Brad and Chrissy Make Maple Syrup

Good for the bees, plant the maple if you can.

Plant the,

nothing else in this video. Nothing else

plant the maple Go out there plant a maple.

Yeah absolutely.

Wrap it up bon appétit. [Chrissy laughs]

[soft music]

Hey guys, today in It's Alive,

we're here in beautiful underrated Connecticut

[Chrissy laughs] and I'm with lovely Chrissy.

Chrissy, what are we getting into today?

So happy you're here today,

we are going to tap some maple trees, all right?

And then after that,

we're gonna boil some sap, show everyone that process

and then make some vegan blueberry pancakes.

Little maple syrup here today in It's Alive.

[upbeat music]

So first let's get to it,

let's make some, let's collect some sap.

Yeah, so this is a pretty old maple.

This is a good maple, it's a sugar maple.

It's really cool to kinda get into this year

and just learn how to identify maple tress.

So like for example, you can tell this a a maple

because it got like a shaggier bark,

which happens as the tree ages.

[Brad] Right.

[Chrissy] And then, it's like very straight

and then brooms out at the top.

[Brad] Okay.

[Chrissy] And that's a good way to kind of identify 'em.

[Brad] A few friends have taught me too.

with like, it'll look like this up top

on this bigger older maple Exactly.

Is this buds on it where like, where they have,

if you can see here Kevo

why don't get that fancy lenses to zoom in.

But you can see how it does like a little split there

and then when it goes up again it does another split.

If you look around here, not a lot of trees do that.

And that is a really good indicator.

That and these buds,

they look like little upsize down ice cream cones, right?

[Chrissy] Absolutely. Well, it probably turns out

it's not even a maple.

[Chrissy laughs] It looks like it, right?

[Chrissy] I'm no expert, From the buddings.

We're no experts, we're learning together.

[Chrissy] Exactly.

[Brad] If I had to put my money down,

I'd say that was a baby maple.

It might they grow-

It might even fell from this one.

Maybe.

[Brad] Chrissy, before you start drilling holes

I gotta ask, because I've never done this before.

Not to put you on the spot- No, that's totally fine.

Does it have to be certain height or thickness of tree?

I mean, I'm assuming we're not getting much sap

out of this little guy.

The tree has to be at least 30 years old.

Three?

Did you say 3 or 30? 30.

Okay.

In order for you to tap it for syrup or sap.

So how would you know?

So, if it's more than 10 inches in diameter,

[Brad] Okay.

That's usually a good indication

that you can tap it. That's the rule?

Just to know, like, when you drill a hole as small

as we're doing today, to tap into the tree,

it doesn't hurt the tree.

Actually, once we remove the taps at the end of the season,

the tree will heal itself in a year

and be good for the next year.

Yeah So, you said you go

in about three inches?

Two to three inches deep. Two, three inches, okay.

And you wanna drill in at a slightly upward angle.

[Brad] Put a little pitch in it.

Yeah, that way the sap flows out a little bit easier.

[Brad] What kind of degree?

It don't matter, just a little bit of angle.

[Chrissy] Just a little bit of angle.

12 degrees., industry standard.

I ain't no professional,

I'm an at home- [Brad laughs]

At home mapler, all right?

[Chrissy laughs]

[drill buzzing]

Drill bit seen some better days, huh?

If anyone's watching, it needs to be drilled fast.

[drill buzzing]

Actually, what's happening here

is because we're tapping later into the season,

the sap's already flowing out if you can see that.

So, it's harder to drill in it this time of the year.

'Cause usually you wanna tap,

end of January, early February.

It's drier. It's drier.

That makes a lot sense.

I was just busting your chops.

That's okay, you can bust my chops.

[Chrissy chuckling] Because if you

think about it right?

We're collecting, when you look at a log,

there is this center of the wood,

which is the heartwood, right? Yeah.

And then the outside is the sapwood.

And that's basically the highway.

