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I like maple syrup so much I’ll be planting a couple of trees this Spring.
I don’t eat it often but my partner does.
I’d eat it more often but I would prefer to cut my own leg off with a chainsaw than have a surgeon have to do it due diabetes.
That is my personal condition though and it wasn’t sugar in coffee that brought it on.
I’m not sure.
We don’t get as cold as you do in the Snowy foothills but I’ve got over 200 acres and like trees, especially ones that produce food.
We are planting everything from truffle hazelnuts to bunya pines, native finger limes and heritage apples.
Hopefully someone in 50-100 years will appreciate my “Johnny Appleseed” efforts.
Best of luck for your enterprise. By ex BIL was a professor of outdoor ed and had colleagues in northern USA who made their own maple syrup, doing the concentration over an open fire of maple wood. Utterly delicious and totally lost on the BIL who was as far from a foodie as it is possible to be.
Another source for the flavor from a product with a longer shelf life is Maple Sugar. Also be aware that there are several grades of Maple Syrup and the flavor varies widely between them. Also the source of the syrup/sugar matters as there are many ripoffs of the real stuff out there.
There are 4 categories of Grade A Maple Syrup produced in the United States and Canada:
* Golden * Amber * Dark * Very Dark
Ironically, for the Grade A Maple Syrup made in Canada and the United States the darker it is, the lower quality it is considered to be, and the stronger it tastes.
So, if you want a stronger flavored Maple Syrup you can save yourself a few bucks and buy the darker syrup.
I seem to recall using both maple syrup and golden syrup (not at the same time) in coffee back when i was in my late teens. The coffee would have been instant, and made with milk heated on the hob. I think I liked it. Gave up sugar 15 years with no inclination to go back (I take in too much from red wine as it is......).
There are 4 categories of Grade A Maple Syrup produced in the United States and Canada:
* Golden
* Amber
* Dark
* Very Dark
Ironically, for the Grade A Maple Syrup made in Canada and the United States the darker it is, the lower quality it is considered to be, and the stronger it tastes.
I think the "Maple Mafia" run syrup in Australia, you get a choice of one.
Coles and Woolies both have Queen brand and their own brand in the exact same bottle so I assume Queen bottle for them.
As far as I know everything else they sell is maple-ish and mostly sugar syrup, added flavouring with a drizzle of maple somewhere in the vat.
The colour grading is interesting though, I'll have to have a look in the supermarket next mothers day (the only time we buy it) to see if the shop brand is the same colour as the Queen. The above pictures are from the supermarket websites so can't guess how accurate the colours really are side by side. Interestingly, both Coles and Woolies are out of stock of "their" brand so maybe Queen realised they have no competition except against themselves in Australia or Yelta's post started a run on syrup.
Costco have an organic Canadian maple syrup in 1 litre jugs, I can't remember the exact price but it's a bit cheaper per unit volume than the Queen brand.
One thing to watch is that since the concentration range for maple syrup is very narrow (66 - 67 Brix) and this corresponds to a relatively high water activity (about 0.87), some fungi can grow on the surface. This seems more prevalent with the Costco syrup, possibly due to low SO2 or just the big jug.
We decant it into 4 x 250ml bottles since it takes us a long time to get through a litre.
The flavouring used in the "maple flavoured" sugar syrups contains a lot of sotolon which also occurs in wine and beer. It is generally considered a fault except in the rare, expensive and extremely delicious Vin Jaune from the Jura in eastern France.
Last edited by Lyrebird; 16 July 2021, 03:51 PM.
Reason: clarity
We also use the Costco syrup. Agree with the comment on the fungi as well. Gotta keep an eye on it and it is 'supposed' to be refrigerated once opened. We decant into 500ml squeeze bottles.
If that syrup was bottled in Canada then by law the label must include the Grade name and if that is Grade A then it must also include the color code (Golden, Amber, Dark, or Very Dark). It must also be labeled with the lot number/production code and either the name and address of the tree growing establishment, packing or shipping establishment or the first dealer and the registration number of the packing company.
