Join Martha Stewart as she crafts real Vermont maple syrup, showing the venerable process from tree to table! Learn the traditional method of tapping maple trees, boiling sap, and making pure maple syrup. Plus, watch as she transforms it into creamy maple butter and delicious maple candy with some expert guidance.
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00:00gather the sap, boil the sap into what's known here in Vermont and everywhere else as liquid gold,
00:07maple syrup. Vermont is the largest producer of maple syrup in the United States. Families
00:12and small farms are still the maple syrup producers, just like it's always been. Although
00:18over the last hundred years, maple sugar producing has gone through some real changes.
00:22Metal buckets replaced wooden ones, metal tanks replaced hollowed out logs and barrels for sap
00:27storage. Large flat pans replaced the open kettles that were hung over the open fire.
00:33Maple syrup was probably first recognized by the Native Americans in the early 1600s.
00:39There are many legends as to how they discovered maple syrup. Most likely it was by eating sweet
00:44frozen icicles that formed at the end of a broken twig. We're at the Misty Maples farm with Robert
00:50Howergan Sr. and his family. Robert's family has been producing maple sugar for more than
00:56seven generations. In the old days, farmers used oxen and horses to pull wooden sleds through the
01:02woods as they collected sap from the maple trees. These days, very few families like the Howergans
01:08still use horses, but the soul of the enterprise still remains the same. The sap starts running
01:14when the trees begin to awake from their winter dormancy. The days are sunny and the nights are
01:19still freezing, usually in late winter, early spring. There's only a small window of opportunity
01:25for collecting sap. Once the leaf buds on the trees start to emerge,
01:30sugaring season is over. This is the time of the harvest.
01:44So this is our first tree here. We're tapping. So I'll pop out here with your grandpa. Thank you.
01:55So William, Robert, are we ready? I think we are. Looks like a grand old tree. How old is she?
02:02Oh, probably 190. So now what's the first thing we do? We got a good vein here. I think this
02:08is where we'll get some sap. So you're drilling a hole. Yeah, we're drilling a hole. How big is that
02:15bit? 7 16ths in diameter. Okay. It always has to be exactly 7 16ths? No, no. They've come out recently
02:22with a smaller drill and it's worked out good. And then you just hammer that in? Yes.
02:33How many taps will you set in a season?
02:38Oh, we have set as high as 12,000. That's a lot. Yeah. And how many can one tree take?
02:44Oh, it depends on the diameter. We don't like to tap a tree unless it's 12 inches in diameter,
02:49now we get one. One. And then this size tree, which is really big. Yes, but it's ancient, so
02:56we'd give it one bucket. And now we can hang our bucket? Yeah. So this is how many gallons is that
03:02bucket? 16 quarts. Now take a careful look. We got the sap coming. Oh, it's already starting to drip.
03:11Oh, I want to taste. It is sweet.
03:22So 16 quarts. Yeah. Four gallons in one bucket. Some people ask about that. I said it's not any
03:30different than a person donating blood. They just make a donation of some tap. How long would it
03:35take for this big tree to donate the 16 quarts? Well, if the weather conditions are good, it'll do
03:44it in a single day. Oh, that fast. Yeah. But you have to get here before it starts to overflow.
03:48Yes, yes. Because it doesn't stop when it touches the top, does it? No, no, it depends. It's so
03:54dependent on the weather, it's unreal. Ideal is a wet storm to freeze on the trees, and then it
04:00come off the next day, not hold off, and it would gush forth. Because the wind blows, it dries
04:06everything out. Right, I see. Well, Robert Howerigan has been collecting the sap from his maple trees
04:12for how many years, Robert? I wasn't born in the sugar house, but right close to it.
04:19So did you put it off as long as you could? Dad didn't like to work alone, so we were five,
04:24six years old. We started to go out, and it was always with horse and sledge? Yes, yes.
04:31And traditionally, these sugar farmers used the horse and sledge to draw the wagons that pull the,
04:39that hold the big tanks and bring up the men from the sugar house below, didn't they? Yes.
04:46And nowadays, more and more motorization is taking place, I suppose, with tractors.
04:50Yes, and of course today, they've come up with this plastic tree-to-tree pipeline. Oh, I have seen that
04:56many places. Yeah, yeah. And, uh, but, but on a big spread like this, which is a couple hundred acres,
05:02how many acres do you have here? I've spread it out among my sons. We had 800 acres there.
