquid for approximately 15 minutes or until an instant read probe thermometer reads 130 degrees F.
Remove from maple poaching, season with kosher salt and place on grill for approximately 1 minute each side, depending how hot the grill is.
Note: Be careful as the pork will char quickly due the sugar from poaching liquid.
Recipe courtesy of chef Clayton Miller of Wit and Wisdom
The Cable Knit
Rye's Doug Atwell creates his own hot toddy using maple syrup.
1 ounce Pig's Nose scotch
1 ounce Edinburgh gin
1 ounce apple cider-maple reduction (see below)
4 ounces hot water
Dash peach bitters
Twist of orange rind
To make apple cider-maple reduction, reduce 3 liters of apple cider to 1 liter, then add 8 ounces maple syrup.
To make drink, mix the ingredients and serve.
If you go
Maple Magic is at noon and 2 p.m. on Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 at Ladew Topiary Gardens, Jarrettsville Pike, Monkton. Admission is $10 adults; $8 seniors; $8 students; $5 children ages 4-12. All ages welcome. Registration is recommended. Call 410-557-9570 or email