Study of maple syrup physicochemical characteristics during storage

While popular as a sweetener, maple syrup is also the sole ingredient of many products, such as maple butter, maple fondant and maple taffy. In order to manufacture these confectioneries, it requires that the physicochemical characteristics of the syrups are properly understood. Maple product manufacturers have readily access to the class of syrup, as determined by its color, and the date it was made, but less to its composition and other characteristics. Thus, studying the link between the former and the latter could allow to better guide the manufacturing of maple products according to the syrup class. In this paper, maple syrups from different classes were characterized and followed during a 12-month storage period. Darker syrups have more inverted sugars, polyphenols, and nitrogen compounds, while the sucrose content is lower. During storage of maple syrup, polyphenol content tends to go down, especially for Very Dark syrups. The pH decreases for all classes of syrup, while the sucrose content slightly increases. As these maple syrup treats can be made at any point during the year, knowledge about the evolution of the physicochemical characteristics from the different classes would help to optimize the processing of the syrup.