05:07Beautiful place, so high on the hill, looking over the valley. Yes. And what's that, what is
05:12that flooded creek down there? Well, that's, uh, Fairfield Creek. Fairfield Creek. You know, I come
05:17from a town called Fairfield. Do you know that? Well, for your information, this area was settled
05:22by people from Fairfield, Connecticut. Oh, they were? Who? It was the Northup families. Two or three
05:28came up, and that place right over there was where they lived. I see. Oh, how interesting. My brother
05:34owns it now. So you have, so you're, you personally had 800 acres divided amongst how many sons?
05:41Four. Four sons, so they each got about 200 acres? Yeah. And do they all work cooperatively in the
05:46dairy business? Two brothers here are joint, Danny and Robbie. Uh-huh. They farm together. The others
05:51two are independent. I see. And you have about 150 head of cattle here, the milk cows? Oh, I think
05:58here is 200. So they're milking 200 cows, in addition to making a couple thousand gallons
06:03of syrup, and I can't wait to taste the syrup. Well, you know what I'd like to do, Robert? No.
06:10I'd like to try. Well, I'd love to have you. I've never put a tap in a, in a maple tree before. Never.
06:15How about this tree up here? Sure, sure. Never have a chance in a younger. Well, that looks like
06:20a nice swollen vein from coming down from that big branch. Good. And it looks like somebody already
06:25marked a good spot. Good strong limbs. Down here, right down, like right here. Yeah. It looks like
06:30Robert Jr. already marked it. So now I hold this. I can even brace it with my leg, can't I? There
06:36you go. Okay, good. Oh, this is a nice drill.
06:44All the way. That's good. Okay, so now I have to hammer in the tap. Oh boy. So
06:55now how far in? Just like that? A little, just another tap or two later.
07:00There you've got a good ring to it. We're secure. Here's your hammer. Yep. Let me get my bucket.
07:08My fingers are starting to freeze and I'm in three layers of down.
07:13Let's see, is it gonna come?
07:17It's, it's gonna make. Yes, yeah, it's coming.
07:21Here it comes. Oh,
07:29tastes almost like maple syrup. So we need 40 gallons of this. Yes. For one gallon of syrup.
07:36Yes. Okay, well, I think we have a lot more trees to tap.
07:42Okay, then this hooks on the rim of the bucket. Yeah, I see. Okay,
07:46there, my first sap bucket in a long time.
07:49This tree, get one more bucket or not? No, I think that's, I'll cover for that. Well,
07:54I like that you are nice to your trees. Oh, thank you. Give them a few more years to be prosperous.
07:59Actually, I was brought up that way. Dad was conservative like that. This way we were taught.
08:04That's good. Yeah, that's good kindness. So don't you think we better get to work? Dad would agree
08:09with that. Let's go. And Robert Sr. Sr. is around here somewhere. And the horses look like they'd
08:17like to get moving. Yeah. It takes 50 to 60 cords of wood per season to keep the firebox stoked and
08:34the maple syrup boiling. We're right in a crucial spot. We're evaporating the sap. And Robert Jr.
08:43here, the son of William Robert Sr., brother of Daniel, is in charge of this process right this
08:49minute. In this room full of steam, the roof is open above, letting the steam out. It's very
08:55exciting. What's going on here with all these different tanks and fire? The raw sap comes into
09:01the upper pan, a continuous flow in the upper evaporator pan, which is like a double boiler on
09:07your stove, heated by the steam from the pan underneath. And that's wood fired with a forced
09:13air draft. Let's just look and see that fire. It's a very special shape. It's an arch, isn't it? Yes.
09:18You're running about a thousand degrees of heat under the pan there. The front pan is a flat pan
09:23and the rear pan has flues, which the fire travels right back through. And there's sap in each flue.
09:31And the fire's going right in between them. And what kind of wood are we burning? What we have in
09:35there today is some maple, some beech, some hemlock. So everything that's broken or fallen down on the
09:41property? Anything that gets blown over or is dying. This front pan has six different dividers in it.
