I was drinking around four gallons per year before I realized I had a problem. I should have kicked the habit right then, but instead I started making my own and was soon up to six gallons per year. That’s when I decided that something had to be done.
I’m talking about maple syrup, the liquid gold that goes so well on morning oatmeal, evening ice cream, and occasionally, on nothing more than a tablespoon held under the jug. But it isn’t the maple syrup that’s the problem, it’s the lead that sometimes finds its way into the syrup.
Lead is not naturally present in sugar maple sap. Instead, it shows up (if it shows up at all) during the collecting and boiling process. The reason is simple: lead solder is by far the easiest and least expensive way to manufacture leak-proof metal buckets, tanks, and pans, and the lead from that solder can dissolve in sap.
Until the 1990s, virtually all metal sugaring equipment was made using lead solder, and sugarmakers often had an extra supply of the stuff for plugging holes and repairing leaks. The material melts at a relatively low temperature (about twice the boiling point of water) and repairs can be made without risk of damaging the metal of the bucket or pan itself. By the 1990s, however, as sugarmakers became aware of the syrup-lead problem, the major equipment manufacturers began using lead-free solder and most states began setting advisories on allowable lead levels in syrup.
The good news is that these changes have virtually removed lead from maple syrup that is for sale in stores. So don’t panic, and don’t dump your Fancy down the sink, especially if you only consume a small amount per year. Even a few quarts of high-lead syrup aren’t enough to pose a health problem.
The bad news is that, as commercial producers upgraded their equipment to either plastic or non-leaded metals, backyard guys like me bought up their used equipment. Sugaring is a relatively expensive hobby, and the chance to buy used buckets, tanks, and pans often seems too good to pass up. So while the commercial producers have cleaned up their act, many hobbyists have not.
There are thousands of backyard sugarmakers across Vermont and New Hampshire, and besides having a penchant for cheap equipment, we share several other traits: we consume a heck of a lot more maple syrup than the average person, we typically don’t have our own syrup tested for lead, and we somehow imagine that the lead issue doesn’t apply to us. The unfortunate reality is just the opposite: backyard sugarmakers are the highest-risk group.
If you are a backyard sugarmaker yourself, there’s still no need to panic. Step one is to send a sample of your syrup in for a lead test. Check with your state agricultural extension service for reputable testing labs. It’ll cost you about $25 per sample, including postage.
If the test reveals that your syrup is high in lead (250 ppb is the current standard), the two things to think about are time and temperature. The longer the sap is in contact with lead solder, and the higher the temperature, the more likely it is that lead will leach into the sap or syrup. This means that the evaporator pans are the prime suspects, and while you can’t change the temperature of boiling sap, you can reduce the lead exposure by draining the pans between boilings. If you leave the partially made syrup in the pans during that week-long cold snap, it will be slowly accumulating lead the whole time.
Sap buckets are the second most likely source of lead contamination, especially if you let your buckets fill up for awhile before emptying them. To avoid this, collect your sap frequently, which is a good idea anyway for improving color and flavor. If a few inches of sap have sat in the buckets during that same week-long cold snap, consider dumping that small amount of sap on the ground to clean the bucket before the next big run.
Plastic tubing avoids the lead problem altogether, especially if the sap runs down into a plastic tank. (A lead-soldered tank is the third most likely source of lead contamination.) Some backyarders hang plastic milk jugs under their taps, which works well until the big run hits, at which point they will be up all night emptying them.
At our place, we’ve been slowly upgrading our equipment, replacing a dozen buckets per year and saving up for new evaporator pans. I figure that, no matter what, I’m going to be walking around all dopey in March from staying up late stoking the fire and collecting sap. I just want to make sure that the dopiness is the result of hard work, not lead.
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