Tasteless syrup?

[tommymc]

I've been backyard sugaring for over 20 yrs. I have a small 18x26 flat pan with arch, and put out 11 buckets. On a good year, I make 2 gallons. Usually, I tap the first week of march (Central VT) but this year I decided to take advantage of the February thaw and tap early (2/26). That worked out well, and by the first week of March, I had made 2 gallons of light syrup. A good year by my standards, and anything more is bonus. Then (as it typically does) the weather turned cold and snowy and I didn't get another good run until 3/23.

While boiling the sap, I noticed a slightly different smell to the steam....I would describe it as corny, like I had canned corn on the stove. A bit odd, but I finished off the boil. Long story short, I made a couple quarts of sweet but tasteless syrup. It's not bitter like buddy syrup, just bland with no maple flavor. I guess we can use it for cooking or flavorless sweetening. There was still snow at the base of the trees, and the buds weren't even close to swelling. It's almost like the trees kept on producing sap, but ran out of flavor. Has anybody else experienced this or have an explanation?

[OCHTO]

You could try treating it like metabolic syrup. Read the report from UVM Dr. Tim . If you take the syrup to 240* it darkens and more of the positive flavor molecules develop. Then add distilled water carefully to take it back to syrup. Could try it on a quart, you got nothing to lose.

[littleTapper]

Interesting! My later-season sap/syrup sometimes gets a "corny" smell too so it's neat to see someone else experience that (and I'm tapping mostly silvers), but that always makes the best tasting syrup of the year for me. Wonder if its some microbe that causes it.

[tommymc]

littleTapper, it's good to hear that I'm not the only one to experience the "corny" smell. I'm still struggling for an explanation. I was using same-day fresh sap, no budding. My small setup allows me to clean the pan after each boil. It's like the trees just ran out of flavor. I wonder.....I know it sounds wacky, but this article from UVM has an interesting explanation of how trees work. https://www.uvm.edu/uvmnews/news/remaking-maple This quote: "In other words, the cut tree works like a sugar-filled straw stuck in the ground." is an interesting analogy. The sap is composed of fresh ground-water being sucked through the roots where it picks up stored sugars. As I understand it, these are sugars which were produced in the leaves from the previous year. That means there is a finite amount of sugar....and maybe the taste is a separate component(?) which ran out before the sugar.......

[NhShaun]

What grade syrup did you make that was flavorless ? I generally only use my dark syrup and find the light grades to seem almost flavorless to me.

[tommymc]

What grade syrup did you make that was flavorless ? I generally only use my dark syrup and find the light grades to seem almost flavorless to me.

I don't have a grading kit, but it was sort of a medium....actually lighter than I would have expected for late season. Still, my earlier lighter syrup had maple taste. 18452