Maple sugaring is lifelong love for McHenry man, but anyone can try it

With “10 minutes on YouTube and a couple bucks on spiles,” anyone can tap trees and make maple syrup, according to Nathan Howenstine.

He’s been maple sugaring – the process of making sap into syrup – with his dad, Chuck Howenstine, for nearly all of his 27 years. Mostly, because his dad enjoys the hobby and their farm between Ringwood and McHenry has the trees for it.

Chuck’s love of maple sugaring goes back to his childhood. His family lived on a campground in Ohio with a sugar bush – an area of sugar maple trees. The maintenance crew tapped the trees and made syrup each year.

As the family story goes, 6-year-old Chuck, now 68, saw steam coming from the sugar house. He tugged on his mom’s sleeve and said, “They’re sugaring, mommy. Let’s go,” he chuckled.

Part of what he likes about maple sugaring on their McHenry County farm is the self-sufficiency of it, Chuck said. “I like it. ... It is free food,” and around February and March, it is about the only food available from nature.

“I really like to garden and base what I eat on what is available” in nature, he said.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 10

Chuck Howenstine uses buckets to collect sap from maple trees on Thursday, March 9, 2023, at the Pioneer Tree Farm near McHenry. He has been collecting sap for most of his adult life to make maple syrup that he then gives away. (Gregory Shaver — gshaver@shawmedia.com/Gregory Shaver - gshaver@shawmedia.com)

His parents, Bill and Alice Howenstine, moved the family to Chicago from Ohio in the late 1960s before buying what is now the Pioneer Tree Farm in 1970. Chuck started tapping maple trees back then, but eventually moved out on his own.

When living in Athens, Ohio, in the late 1990s, his family had just one silver maple. Chuck tapped it, and then went knocking on neighbors’ doors asking if he could tap theirs too. It got him some odd looks, but usually a wary OK, Chuck said.

After he turned reduced the sap into maple syrup, “I would bring them a bottle that I made from sap from their tree,” Chuck said. The following spring, those neighbors would be excited to see him and happy to have their trees tapped if it meant more syrup.

After his wife’s death, Chuck and his sons, Nathan and Kevin, moved back to the tree farm. The family spends most of the growing season getting ready for November and December tree sales.

But from the middle of February until the sap quits running, Chuck collects sap from the silver maple trees on the property. This year, he made four 5-gallon jars of maple syrup.

What is different between the Howenstine’s maple sugaring is where the sap comes from. The farm does not have many sugar maple trees but does have 33 silver maples and boxelder trees.

Both of those can be tapped to make maple syrup, said Kim Compton, who has been working for the McHenry County Conservation District and its annual Festival of Sugar Maples for 27 years.

“The difference is you need a whole lot more sap because it has less sugar content” than sugar maples, Compton said.

[ Photos: Festival of the Sugar Maples ]

Instead of 40 gallons of sugar maple sap to make one gallon of syrup, you need up to 80 gallons of boxelder or 60 gallons of silver maple sap for 1 gallon of the finished product. “It is all still maple,” Compton said.

The process of tapping trees is very straightforward. Drill a 5/16th- or 7/16th-inch hole, tap in the metal spile and give the sap something to run into like a bucket or clean milk jug.

According to the University of IIlinois Extension office, maple sap begins running when nighttime temperatures are under freezing but daytime temperatures are above freezing.

Once trees start to bud out with leaves, the sap turns green and leaves a bad aftertaste, Chuck said. Some years, he has collected sap for just two weeks before it stops running clear. Other years, he collected sap for a month.

Chuck pours sap into an outdoor evaporator his parents made from scrap metal and eventually brings it into the farm’s warming house. There, he continues the cooking process in a series of pans on an antique wood kitchen stove until the syrup’s sugar content is about 66%. He bottles it then, giving it give it one more round on the stove later to reach 66.7% sugar content before he puts it in smaller bottles.

None of syrup Chuck makes is sold. He gives it away to family and friends. “It is like an obligation. Every spring, it is what I do,” he said.

While the Howenstine setup is more complicated than most hobbyists, selling syrup from the farm would mean upgraded equipment, a commercial kitchen and health inspections.

“That is my goal, hopefully,” Nathan said. “It would be nice to have it be a sources of profit.”

Anyone with access to sugar, silver or boxelder trees can try it themselves, Compton said.

It is like an obligation. Every spring, it is what I do.

—  Maple syrup hobbyist Chuck Howenstine

The tree needs to be at least 12 inches in diameter. “We say if the tree is 36 inches, ... you can put three [spiles] into it,” Compton said.

Cooking down the sap is where it becomes more complicated. It creates a lot of steam.

Nathan remembers his mom doing it once in the house and the wallpaper curled because of the steam. Another time, when his father forgot to turn off the stovetop before they left, the family returned to a house full of firefighters and burnt syrup.

“It ruined the pot,” Chuck said.

One way around the steam issue is to use an outdoor turkey fryer to cook the sap.

“You just need a propane tank like you have for the grill. Cook over the fire for many, many hours,” Compton said.

When the syrup reaches 219 degrees and is at the candy bubbles stage with small, tight bubbles that look like foam form across the container, the syrup is done, Compton said.

“They could just collect enough to fill the turkey fryer and would end up with a pint” of syrup, Compton said.

It may be too late in the season to tap a tree now, depending on temperatures and when the tree buds start to open into leaves. “But it does not have to be complicated and you don’t need fancy equipment” to try it, Compton said.