It's carrying all this sap up to the trees,

which is it's life force, it's food.

And the reason why the spring is so the time to do it

is because you need temperatures where it's

below freezing at night and then warm like this.

It's like 50 degrees out here.

Yeah, 40 to 50. And that gets

everything going, just flowing nice.

And we're just tapping in and drawn out a little bit.

I mean, it's already leaking out of the tree.

[Chrissy] It can't even help itself.

And you know, thinking about it

as you described that drilling into wood

that is saturated with moisture,

does make a little bit more sense.

I think that to cause a little bit more binding,

especially one that's full of sugar as well

as that's heating in the drill bit.

I take it all back Chrissy. [both laugh]

It's already dripping down. It's already dripping-

Did you taste it? Not yet.

Look at that. [drill buzzing]

Oh, you are like a pro Chrissy.

Yeah man, your turn.

Yeah, yeah.

Now how many,

do you know how many taps you can do in a tree this size?

This one you could probably do two taps.

I'm just using a bamboo skewer to clean that [laughs]

The hole here because it's,

It's all munged up.

It's best to get all of that.

I like that, little details.

It's best to get all of,

all of those shavings out. I just wanna taste it.

Yeah, go ahead, taste that.

It tastes like slightly sugary water,

that's all it tastes like at this stage.

It's going to sound silly, but it does taste like a,

you don't get much of a sweetness,

but it does taste like it's drinking water

out of a wooden cup. It sure does.

All right, so this is the next half

you got the little, save a tree tap.

Got the little save a tree tap.

Let me take a look at that. Yeah, man.

Okay, yeah Kevin, you're going wanna see that buddy.

[Chrissy] Little guy.

[Brad] That one, that part goes in little

[lip smacks] All right?

And I'm assuming these little things here,

stop it from being pushed out.

So as the wood, I'm just guessing here,

No you are right. with my wood knowledge.

As that hole starts to want to close on itself.

It'll bite those little teeth,

and prevent this from coming out.

So I'm just kind of, gently pushing

that spile into the tree.

[Brad] What did you call it?

Spile. Spile?

Yeah, I don't know.

Those are the two interchangeable names for it.

Is that, that's a real,

That's a real term. Oh, spile.

Yeah [laughs]. I like that.

Is there anything else a spile?

I don't know.

No, that's a good question.

Let me just get this.

Kevin, spile. Spile.

Nice spile Kevin.

So you want to kinda,

Oh, and that's a little hook there to hang your bucket.

And you can see,

[Brad] Look at it coming out already.

Get syrup all over my face.

And you don't have to go too far into the tree.

Just about five or five to seven taps will do.

And it'll stay and there's no leakage.

It's already flowing. It's already flowing.

Don't waste it Chrissy.

No wasting.

So I gotta put this- What's that zip tie?

This zip tie, it's a handy-dandy way to hold the top in.

I do. I do, I like too.

These were just cleaned with like soapy water.

Soapy hot water.

You gonna use [indistinct] or something,

if you want to geek out.

You want that thing clean out.

You do, exactly. Even though we are

going to cook the hell out of it.

Just to like stop any

additional bacterial growth as much as you can.

Now I'm assuming once this thing starts to filling,

you don't want this stuff hanging out

for a couple of weeks in a bucket.

This stuff goes bad.

So like today, like if this were yesterday,

we would want to collect this, today.

Cause it'll go bad with the heat.

Yeah, let's think about it.

It's warm sugary, fresh water.

It is the perfect Petri dish for growth.

Yup.

Now that I've showed you how to do this,

you want to go tap a tree?

Put me in. All right, let's go.

Well, this is the tree we picked up before,

This is a good one. A fine looking maple.

That tree actually looks a little bit older,

a little bit thicker. Little thicker.

So did you say it had to be a certain height?

They say it's better to be a little bit closer

to the trunk just because that's where

a lot of this happens. Concentration.