09:48And the sap runs in a continuous flow up one crimp and then back up the next. The holes are like
09:54four inches high maybe. And the sap just flows around the end of each one. But are the levels
10:00any lower or higher? We try to keep it about an inch and a half deep maybe in the pan. You told
10:07me that you reverse the direction. First it's coming this way. About every three to four hours
10:13we switch sides. Like you can just change your plugs around and you reverse the flow of sap.
10:19And you're finishing off pan. After a few hours you'll start to get a buildup of niter, which is
10:25a natural nutrient that's in the sap. And it's something that we take out in the filtering
10:29process. But if you don't switch sides you'll get a buildup on your pan and you could eventually
10:34burn your pan. Oh I see. Well this is an odd combination. It's a lot of sophistication and
10:40then a lot of very primitive things going on here. Don't you think? A lot of traditional type
10:46equipment. Right. 40 gallons of sap that go in there. Yes. Boil and boil and boil and boil until
10:52they reach approximately one gallon of syrup. One gallon of syrup. And there's lots of, there seems
10:58to be a lot of gauges, a lot of checks and balances in this system. So that you don't ruin your
11:03beautiful syrup. Traditional method is to watch your syrup drape off your ladle. When it gets
11:09ready it'll, it'll apron across. And it's not quite ready. It's near ready right there but not quite.
11:15And then the other way, well there's this little gauge will also tell us if the syrup is thick
11:21enough. I'm a new syrup maker so I have to try everything at least. Oh there it is. The red line
11:28is right above the surface. If it gets a little bit, that's slightly heavy, we can thin it out
11:35by simply putting a little thinner syrup in with the other. Oh I see. That gives you your
11:40checks and balance system and you make sure in the end you have the right finished product.
11:45And this is the finished syrup in this bucket here. And where does that go then? Goes through
11:49the hose to a big pump which puts it through a big filter press. Oh so that's where it's getting
11:54clarified. Yeah it goes through at boiling temperature and all the sediment or anything
11:59that might be in there is taken out. How long would it take for this great big vat to boil off? Around
12:06600 gallons of sap an hour maybe. It takes us two hours to fill a 30 gallon drum full of syrup. Now
12:13we can go over and look at the filter press. This is our filter press here and the syrup is pumped
12:18out of our bucket on the other side. So it's coming through this tube. Yes and it goes through the hot
12:24press and that cleans it right up. We can run 80 to 100 gallons of syrup through and then we have
12:30to break it down, clean it. We come out with our finished product. Wow looks good.
12:37There's a very beautiful syrup. Crystal clear, very light and it tastes the best I've ever had.
12:54Well for a long time I've wanted to make maple cream and maple sugar and today
12:59inspired by lots of questions and one in particular from Karen Smith in Anchorage, Alaska
13:05we've decided to invite the expert sugar maker and cream maker Don Harlow here from Putney, Vermont.
13:13Now Don you don't know that I have a great history in Putney, Vermont do you? No. Well my ex-husband
13:19went to Putney school and my daughter went to high school at the Putney school. Oh great.
13:23So we know all, we've probably seen your farm and it's a beautiful place and how many gallons
13:30of maple syrup do you make a year? Well of course Martha the sugar season varies from year to year
13:35but we make around 3,000 gallons. And you turn some of that, how much into maple cream? By golly
13:40maple cream is a popular product. We make a lot of it. You do. Well show us how and your special
13:45recipe which is not too difficult and explain exactly what maple cream is. Well this batch
13:52of course is finished and I was handy to show. I'll stir that for you just to cool it down. It's easy to do. You find a pot that will hold two
14:00cups of maple syrup. Does that look good to spoon on a piece of bread or dribble over a piece of spice cake?
14:07Wouldn't that be great? So two cups of syrup. Two cups of syrup. Two cups of that liquid gold that you work
14:13so hard to produce up there with the help of those beautiful maple trees in Putney. Right. Do you have
14:18great stand of maple trees? Yes we do and we take care of them. They're our farm and they're
14:24our income and we're going to put the two cups of syrup in the pan. How old is the oldest tree
14:28on your property? 450 years old sap was taken from it by the early Indians. Really? So Putney has if
14:36you haven't been up to that part of Vermont it's in southeastern Vermont and it is one of the most
14:41beautiful of the rural towns in Vermont right up there in the Green Mountains. Martha could you put
14:48just a little milk in here for me? Okay like how much? Just a quarter of a teaspoon would be fine.
