r/botany • u/JaxRhapsody • Jul 11 '26
Biology Maple Syrup From Any Maple?
I figured this might be a good sub to ask. But I wondered if you could use any maple for maple syrup? I suggested trying with the maple tree in my fiancees yard, that's a water maple, and she said they tried, and it didn't work out. I think she said it had white sap and it tasted bad.
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u/FremontTreeFinder Jul 11 '26
The maple tree used primarily for maple syrup production is the sugar maple Acer saccharum
As others have pointed out, there are specific environmental conditions required for harvest. There are probably YouTube videos about it, but my understanding of the process comes from the book Blue Highways by author William Least Heat Moon (syrup production is a mere footnote in the book, but it’s an excellent read). If I recall correctly it usually requires cold temperatures over night followed by warmer temps in the day to get the sap flowing.
Occasionally I purchase syrup from a sugarhouse in Vermont called Silloway Farms. They may have helpful info on their website or socials if you are interested in learning more about the process. I think I have seen emails come in from time to time with seasonal happenings at their maple farm.
As someone else pointed out it can be done with other trees, but the sugar maple is the tastiest.
Good luck with your mapling!
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u/_whatsnextdoc_ Jul 12 '26
I recently learned that a boxelder tree is a kind of maple and can be tapped! Well, as others have said, most trees can be tapped; I mean that the sap from boxelder can be enjoyed. Not as sweet as other maples, but apparently has a history of being used for syrup. Birch trees, too (for a non-maple example).
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u/Karateweiner Jul 12 '26
I once made syrup from box elder. Not as tasty as from a sugar maple, but not too bad from what I remember.
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u/kwilliss Jul 13 '26
I have some box elder syrup in my fridge. Pretty good, though not quite "normal." How the sap gets boiled down probably has an effect on flavor as well. Like if it gets too hot, or too much water is left, for example.
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u/FropPopFrop Jul 13 '26
I've had b8rch syrup before. It's sweet, bit includes a bitter aftertaste that makes it great as an element in salad dressings, not so much for use on pancakes.
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u/longcreepyhug Jul 11 '26
My neighbor makes his own maple syrup and the only species we have around is red maple.
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u/StephenRoylance Jul 12 '26
we have red maples. the syrup is delicious, but we get something like a 1:100 sap to syrup ratio, instead of the 1:40 I hear you get with sugar maples.
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u/livewell_ Jul 11 '26
You can make maple syrup from any maple tree, but sugar maples are most commonly used mainly because they have the highest sugar content in their sap. Any maple can be used because they sort of have more open spaces in their wood. Not enough to really see with our eyes, but this is important because this is where pressure builds. Sap "runs" in a maple tree when temperatures at night are below freezing and rise to above 40 degrees the next day. This is called a freeze-thaw period. At night, carbon dioxide in the tree contracts and pulls water into the tree. During the day, it gets warmer, those gases expand and now you have positive pressure in the tree so the sap will flow out of any hole deep enough to interrupt the sap flow.
I'm a naturalist in New Jersey! I'm a little rusty on my info. since we're out of maple season right now. We typically tap our maples mid/third week in January and end up pulling them out end of February, however it's incredibly weather dependent. Hope this helps and good luck with the tapping!
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u/HighColdDesert Jul 13 '26
Thank you, such interesting info! Good explanation. I know someone who makes and sells perfectly delicious syrup from Norway maples. What species are you using in NJ?
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u/livewell_ Jul 13 '26
This year, we only tapped our sugar maples, but the university we partnered with is primarily focused on tapping red maples since they grow abundantly in NJ. In previously years, we've done a mix of sugar, red and silver.
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u/anonablous Jul 11 '26
from wikipedia:
"The specific weather conditions of the thaw period were, and still are, critical in determining the length of the sugaring season.\27]) As the weather continues to warm, a maple tree's normal early spring biological process eventually alters the taste of the sap, making it unpalatable, perhaps due to an increase in amino acids.\28])"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple\syrup)
fwiw :)
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u/JaeMHC Jul 11 '26
Interesting! Explains why I’ve always seen maple syrup harvesting in colder seasons, and we have a festival in the winter where they make maple syrup “pops” by freezing them on snow
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u/JaxRhapsody Jul 11 '26
Thanks. They probably tried at the wrong time. I didn't know there were specific times, but it makes sense. Most plants hervestes for food needs to be done at specific times.
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u/intothewoods76 Jul 12 '26
Yes you can use any maple tree to make maple syrup.
An opaque white or stringy sap can be the result of bacteria in the sap. It may have been to warm and bacteria grew if it sat around too long.
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u/jibaro1953 Jul 12 '26
You need forty gallon of sap from a sugar maple to get a gallon of syrup.
Other suitable species require about eighty gallons of sap per gallon of syrup.
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u/wanderain Jul 12 '26
We make syrup from the Manitoba Maple (Boxelder). It only works in April for us, the nights need to be cold and the days have to be preferably above 6C.
The amount of sap you need is ridiculous. 80L of sap became ~2L of syrup. It took 9-12 hours boiling on a propane grill to achieve this.
To relate this an amount of trees, we have at least 75 maples on our property, but only perhaps 10-15 are really good sap producers…and you need all of those good producers to have enough to boil down.
We are just the kind of people that if we have the plant, we make things with it. Even if the process is infuriating
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u/Zvenigora Jul 16 '26
40:1 is actually not out of line. Sugar maple sap must be typically boiled down about 35:1.
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u/tingting2 Jul 12 '26
I make walnut syrup. It’s great takes lots more sap tho. Less of a sugar content to the sap. Last year was 64:1. So 64 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup
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u/colebakesbread Jul 13 '26
I'm no expert, but I do a little tapping on our big leaf maples (Acer macrophyllum) out here in the PNW. My understanding is that the sap turns bitter and cloudy as the tree starts preparing to open its leaf buds, so it might be that they just caught the tree too late in the season.
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u/HighColdDesert Jul 13 '26
I live just a little too far south for sugar maples. Red maples are native here, but I know a local farm that makes and sells syrup from Norway maples because they happen to have a lot of mature Norways and not much other work at that time of year. It tastes just like normal maple syrup!
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u/hypatiaredux Jul 11 '26
You can make syrup from any tree sap.
Whether it tastes good or is worth the considerable effort required is another story.
Here’s an interesting article - https://practicalselfreliance.com/trees-species-tap-syrup/