Yeah, so like right there is perfect.

This is good. Yeah, yeah.

I feel good about that.

Are we ready? All right, get it Brad.

[drill buzzing]

Look here for flowage.

[Chrissy] That one's already flowing.

Yeah, look at that.

It's a good tree. I know.

It's a good tree Kev.

The best I've seen my whole career.

It spans decades, Kevin.

All right, here we go.

Let's see that.

Let's screw this up.

[Chrissy] And just try to keep that straight.

When you hammer it in, you got it.

You know it's good when it starts like

spewing all over your face.

There you go.

What'd you need this one?

The zip tie is for,

you want to put it on first.

Behind that little sharp tooth looking thing.

Yeah, behind the hanger? Yeah.

Perfect, and then you can just,

Don't I hang this on that? Yep.

So what's that thing for?

That thing is for hanging the top.

And then that little bar goes through that.

Yeah, so you pull that bar out.

I see. There you go.

Some old school stuff, man.

Hey, those are the best ones though,

you know, less things to break Chrissy.

Absolutely.

There you go.

Tap my first maple.

Look at that. Let's go baby.

There's your thumbnail.

Get your head in the background.

[both laughing]

[light hearted music]

So Chrissy, we're over here at some other trees

that you guys had tapped.

Yes. Buckets,

presumably full of sap.

And we're going to be collecting.

We collected some of these buckets yesterday,

so we're just going to collect some more.

Cause we had good conditions last night.

So some of them are going to be pretty full today.

This one's a good maple.

It's going to be pretty full.

Oh yeah.

We're good.

We're good halfway.

You see those ones,

those are, they've got the built in.

Oh, I like that.

That'll cost you a dollar more.

Look at that, common.

It's what I'm talking about.

Ready?

Yup, ready.

Oh, that's got weight.

Yeah, we could put that on the ground.

Awesome. Look at that huh?

I could see how this could,

you get 25, 30 trees, a bunch of these.

And this is why people use the tubes, the tube system.

I kinda, I like this, though.

Listen, I'm never

oh, let me put this back.

I'm never going to be doing this for money or something/

And you know what I,

know what I would much rather,

All right look, imagine this Chrissy.

So you can put the bucket down.

Let's go somewhere else. Let's go somewhere.

We're sitting up there, right?

The fire's going right?

You want to look out the window

and see all these blue spider webs of plastic tubes?

Not really. You wanna see this

cute little Canadian bucket.

[Chrissy] I want to see the bucket.

I'm going to keep Canadian bucket, every day of the week.

Laughing is good for the soul.

Oh my God, it's medicine.

Talk to me, what's going on?

We'll come back tomorrow.

We'll check this one tomorrow.

It's not good?

I mean, we can take it. Oh wow, there's not much.

Shouldn't sit long, right?

Yeah, no, it's better to just collect it.

[Brad] Look at that.

There we go. Now, you know what else,

[Chrissy] But this one's flowing nicely today,

so it'll definitely be full tomorrow.

Oh, big time.

How are we looking?

This one's also like a half.

Wow, we should take it though.

Yeah.

And actually, you can just like, I'll hold this

and you can just grab the,

The bucket.

I would hate to if any of this, yeah.

I would just go home.

Wouldn't even say bye, wouldn't look anyone in the face.

So, that one's, how are we doing on that bucket?

[Chrissy] This one?

I think we're good with this.

We're good on that, let me carry it.

My little muscles are in a, thank you.

[Brad] You're probably stronger than me.

I don't know why I'm carrying this thing.

That's what we need Chrissy.

We need a couple of donkeys.

So we got our bucket of sap.

And you know, I reckon the next step is to evaporate it.

Boil it down and get it to where

it starts to become maple syrup.

So you guys set it up.

We got some going already.

Let's go check out where it's at.

Let's go check it out.

[upbeat music]

It's our resident sugar shack operator.

The handsome Levon.