14:52That's all and the reason for the milk the syrup will boil over in your kitchen on the stove with
14:59the fat there the bubbles stay down and it won't boil over on the floor or on the on the stove.
15:04Okay and then we of course take a thermometer. Now where'd you get this giant this is a special
15:11candy thermometer. That's a thermometer that's made for maple sugars. It is because it says
15:16maple cakes, hard sugar, cream, water and boils. Yep. So it boils at 212 degrees just like water.
15:24Yep water and sap will boil the same. Oh they do okay and then to make cream it looks like 232
15:30degrees. Exactly. Okay. And I would like to talk about the thermometer a little bit. The red
15:35thermometer comes up we have tested this in a pot of water at like you said at 212 and we adjust
15:42this little gadget to make sure that it's perfect. Oh I see. In fact at sea level where we are it's
15:47quite different. Oh so it's right at 200 and? 219 is syrup. Oh okay so okay so you have this adjusted.
15:54All right. Yeah we adjust that to make sure it's proper. At the right altitude. Right. Oh I see okay.
15:59And then as we watch the thermometer and the syrup begins to boil it'll get up to where the mark that
16:05says syrup and then we boil it probably 10 or 12 minutes until the thermometer reaches the point
16:12of what we want to make which this morning is maple cream. Okay so here's one that's already
16:16been boiling. Should we just transfer it? Sure. Get it closer to the finished product. Great. And we'll
16:21finish this one off a little later. Okay if you want to move that pan. Watch out for your arm. Oops.
16:27Okay we'll just leave that one here and this one should be close to it don't you think? I would
16:32say so it looks at the bubbles. So this one is now oh that's rising. It takes a second to get up there.
16:38Quickly. Yeah Martha you're going to be a good sugar maker. Well I love this. So we're all the
16:45way up to syrup. Yes and even higher than that. And now it's going it's going and you can just keep
16:50seeing that red line of the thermometer it's going up to oh it's halfway to cream now. Great. So we
16:57have a few more minutes. Yes. And as you can see the pan isn't boiling over it's because of the
17:01milk. Does that work for everything? It works for all sugars and probably some other products but mainly
17:06if you're making a confection the fat keeps the bubbles down. That is a very handy little good
17:12thing we call it. And we don't have to use milk you can use the fat of your choice. Okay so this
17:17is getting there now we can't make this any hotter than that so it's oh it's about three degrees from
17:23232 right now it's getting up there. Now it has to reach the right temperature. Yes it has to get up
17:28to 232. Now when did you start making sugar and and cream from maple syrup? My mother made it back
17:34in the 30s way years ago and and our farm has made it ever since. Now what's the name of your farm?
17:40Harlow's Sugarhouse. If I come up to Putney I can find you and come to your sugar house? You sure
17:44can. And can you watch the sugaring process? Oh yes. Oh wonderful. Oh good. Oh here we are. We ready?
17:49Getting right there to 232. So you remove this from the heat. Okay if you hold the thermometer
17:55over there I'll pour the syrup while it's still bubbling. Okay. Into this pan that has been in the
18:01ice and we'll cool this syrup very quickly. So no more milk? No more milk. Oh see I thought cream had
18:09milk in it or cream in it. No it's the term cream comes from the fact that it's creamy and you can
18:14spread it on your English muffins. And this syrup cannot be moved while it's cooling. If we touch it
18:20with a spoon or a thermometer or if we jiggle it. My mother used to scold us boys when we ran
18:26through the back room because it would make her pan she had set to cool. Shake. And sugar crystals
18:31form on the top of it. I see. And then it won't make maple cream. Okay this one has been cooled.
18:36That one's been cooled. Now is that enough? Cooled enough? The way to tell if it's cold enough Martha
18:41is put the back of your hand over the top of it and see if there's any heat radiating off it.
18:47So it's perfect. Okay and no sugar crystals. No boy that looks great. Okay so now what do we do?
