In the sugar maple's native cold climates, the best time to plant is usually early fall. Hard maple, aka sugar maple, has a hardness level of 1450 lb f on the Janka hardness scale, making it one of the harder wood species available. (Sabrina Mae) under the Creative Commons Attribution license. Tolerant of a many soil conditions, varieties can be grown throughout the eastern U.S. Sugar maples grow approximately 1 foot per year. It is native to the hardwood forests of eastern Canada, from Nova Scotia west through southern Quebec, central and southern Ontario to southeastern Manitoba around Lake of the Woods, and northcentral and northeastern United States, from Minnesota eastward to Maine and southward to northern Virginia, Tennessee and Missouri. The leaves are lobed and the flowers are yellow. The sap is collected and boiled or evaporated to a syrup. Sugar maple has a high shade tolerance, which is exceeded by few other hardwoods. Maple syrup is made from the sap and wildlife consumes the fruits/seeds. Acer skutchii is the most southerly distributed of the North American Sugar Maples. Maple syrup has more uses and nutritional benefits, than something that’s just flavored sugar (basically, corn syrup and a bunch of other crap). All Rights Reserved. Common uses of maple sugar. Here are some sweet facts and uses for maple syrup that may surprise you… It’s Expensive for Good Reason. Sugar maple, (Acer saccharum), also called hard maple or rock maple, large tree in the soapberry family (Sapindaceae), native to eastern North America and widely grown as an ornamental and shade tree. Maple syrup is heated to about 265 degrees F and then stirred continuously until all of the steam works out of the hot syrup and it becomes a granulated form. Your Morning Oats: There are days when I feel like maple sugar came about solely to join winter morning oats. If necessary, protect the tree by painting the trunk and newly exposed branches with white latex paint. The trees are tapped early in the spring for the first flow of sap, which usually has the highest sugar content. Its leaves turn vivid shades of yellow and red in the fall. It is also the main source of maple syrup! My first cooking know-how of grade-A syrup consisted of drenching fluffy waffles and masking the porkiness of … Sugar maple wood is exceptionally dense and hard. Pecan Maple Blue Cheese Bourbon Tart Good Foor Stories. Select varieties of sugar maple may only live for up to one hundred years. It is commercially important as a source of maple syrup, maple sugar, and hardwood lumber useful in furniture manufacture and flooring. Maple Sugar. Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. It has been used in the treatment of coughs, diarrhoea etc. Maple sugar was among the great staples in the domestic economy and was a commodity of intertribal commerce being traded to people of tribes in areas not possessing this tree. The sweet-water sap from which maple syrup is made is different from the circulatory sap of the growing tree. The trunk and autumn leaves of a large sugar maple (, A man and his son using a hand drill to tap a sugar maple tree (. The sap contains 1.5 to 3 percent solids, mostly sucrose, but does not have the colour or flavour of maple syrup, which are imparted to the sap as it is concentrated by evaporation in open pans or boiled down. I know it was expensive, so I would like to use it for something special. A single tree may Mature trees and stands of sugar maple can live for over four hundred years. Acer saccharum is a deciduous Tree growing to 30 m (98ft) by 12 m (39ft) at a slow rate. The syrup has long since been consumed with waffles, but I am not sure what to do with the maple sugar. pure maple syrup, all purpose flour, vanilla extract, almond milk and 15 more. Maple sugar’s distinctive flavor makes it a perfect complement to a range of foods. People mix, dry, and process the sap to create maple sugar, or put it through an alternative process that turns it into maple syrup. The main reason it is used in skin care is that it contains natural AHA acids, namely Malic and Tartaric, and hence why it supposedly helps slough off dead skin cells in combination with other acid-containing fruit extracts as part of the trade name ACB Fruit Mix. You can make an old-fashioned bourbon using maple syrup. It is used for cabinets, furniture, and interior finishing. The sap of the Sugar Maple contains 2x the sugar content as other Maples. WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE : Sugar maple wood is tough, durable, hard, heavy, and strong [36,68].It is well suited for many uses and is commonly used to make furniture, paneling, flooring, and veneer [18,42].It is also used for gunstocks, tool handles, plywood dies, cutting blocks, woodenware, novelty products, sporting goods, bowling pins, and musical instruments [12,36,42]. Those planted in the summer tend to suffer from heat and water stress, making this season a poor choice. You simply replace one cup of cane sugar with one cup of granulated maple sugar. 2. Height. The extract coming from the Sugar Maple tree, the one whose leaf is on the Canadian flag and gives us maple syrup. Using granulated maple sugar is the most straight forward approach to getting this natural sugar into most common recipes. Omissions? Once almost all the water has been boiled off, all that is left is a solid sugar. Learn which plants thrive in your Hardiness Zone with our new interactive map! Osteoporosis: The calcium and magnesium in maple sugar can help to slow the loss of bone density that is the main characteristic of osteoporosis. The bright red leaves of the sugar maple tree draw visitors from around the world. The Sugar Maple species also plays a very important role in the ecosystem of many North American forests. 4. The wood also shows up as cabinets, countertops, cutting boards, butcher block, and flooring. The uses of maple wood will differ, depending on your project and the type of maple wood you have at your disposal. The tree likes Sun to half-shade,brown leaf margins indicate a lack of water. After maple sap is boiled and syrup is produced, maple sugar remains. It is hardy to zone (UK) 3. Turners find figured sugar maple, particularly burls and intricately colored spalted stock, appealing for bowls.