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maple syrup season 2022

My BlogRural Reflections from a Toronto Hipster

Drinking Maple Sap for Health Benefits

drinking maple sap fresh from a maple sap collection bucket

Impressive Health Benefits

Derived from Drinking Maple Sap

Drinking maple sap fresh from the maple tree is a secret Canadian rural rite of passage. There are two ways to drink maple sap fresh. People may put their mouth directly under the spigot and let the sap drip into it or they collect it in a bucket and guzzle the sap ice cold – known as the Canadian maple sap bucket challenge.

Hearty rural Canadians will grab a full bucket of maple sap right off the tree and down the whole thing during the long cold hours of a maple sap boiling. The sap provides them the energy required to pull the sugar shack all nighters. Without this fresh maple sap they would be unable to craft maple syrup because the sap to syrup  process is very long and tiring.

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Rural Reflections from a Toronto Hipster

My Hipsters Guide to Maple Sap Boiling

Maple sap boiling in an evaporator.

Our Longest Maple Sap Boiling Ever

A 36 Hour Sap Boil

Never during my Toronto Corso Italia years would I have thought I’d be maple sap boiling in a rural community. I never even attended an Ontario maple syrup festival during my city life years, but that hasn’t stopped me from tapping maple trees for their yummy goodness. 

Maple sap boiling is a time consuming process, therefore it’s important to binge watch movies or TV shows. During one maple sap boil, it’s easy to complete a full Netflix series or multiple movie sequels . You never know how much binge watching there will be because many factors influence how long a maple sap boil will last, including amount of water in the sap, elevation, and barometric pressure.

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My BlogRural Reflections from a Toronto Hipster

The Hipsters Guide To Tapping Maple Trees

Enchanted Forest lined with results of tapping maple trees

The Art and Science Behind

Tapping Maple Trees

Toronto life didn’t prepare me for tapping maple trees, I didn’t even own a good drill capable of driving the bit into a tree. When tapping maple trees for sap, a drill more powerful than one for used hanging picture frames is required. After all, the tree is solid maple and not thin Toronto apartment drywall.

Maple is adamantium compared to a Toronto apartment wall. You know the stuff used to craft Captain America’s shield and Wolverine’s claws. Every Marvel fan knows adamantium is unbreakable, and with the wrong drill, maple trees are pretty darn unbreakable too.

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