Grades of Maple Syrup

grades of maple syrup

This syrup comes from maple sap harvested at the very beginning of the sugaring-off season. It’s distinguished by its light golden hue and sweet, delicate flavour. It’s a delicious topping for yogurt and ice cream.
maple syrup grades

This syrup has a pure, rich taste and a magnificent amber colouring. It’s ideal as an ingredient in vinaigrette and all sorts of dishes and desserts.
g3

This syrup, with its more pronounced, caramelized flavour, is well-suited for cooking, baking, and sauces. It’s celebrated for the way it enhances the taste of fruity dishes.
g4

This syrup is the product of maple sap harvested at the end of the sugaring-off season. Its flavour, more pronounced than any of the previously-listed syrups, is rich and distinctive. It colours and perfumes sauces and glazes to perfection.

Maple syrup is Categorized and graded based on four characteristics:

COLOUR colour
CLARITY clarity
DENSITY density
INTENSITY flavour

There are several different grades of maple syrup. Sap tapped at the beginning of the harvest season is generally clearer and lighter in taste. As the season advances, maple syrup becomes darker and more caramelized in flavour. This natural sweetener offers a variety of flavour components, and can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes.

In Quebec, which produces most of Canada’s maple syrup, the grades of all the 200,000 barrels produced year to year are determined quite precisely using a spectrophotometer which measures the amount of light passing through the syrup. The percentage of light determines the final grade of the maple syrup.

Quebec maple syrup goes through scrupulous hand testing by quality inspectors who test, taste and classify all the barrels. There are four grades of 100% pure Canadian maple syrup. Varied, subtle and delicious, they’re all a pleasure to explore!

grades-sidebar