18:52Now we'll stir it with a wooden spoon. See these are the secrets that no recipe can even begin to
18:58explain. And you'll notice that this is is real taffy now. Yes amazing. Just by raising the
19:05temperature to 232. Oh it is it's like taffy. Yep and then especially around the outside where it's
19:11been sitting next to the ice it's real thick. If it just it's real almost like taffy. But this one
19:19you must stir it with a spoon because in fact after you've stirred it a few minutes it'll begin
19:24to loosen up and get almost flowable. And it'll begin to turn white and finally it'll lose its
19:32gloss and then it's been stirred enough. And this is what it turns out to be. This very beautiful
19:40maple cream. And I'm going to try this on a piece of toast if you don't mind.
19:48And I might just say Martha that the the flavor of butter is very complementary to the flavor of
19:53maple. So at home when we have English muffins or toast we like butter on it but it isn't necessary.
19:59It tastes like a combination of butter and maple sugar. Great isn't that wonderful. You have to do
20:11this by hand you cannot do it. You can do it in a mixer in a KitchenAid mixer at a very low slow
20:17speed about like I'm doing with the with a wooden spoon. And we store it in a cover jar like this.
20:22Yeah and that's that's a lot of fun. And the the fun to put it in that jar is to take some
20:31and do it with a spatula. Oh I can't do it like this? Well you can I guess. But sometimes when
20:36the batch comes out a little bit thicker if you butter it in the jar and get all the air
20:41bubbles out of it and you've got a pretty jar of maple cream for a Christmas gift or from some
20:48other occasion. Right now gift. I'm not saving this for Christmas. I'm gonna have this for
20:54breakfast or whatever. I gotta keep stirring this one. Yeah you stir. Well thank you very much Don
21:00for. I'm real proud to be able to come here and show you. This very simple and elegant recipe.
21:07You can enjoy maple cream in lieu of butter or preserve just remember that and
21:11when we come back Don's going to show us how to make maple sugar. Great thank you.
21:19Don Harlow is back with us to show us how to make melt-in-your-mouth maple candies. And you can make
21:29them in all different sizes and shapes. And we're going to make some maple buckets. Great. Buckets
21:35right? Fantastic. Well just show us the recipe because oh this one's boiling away over here.
21:39Do you think it's going to boil over? I'll put a little milk in there a fat Martha and then it'll
21:43go right down. Okay so just a little bit. A little dab. Excellent. So when you're boiling maple syrup we
21:52need to start a new one over here. Okay. So let's just show them the whole recipe from scratch. All
21:56right two cups of fancy maple syrup. And I'm going to eat maple sugar. Fancy is the grade of course.
22:06Do you make all different grades on your farm? Yep and pour the syrup in a saucepan
22:13that's deep enough. And you want a quarter of a teaspoon of milk in here too? Yes we do without
22:18the milk or the fat of your choice. Without that the syrup will boil over on the stove. Then we use
22:26the thermometer of course. So we start with syrup, cream, sugar, hard sugar, and cake. So we're going
22:33to make hard sugar? Yes we are going to make hard sugar. So that's what 240? 242. Oh 242. It's 232
22:39and 242. Just remember that. Okay 232 for cream and 242 for these beautiful little candies.
22:46These are so good. And the reason the sugar goes to 242 versus the 232, the product is different.
22:57It's a grain candy that's got crystals in it. The maple cream is smooth without crystals.
23:04You want to try this one and see what the temperature is? Well let's try that one and see. Yeah we'll do our
23:07little swap out.
23:12Okay can you see that Martha? This one is rising rather rapidly here. It's going up to, we're all
23:19the way up to syrup, on the way to cream. There we go beyond cream. So we're 230, oh 235 and we're
23:29almost there. Great. 230, 240, 242. There we are. That's perfect. Right away. Okay and now this, while
23:42it's still hot, we'll let the bubbles go down so that it won't stir. Now do you do these in
23:50graping vats up at the farm? No we do it, we're a farm and we do it kind of, it's we use two gallons
23:56instead of two cups in a batch. Some of the big confection people. Do you cook over wood for this too?
24:01No, we use a gas steam kettle. Well after the Howarigan farm. Oh you've been spoiled. Yeah we, well no, we
24:07had a really wonderful time cooking all the sap down over wood. Oh that's wonderful. And now we're
24:13going to come and visit you up in Putney and see how things happen up at the, at the Harlow
24:19farm. So I must start stirring this and. So it already is a much thicker and cloudy consistency
24:26than maple cream. The other one we cooled, the other one meaning the maple cream, we cooled way
24:31down to the warmth of your hand and maple sugar we stir it while it's hot. It's beginning to form.
