Sugar Shack and Evaporator

Sugar Shack and Evaporator. Maple Sugaring Season. , As maple sap flows form the tree, it looks and tastes like lightly sweetened water. The concentration of sugar is very low - from 1% to 4% by volume - depending on the variety of tree, amount of sun light, and the water available in the soil. To turn the raw sap into syrup or sugar, the excess water must be removed., Evaporation is the most common method for removing the water, boiling the sap to convert the liquid into steam. Early Dakota and Ojibwe sugar makers did this by adding fire-heated rocks to wooden troughs filled with sap, causing it to boil. As metal pots and kettles became available, the sap could be boiled over a fire to remove the excess water., The next innovation in sugar making arrived in the 1850s, with the development of the sugar evaporator. A sugar evaporator combines the heat-source and evaporating pan in a single unit. Sap is added at one side of the evaporator pan and heated over a fire box. A system of baffles, or walls creates a maze-like flow trough [sic] the evaporator, concentrating the liquid as it slowly flows from one end of the pan to the other. Syrup drawn off at the far end of the pan., Processing maple sap, Wolsfeld Brothers maple sugar camp, Long Lake. , (ca. 1905) , Courtesy, Minnesota Historical Society, Sugar evaporators made large-scale syrup and sugar production profitable, though only commercial farms could afford them. Sugar evaporators could also be used to process other types of sugar crops, like sorghum.