Hey Levon. How's it going?

We've got some sap for you. Awesome.

Levon is my boyfriend.

He has actually grown up doing this maple process.

So he taught me everything about mapling this year

and it's been awesome.

[shutter snapping] [crowd cheering]

So what we're doing here,

is just getting that fresh sap

into an evaporation pot.

And that's just going to allow all the water

to evaporate out and keep all that

sweet sugary syrup, at the forefront.

So I'm just going to put that on

medium heat or high heat actually.

Just let that go.

Over here, we've got our pre boiled sap going.

And this, once it reaches 216 degrees,

you want to do a midway filter.

If you take a look here,

there's a lot of maple sand and sediment in the syrup.

So you wanna- Question.

What's maple sand?

Maple sand,

It's like hard sugar that forms during the boiling process.

On the outside of the rim. Yeah.

It's crystallizes as it, Just crystallizes.

Just kind of describe to me how you do this in stages,

you mentioned like a pre filter or a post filter.

We started this, this batch early.

What was that?

7:00 a.m. Yeah.

And now it's finally close to the finishing stages.

I love that it just becomes this like,

if you make it and you want it to be this,

like this ritual, this activity, this spring celebration,

you can only do once a year kind of thing.

I dig that.

Even it takes all day.

Like my imagination just roams,

like building like a little thing

where you can build a little wood fire kind of thing,

you know, and make a day out of it.

I might actually be too short for this actually.

Let's see if I could do it.

Yeah, I'm too short for this.

I'll do it. That's sad.

It's one of those things.

Here you go.

Oh, these are cute.

You guys are just full of all the cute stuff in this house.

[Chrissy] And you'll notice

it's going to start collecting in the,

It was pretty good pour job Brad, I got to say.

[Chrissy] Sure it was, sure it was.

Oh, that smells, I say this like all the time.

I wish you guys could smell that.

So that's our mid filtration.

We're getting out any impurities and crystals

that might've formed in this process.

That's our side, like you said.

And then at that temperature after this,

how much more do we have to do you guys evaporate?

It'll probably be 15 to 20 minutes

before it's completely done.

Hold that.

Oh, let's get a shot of those impurities.

Yeah, get in there Kevoh.

[Chrissy] So now from here, we're just going to

put this into the little finishing pot,

So now you just do this kind of a medium low,

just like enough to where it's

kind of just simmering bubbling.

I don't think it's lit again?

You want it to feel scorching?

Oh, you want it hot.

Cause we're trying to get this up to about-

220.

219, 220. Okay.

So we're at 217 degrees.

You can see it's really boiling up, getting really bubbly.

Once this hits 219, 220,

it'll be at the proper sugar concentration we need.

So after this it's final filtration

and then chill and eat.

218, 219.

Then once it hits it, it's fine.

You just can't go. You want to keep it

as warm as possible.

For the filtration? Yeah.

Do you want to do it?

Yeah, I want to do something.

Do the honors.

Grab that bad boy, filter it into the little,

I'm going to filter it my best.

You got this.

So we've got a heavyweight filter

and a lightweight filter on top.

That's just going to make it

as clear and as clean as possible.

Watch that sweet syrup just pour through.

Oh yeah.

[Brad] That's what's up, huh?

[Chrissy] Isn't that beautiful?

Look how clear and clean that is.

[chime music]

I noticed my first couple of batches

were a little bit lighter.

Now we're like at the second stage,

it typically be grade B.

It's got more of that deep maple flavor.

I'm glad you brought that up,

because I to ask and maybe you guys knew.

Well you see different grades of, grade A, grade B,

darknesses, robust, you know, is that just in the process?

Oh swap 'em.

You guys are a good team.

[indistinct] actually changed the

standards for the grading system.

The reason why was, a lot of people

were viewing the grades as like a,

Like B is bad.

Yeah, B is bad, C is the worst.

