Confusing Groceries: Maple Syrup

Part 4 in a series about the most confusing items to shop for in the grocery store covers the many grades of Maple Syrup. Learn the difference so you're never left with the wrong ingredient.

[lazerbeams]

They could have just said "Type A" instead of "Grade A" and it would have solved the problem. "Grade" implies that that A is better than B, while "Type" just signifies that they're different

[Mandrake_root]

Makes me think of how people would think of dark-light roast coffee as more or less caffeine and not just how it's roasted. I think it's less widely misunderstood but I definitely saw it a lot when I worked at a coffee shop.

[AFloridaSon]

Back in my day, my mom graded maple syrup, "affordable" and "not affordable". 😅

[DJMankiewicz]

You and America's Test Kitchen are setting the bar for conversational, yet helpful and clear culinary communication design. Cheers bro.

[gaelan]

I once paid a very informative visit to a sugar shack that, while not open as a tourist destination, was right on the road a few minutes up from a friend's place. The owner and his family walked me through the entire grading process, including little sample cups. The robust stuff genuinely was the best, and he had the good size jugs for sale direct from the shack.

[Julia________]

As a Canadian, light colour is sufficient. But only for drinking.

[ashtaylor]

If you haven’t had real maple syrup before, no matter the grade, you need to try it at least once in your life. The corn syrup substitute doesn’t even compare to even the lightest real maple syrup out there. Totally worth it.

[ScrotalSands]

Another useful tip for anyone who's never had real maple syrup before, it's not shelf stable like the flavored corn syrup, it will go rancid if not refrigerated after opening. It says it on the bottle, but it's very common for people to not realize and treat it like the corn based stuff when it's their first time.

[rosemaryandrews]

A Canadian here, thank you for clearing that up.

[xdinglex]

Mrs Butterworth has been trying to kill me my whole life.

[michaelgoetz]

I’ve seen a few of your videos passively, but after this one I had to subscribe as your knowledge has tremendously helped my eating experiences. Cheers.

[winnebago]

This might just get lost in the comment section, but the "taste" isn't determined by the sugar content. Golden comes from the early spring, Very Dark is from late in the spring.

[Kipchoge]

I'm learning so many new things from this channel, thank you!

[Torso]

Man, I remember when I looked at like 7 grocery stores a few years ago looking for Grade B syrup and couldn't find it. I was so annoyed to find out that everything was now Grade A.

Anyway, now I just buy the darkest stuff that's actually maple syrup and it makes delightful old fashioneds.

[henrylesatele]

He's right about pancakes syrup / "maple flavored" syrup, which comes from a corn or other non sugar maple plant syrup. We need more people like him, good job man.

[polyplastid]

When I was a kid, my father sugared every spring. We separated the types of maples, sugar and black went together, and we did silver and boxelder separately. We boiled when we had enough to fill any of the big wood fire pan we had which was about once a week. As the season went on the color of the syrups got darker. Darker syrup is good but so is the lighter syrup. And in fact it’s harder to get the lighter syrup to some degree since it’s really only the early sap that will produce it.

[MiniTrainLoco]

I love how you break these down. Nothing pleases food companies more than make everything conveniently confusing, and amp up the price.
Nothing says ‘we found a cheaper ingredient and ruined up the taste you knew and loved’ like ‘new and improved!’

[DrKringle]

As a baker, I always use Grade A dark (formerly Grade B). When monchin' on pancakes, I go with Grade A amber. Maple flavored corn syrup can eat my shorts.

[mahekorvenoges]

Participation awards given to syrup. Wow!

[apuffofpink]

As someone from the state of Vermont, I thank you for spreading this knowledge to the public