By Haley ED Houseman

Groundwork Somerville conducted its annual Maple Syrup Boil Down Saturday, ~Photo by Bobbie Toner

It was a good weekend for those with a sweet tooth in Somerville. On Saturday, March 12, Groundwork Somerville conducted its annual Maple Syrup Boil at the Community Growing Center to turn local maple sap into syrup.

With their enormous boiler fashioned by local high school students, the sap was boiled while volunteers walked those attending through the process. From 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Nearly 900 people attended this year, a turnout doubled from last year, when cold and snowy weather made it difficult both to tap sap and to come out for the festival.

The Maple Syrup Boil Down Festival is now an annual tradition for the city to celebrate the coming of spring, and local agriculture efforts. “We had our boiler set up and people could come and see the process, and taste the sap as it transitions,” explains Sarah Lindsay, the project coordinator for the event.

Most of the attendees were families, who took advantage of the weekend’s great weather to snack on pancakes, work on crafts, and enjoy the live music. The location hosting the boil down is an outdoor community space, garden and park, perfect for the sunny day. Says Lindsay, “I was super excited to see so many people come out and enjoy themselves. It’s a great space and we had a great turnout this year.”

The process of creating maple syrup is an intensive one; despite a good year for sap collections, the process started on Saturday will only yield a couple of gallons of maple syrup. Trees are tapped from around the Tuft campus and a few other local spots on a yearly, rotating basis mid-winter, as things slowly begin to thaw. Collected daily over the course of two months, it will eventually yield enough to produce a small quantity of syrup – the ratio of starting sap to finished syrup is about 40 to 1.

While the Boil Down event wrapped up around 3:00 p.m., volunteers have still more work to do before bottling sweet maple syrup for distribution. After being reduced in the giant boiler, the syrup finishes its refining process over a stovetop, where the temperature can be controlled more precisely. The resulting syrup will be bottled into 2-3 oz. containers to be given as thank yous to volunteers, as well as to be sold at farmers markets in the city.

Keep your eyes out for the syrup as it comes to market, or contact Groundwork Somerville for more information: http://www.groundworksomerville.org.

~Photos by Bobbie Toner