But really the only difference is that

different parts of the season,

you get different colors syrup,

and they have different properties.

So earlier in the season you get

a very light, delicate syrup.

Now we're at kind of like the midway point.

So this is like, used to be considered grade B syrup

because it's got more of that maple leaf flavor.

The tree changes throughout the season

as it gets closer to budding.

And that changes the flavor of the,

And the color in that. And the color

And it's gonna be, B's going to be

a little bit more mapley tasting,

whereas your A's a little lighter.

So that that's like what this is, I Would say.

So this is what, A?

I think it's actually B, if we think about

the ones we did earlier in the season.

And then a grade C is usually

your really dark, robust end of season.

Yeah, I like that sometimes.

You do, yeah?

It's really strong.

I have mixed feelings on it,

it's definitely good for like baking.

Sure.

Maybe I've never had it though.

It's harder to get, because

it's so strong that they usually use it for like [mumbles]

Maple candies and stuff.

We've got our finished products.

We went through, you know, the evaporation cooked it down.

Maple syrup, final filtration.

It's cooling down a little bit.

I, you know, I'm trying my hardest.

It took me everything I have to just not,

I'm a very, I put my fingers in the pocket

but you know, I'm holding back

and you shared your recipe with me.

It was a vegan pancake mix of batter,

that we use some of my sourdough starter too.

And, I whipped it up yesterday, brought it here.

Why don't we, why don't we make a little sourdough?

Let me make you guys a sourdough pancake.

[Chrissy] Let's do it.

Well we're going to have some,

Can we use this? Yeah.

We'll use this.

It's still hot. Absolutely.

Look at us.

All right, so I'll, I'll clean this up.

If you want to grab some of the pancakes and then,

let's go get outside.

[Chrissy] Let's go, let's go, I'll be right back.

[upbeat guitar music]

So we're going to make some vegan

blueberry sourdough pancakes.

And actually Brad brought some sourdough starter of his,

which I'm so lucky to have

because my sourdough starter is a baby.

It's only about three months old.

So as the base, we have two cups of

organic all-purpose flour, a cup of sourdough starter,

two cups of buttermilk, which is just oat milk

with some Apple cider vinegar.

And we have some Brown sugar.

And we'll start by making our flax egg.

So we have two tablespoons of flaxseed here.

What we're going to do is just

pop six tablespoons of water into that.

And it's going to gel up and like

turn into an egg like substance

after a couple of minutes.

We've got a half teaspoon of vanilla extract,

we've got some cinnamon.

So I'm just going to hit this with a little cinnamon.

You like cinnamon?

I love cinnamon.

Good, all right, cool.

I didn't ask you before.

It's okay. [Chrissy laughs]

And we have a teaspoon of baking soda

and that's just going to aerate our batter a little bit,

and a little bit of sunflower oil.

Now we'll just give this a good stir once over.

[Brad] Well that looks nice,

look how bouncy that is.

Super bouncy.

So now our, you can see that.

The flax egg, it's like nice and thick.

[Brad] It's like a broken vinegarette.

Yeah, exactly.

So we're just going to pop that right in.

That was an equivalent two eggs.

Last but not least, we're going to add these blueberries.

A couple of blueberries.

I hate blueberries.

[tense music] I'm just kidding,

I love blueberries.

[mumbles] monster?

But you asked about the cinnamon,

you just assumed I like blueberries.

I did, I assumed you like blueberries, Brad.

I thought you were a good man.

And that's it folks.

We got, we got our batter

Now Chrissy, are you, what's your, pancaking right?

You kind of, you wait for the bubbles?

[Chrissy] I wait for the bubbles.

And for the and wait the edges to get a little bit,

[Brad] A little bit of looking done on the outside.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

It's not the best shape job I've had but, that's okay.

[Chrissy] It's thick too, so it makes it a little,

A little patch of Rue, Brad.

You were very kind because you know what?

As the great host, this is you are,

you gave me the better setup.