24:38Now is this what we put over snow, for maple snow? No you use the maple cream temperature for snow.
24:44Oh okay. And this one is. We'll put all this on the website so don't you worry about this.
24:51No it's very simple. The two things as Martha mentioned is 232 for cream and 242 for sugar.
24:57And 232 for sugar on snow. Right. When maple syrup's made in Vermont, it's made in the spring of course
25:06and mud and sugar and go together. They sure do. We learned that at the Howarigan farm.
25:11I'm still cleaning my shoes. So you're well aware of it. And my socks and my jacket. I was behind the horses
25:18and the sledge. Yeah. And the horse's hooves just, I wasn't even noticing but I got off. My whole jacket
25:24was covered with mud and my face. Oh so you've been indoctrinated. Oh I certainly have. But the mud and the sugar
25:30and the go together. My wife used to say when sugar and started, she put the broom back in the closet
25:36and get out a shovel. So then we knew sugarness here. And which reminds me of another story.
25:42The little groundhog in Pennsylvania thinks he knows when spring's here. Bob Howarigan and Don Harlow
25:48know when spring's here because it's we've gone to tap our maple trees. And they say spring's coming.
25:53They're tapping their maple trees. So there's lots of fun things. And I think that that is a really good symbol
25:59to follow. So working quickly or stirring and stirring and it's starting to do what it's
26:03supposed to do isn't it? I think it's starting. And I think maybe just one more story and
26:11we'll be ready. I think it's the storytelling that's more appealing to you than the actual stirring of the
26:17maple sugar. Well the one more story Martha is and you're you'd be you like this one because
26:22my grandmother made homemade raised donuts. And when we came home on the school bus and we could
26:28see the steam coming out of the sugar house. We put the two together. We're running at the donuts
26:33and run down in the woods and put the first maple syrup on the raised donuts.
26:37So I think we're ready. Can you help me? Yep I'm just testing this so I don't get it too hot.
26:42So okay what do you want me to do? I want you to to pour that. I'll pour that into the mold. Yes
26:47okay I'll do that. Want to want to test this one? I better. I'll just do this and you do that. Okay
26:52thank you. Okay now. And of course you don't need a rubber mold at home. These rubber molds are
27:01great. Oh of course. So you can get these rubber molds at cake decorating stores and where else
27:06can you get them? Can you get them at your farm? Yep but if you use a little frilly design the
27:11sugar will harden in any form or shape that you pour it into. So you can make larger ones in little
27:16in little muffin tins. Sure yeah. And use a teflon though. But it'll pop out of most anything. Look
27:21how nicely it pours. It's just perfect. Boy you are good at maple. I like all this stuff. And we
27:27cook that batch just right. And here we have some some designs we did earlier. Aren't they nice? A
27:35star and as you can see a heart. What's your favorite? Well heavens I like the heart. There
27:40look at that. That's perfect. What about maple sugar leaves? I like I like that. So I'll just
27:46use up the rest. Perfect. You can scrape it a little bit. I got one more story while you're
27:53finishing. Okay. In the pot there's some sugar left and we kids always scraped it out because
27:59every single drop of maple sugar or maple syrup is 40 drips of sap. 40 gallons of sap make one
28:06gallon of syrup. So one drip. So we like to save it. Oh well I wouldn't throw that away for anything.
28:11You couldn't persuade me to. That'll settle down won't it? It sure will. Well thank you yet again
28:17for a wonderful lesson. You're a great teacher. Well heavens I think. I'm gonna pop out a candy
28:23for you. You can taste your your wares here. And these pop out you can see from these rubber molds
28:29into the perfect little sap bucket. Oh that's great. Well thank you. I'll test that. No we're not there yet.
28:36We're only up to syrup. Isn't that great? And I'll wait for this syrup to turn into sugar. Thanks Don
28:42so much for coming down to our studio. Don came all the way from Putney, Vermont to make this
28:46delicious treat. Well thank you. And thank your son for bringing you too. I will. It was worth it
28:52to us so much you'll never know. Well thank you. Can I have a bite? Please that's for you.
28:56All this. Tastes good? Made out of that Harlow syrup. Thank you.