story and photos by Jonathan Pragle
This time of year, the Whitman Woodlot is a mix of mud and snow. A student of Marcus Whitman High School in Rushville works her way up to a tree, removes the plastic bucket attached to its side and analyzes the contents inside. The tree is a sugar maple, New York State’s official tree. This particular tree was here before the school was even built, but in the past several years it has seen something new: students identifying it, measuring it and ultimately collecting its sap to turn into syrup.
The crew of high schoolers work quickly to collect 24 taps that were put in about a week prior. They already identified the tree by the opposite branch pattern, wavy bark and, if they’re lucky, past years’ healed tap holes. They learned tapping techniques in the classroom practicing on a five-foot section of Norway maple that had been cut from a district resident’s front yard. The class then practices driving a spile into the tap hole using different methods: a hammer, a rock and a professional maple tubing tool. This is where Mary Coolbaugh and Jonathan Pragle, the district’s agriculture and environmental science teachers, respectively, describe the importance of a good, clean taphole.
On this particular morning, the budding sugar makers collect 22 gallons of sap and begin the long trek back to the makeshift evaporator, a distance the length of three football fields. This morning, buckets are being collected by environmental science students; on another day, it could be introduction to agriculture, food science or living environment students.
The sap buckets get lifted and emptied into a 45-gallon collection tank. Nearby is the evaporator – two stainless steel buffet pans set inside the firebox that was designed and built by staff and students. A student opens the firebox to add some wood, a few pieces of ash taken from the same woodlot as the maples. Everything about today’s boil is from the Whitman Woodlot, 10 acres Northeastern Hardwoods that models most old growth forests in New York.
To reduce the amount of wood needed to boil the sap, students run the fresh collection through a home-built reverse osmosis (RO) system. The RO system the students are using consists of a 400 gallon per day pump (the same ones used on well systems in some of the students’ houses) a pre-filter and two RO membranes. Students test the sap going in, the sap coming out and the permeate to see the effect. While the system runs in back of their class, ninth and tenth graders do a mini lesson on osmosis using the system and see the concept in a realistic environment.
The fire crackles as the student feeds it a log and fixes a flat cinderblock door back in place. A peer adds a half gallon of sap to the front warming pan while the back pan continues a rolling boil of amber liquid. The wind changes direction and the steam rolls toward the class; comments are made on the smell of boiling sap and excitement for the finished product.
Outside the science wing on this early March day are four different science classes of varying grade levels watching the evaporator and connecting it to related concepts including phase changes, vaporization curves, electromagnetic spectrum, observing pattern changes and boiling points of different liquids. Mixed groups of students and teachers discuss sap sugar percentages, temperatures and flavors of syrup. It has turned into an impromptu science convention on the front lawn of Marcus Whitman High School.
The next morning, the pot of finished syrup is tested again, this time by the environmental science class. Maple syrup is measured in Brix, where one Brix equals 1 percent sugar. The standard density for finished syrup is 66.9 Brix, although most consider finished syrup to be between 66 and 68 Brix. The reading is 67 Brix at 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Perfect!
A sophomore takes a pipette and transfers a few drops onto the prism window of a refractometer and holds it up to the morning light. A refractometer measures the degree by which light is refracted while passing through the syrup, giving the observer a measurement of the specific gravity of the liquid. She measures the syrup at 66.8 Brix. The class decides this syrup is done and ready to be filtered.
Delanie, a senior, and Hailee, a sophomore, carry the stainless-steel pot to the filtration and canning system. At Marcus Whitman, classes use a vacuum adapter on a traditional gravity-fed filter and bottler. The finished syrup is poured through the three pre-filters and one thick Orlon filter that will remove any sediment. Students are surprised at how much sediment there is and how it resembles sand. In fact, many call it “sugar sand.”
Sugar sand, officially called nitre, is the collection of minerals that precipitate as the sugar in the sap is condensed. While it is not necessary to filter the nitre out of the syrup, it certainly makes the finished product look and taste cleaner. The finished syrup steadily drips into the bottom of the system and the group looks forward to the next step in the process: grading.
Students in both environmental science and intro to agriculture practiced grading last year’s syrup using temporary maple syrup grading kits. They put a sample into a small jar and compare the color to stock golden, amber and dark jars. They have seen that this finished syrup was a little lighter than past batches and are hopeful for a golden. Golden is regarded as the most difficult to produce. Today, students will not be eyeballing the finished syrup for grade. New this year to the school is a digital grader or spectrophotometer. Earth science teacher Pat Prusinowski has come for this part as well. He is known in the school for estimating percentage transmittance with uncanny accuracy. He heard that the students may have a golden this morning and wants to see the result.
At this moment you could hear a pin drop. The reading comes displays on the screen at 74 percent. One percentage point away from a golden, but technically an amber. A collective sigh rings out, followed by the excitement of tasting the finished product.
To safely hot pack the syrup, it needs to be between 180 degrees and 200 degrees Fahrenheit to kill off any bacteria or mold. The temperature gauge reads 190 degrees Fahrenheit and students fill and seal the plastic containers while another student puts a sticker that says “Pure Maple Syrup. Amber with Rich Taste. Grade A.” On this date, they bottle 1.5 gallons of finished pure New York State maple syrup.
In a few weeks, the students in Pragle’s environmental science class will remove the taps from the trees. Yet on this crisp morning, students and staff enjoy the fruits of their labor with a pancake breakfast to ring in the vernal equinox. They exchange smiles and stories as they taste the differences between the grades of syrup they made themselves, discuss preferences and celebrate the communal effort it took to make such a sweetness.