If any of the above information is missing then it was not bottled in Canada and who knows what it actually contains. It could technically still be Canadian Maple Syrup but it wouldn't be Grade A. It would be bulk purchased Processing Grade or even worse Substandard Grade syrup. Neither of which can be bottled in containers smaller than 5 gallons in either Canada or the US.
I think your information is out of date. Canada introduced new food laws in Feb 2019, as far as I can see the new regulations don't contain the various stipulations you list.
Yep - was about to do the same. That's just what mine looks like.
And we reckon it tastes pretty good
Just looking at the nutrition label, it estimates the 1L bottle contains 17 servings at nearly 60ml each. Not sure I go through that much each serving, but it has got me thinking!
Using Java's info, the Queen must be bottled outside of Canada/USA and the Costco one prob bottled over there.
Our labling laws are all over the place, slowly improving but no mention of which country bottles it (could be Canadian product bottled in CN)
Not sure when Queen started doing syrup but I think every Australian Grandmother, Mother, household had a bottle of Queen Vanilla. I'm sure Mum's bottle was 10 or 20 years old and I can't type the words without smelling it.
I’v been buying Queen maple syrup for around 30 years I reckon.
I’m trying to remember the brand that has a maple leaf shaped bottle.
It must cost them almost as much to make the bottle as all the other marketing.
Custom bottles are surprisingly cheap if you buy enough of them. Obviously ths depends on the bottle but for wine and beer bottles it used to be about a 20% margin at around 100,000 bottles and fell to zero when you get to the tens of millions because the packaging companies fight to hold on to such customers.
We used to have Friday night knock off drinks at the brewery in WA, suppliers and reps included. One Friday I was chatting to a fellow I didn't know so I asked him who he was. He replied "Oh, I'm from Visy". This was true, he was Dick Pratt.
We had a maple leaf shaped bottle for a while and I would wash/refill but I found that the points of the leaf were stubborn places to clean and seemed to promote fungus growth quicker than normal.
Love the look, but the practicality was not there for us.
Still think I have the empty bottle saved somewhere.
Last time I bought some there were 3 types/grades of Queen, the Maple leaf bottle brand, a couple of sleasy flavoured syrups and then a couple of organic labelled ones in the health food aisle.
For a group of sugar naysayers there is certainly a wealth of knowledge re maple syrup in our ranks, this thread has certainly educated me as to the pitfalls to try to avoid when shopping for the sweet sticky stuff.
Having said that I have to confess annual consumption in our household may run to a single 200ml bottle, we use it as an occasional treat, don't consume it on a regular basis, so buying the best quality available is hardly going to have a major impact on the budget.
Yep I thoroughly enjoy the stuff on the very infrequent times we do indulge, however like most of life's little luxuries its enjoyed even more when consumed infrequently.
What has surprised me is the way the thread has taken off.😀
I think people are always interested in different ways to sweeten things. I am also a beekeeper and discussions on sugar vs honey also elicit a lot of this kind of chat.
I certainly have a sweet tooth, but managed to wean myself off sweetening my coffee about 15 years ago.
Love a waffle with some maple syrup though!
Costco have an organic Canadian maple syrup in 1 litre jugs, I can't remember the exact price but it's a bit cheaper per unit volume than the Queen brand...
...We decant it into 4 x 250ml bottles since it takes us a long time to get through a litre.
If you are referring to a different product please feel free to provide a link to it.
From what I can see from the images of the label on their site that 1L bottle of Costco's organic maple syrup does not in fact meet all of the Canadian packaging/labeling requirements. While it does include "Grade A Amber Color" the label on the bottle does *not* include the all important additional required components. "It must also be labeled with the lot number/production code and either the name and address of the tree growing establishment, packing or shipping establishment or the first dealer and the registration number of the packing company." Ergo that bottle of syrup was NOT packaged in Canada as all of the information required by Canadian law is NOT present.
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