I mean, I brought my own skillet because you know,

it's the kind of guy I am.

But I got the better burner,

you're sitting in like mud over there.

Using a camping stove.

And COVID, let's blame COVID please.

It don't look bad.

I've made worse.

You know, it's not the prettiest, but she'll taste good.

Here we are.

Look at that cute little spatula I got.

It's made of titanium Kev.

Lightweight, it doesn't slow me down in my flipping,

and it doesn't rust.

That's a good little setup.

I can do a little service here.

Kev, what do you want?

Short snack, you got it babe.

[Chrissy laughing]

Pancakes look great.

Sourdough pancakes what could be,

blueberry sourdough pancakes,

with maple syrup that we just made.

[Chrissy] Yes, fresh.

Oh, and you put butter on it.

Smack it with little butter on top.

Yeah, I feel like that's like a real classy move, huh?

Those look great.

We did a great job. we did.

[guitar music]

This reminds me of like school.

And they Chrissy, you are obviously

the girl I would have been talking to

and like trying to cheat off of.

Chrissy, 27.

She puts it, she totally,

Look at this,

Where did you get this, I want one.

Except it needs like a little,

I'll use my leg as a little, little shim.

[Chrissy mumbling]

This is great, spring has sprung.

We made maple syrup.

Sourdough blueberry pancakes.

Well let's eat, shall we?

Let's go. I'm going to

taste the maple syrup.

I'm just going to wet the fork by itself.

I feel like we kind of have to.

[Chrissy] Yeah, that's true.

Yeah, come on. Taste this batch.

It's delicious.

You know, the first thing I think of when I tasted is,

how bad, like fake maple syrup is.

This was so good.

It almost is like the way it fried up in the cast iron.

It almost like the edges of it almost with this syrup.

It almost tastes like a donut.

I get why people like pancakes.

I'm glad I could [indistinct] with you.

Because back in the day, this is the only type of pancake.

So Chrissy, do you find much of a difference in,

I mean, other than the color,

but when you say like a grade B or a gray A.

Like this is like, has a really nice clean, sweet flavor.

But it's not like robust, overpowering, like molassesy.

You were kind of describing

that you would get with like grade C.

[Chrissy] And as I said earlier, as the season continues,

like every batch is slightly unique.

[Brad] And you find variation in year to year?

[Chrissy] Not even, just during the changes of the season.

In the season.

And I think it's just so neat to be able to do it yourself.

If you had a few trees.

And like that wasn't a major operation, as far as like,

very respectful to the trees,.

Kind of very minimal footprint.

I like it. It's cool.

Christie, thank you again.

You and Levon for helping me out to,

to make maple syrup with you guys

and just sharing your property and your trees

and your setup with me.

It's something that I've been wanting to do my whole life.

I've never actually tapped a maple tree,

but it's something I'm going to carry on

and do with my kids.

For as long as they want to do it with me.

Seeing how it's really done

and what goes into doing it, it's inspiring.

It's so much fun, and it makes you get outside.

You know what I mean?

It gives you a reason to always be out in nature.

And I really liked that about this activity

100% and it helps you respect it.

Like, you know what I mean?

Like, do you want to go drilling

all these holes in your tree and killing it?

No, of course not.

Thanks for coming. Well, thank you, Chrissy.

You were awesome. Yeah, thanks again.

And like I said, I put my finger in that jar of maple syrup.

So I'm going to have to bring it home with me.

It's yours, It's for your safety.

Christie, these outros are getting real, it's me.

I'm awkward.

Let's get these out.

The way I wrap it up, as I usually just go bone Appetit,

please do it for me.

Bon Appetit.

[Both laugh]

It was awesome, thank you so much.

Cool, thank you, I'm getting out of this desk chair.

I failed, I don't give a shit.

The test is over. That's it.

[Kelvin] Class dismissed.

[Chrissy] Class dismissed.

[upbeat music]