Wikipedia:Peer review/Maple syrup/archive1

Maple syrup

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I've listed this article for peer review because it's a GA and I'm looking for suggestions for further improvement, with an eye to potentially going to FAC at an as-yet-unspecified future time. It needs a bit of work to get there, and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Nikkimaria (talk) 02:40, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Dana Boomer

It's awesome to see this article being improved. My family makes maple syrup (a small-scale commercial operation), so I have access to lots of different aspects of it if you find a need for specific pictures.

Lead could stand to be expanded. I would focus particularly on the second paragraph, and expand the summary of the history a bit.
Lead, "Syrups must be at least 66 percent sugar to qualify as "maple syrup" in Canada; in the US, any syrup not made almost entirely from maple sap cannot be labeled as "maple"." I'm a little confused on this sentence - the first clause seems to be discussion brix (sugar content), while the second is apparently discussing sap contents - two separate things.

What I'm trying to do is distinguish between the criteria applied for the label "maple syrup" in Canada vs the US - Canada requires Brix, whereas the US focus is sap content.

Native Americans, "There are no authenticated accounts of maple syrup production and consumption among early aboriginal groups." As the previous sentence just said their was archaeological evidence of syrup making, how are these two sentences not mutually exclusive?

Authenticated accounts as in written or oral accounts, as distinct from archaeology. Attempted to clarify.

Europeans, "During the 17th and 18th centuries, processed maple sap was a source of concentrated sugar, in both liquid and crystallized-solid form." Isn't it still a source of concentrated sugar?

Yes, but that element is not as important now - now we mostly like it 'cause it tastes good, not because we don't have real sugar

Processing, "Maple syrup was made by boiling between 20 to 50 litres (5.3 to 13 US gal) of sap (depending on its concentration) over an open fire until one liter of syrup was obtained." Has this changed ("was made")?
May want to mention that some producers also do a fall tapping, although this tends to be much more hit-or-miss because of the more variable weather.

Cool, I'd never heard of that. Would you happen to have a good source on that? Nikkimaria (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This pamphlet mentions that you can, but I'm not having any luck with online searches. Gah. It's just one of those things you know, but nobody bothers to write down... I'll take a look at my dad's reference material tomorrow and see if I can come up with anything there. Dana boomer (talk) 02:02, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Production, "Sap is not tapped at night because the temperature drop inhibits sap flow". True in the sense that the sap stops flowing when it freezes at night. However, producers don't go out and untap and retap the trees every day; I can see some readers gaining this misconception with the current sentence wording. (I shudder to think how much work that would be even in our small bush!)
Perhaps mention something about "sugar sand", which are minerals (?) that, if not filtered out of the syrup, settle to the bottom of jars as an off-white sandy substance.
Perhaps mention something about other maple syrup products: Maple syrup cream, maple syrup candies, etc.
Commerce, "Canada exports more than 29,000 tonnes (64,000,000 lb)" Since all of the previous data was in litres/gallons, it's a bit of a jump to switch to tonnes/lbs. IIRC, syrup is around 11 lbs/gal, so this would be around (very approx) 5.8 million gallons, but an official source is always better than my off-the-top calculations :)

The only source I could find with litres gives a very different number, but I suppose that'll do

Commerce, "Maple syrup has been produced on a small scale in some other countries, notably Japan and South Korea." How did syrup get to these nations? Was it transferred there from N. America, or did it arise there independently?

Not sure. AFAIK it arose independently, but I haven't seen anything that explicitly says that

Grades - why all of the italicizing?

Mostly because I prefer that for naming rather than a lot of quotation marks

Grades, "for farm sales in that province only." Does this mean "if made by farms in this province" or "for on-farm sales in this province"?

Neither. Attempted to clarify

Grades, "Grade B is darker than Grade A Dark Amber." Um, duh? This just seems like a really obvious statement...
Grades, "slightly higher standard of product density." What does this mean? Brix?
Grades, "The dark grades of syrup are primarily used for cooking and baking." Perhaps mention, however, that some consumers (especially in niche syrup markets (ie not Mrs. Butterworth)) prefer darker syrup for table use because of the additional flavor?
Imitation maple syrup, "must be made almost entirely from maple sap" What is "almost entirely"? A certain percentage?

Don't know, regulation just says "almost exclusively maple sap"

Imitation, "syrup must have a density of 66° on the Brix scale" Seems odd that this is the first time the Brix scale is mentioned, since it is a large component of maple syrup making/processing.
Grades, "and US Grade B "Commercial"" Since above you have said that there is grade B and grade C/commercial, I think "grade B "commercial" might be confusing to some readers.

My prose is not the greatest, so for fine grammar tweaking I probably won't be much help in a pre-FAC run. However, I hope the above (focusing mainly on content, I think) are helpful. I'll be watchlisting this review, so let me know here if you have any questions. Nice work so far, and good luck with FAC! Dana boomer (talk) 17:17, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Attempted to address most of these, with some replies above. Thanks for commenting! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Brianboulton comments: couple of points re the lead:-

Each of the three paragraphs begins with the words "Maple syrup", and two of them end with "maple syrup". Some variation of expression is necessary.
You have cited the statement in the lead that "Canada is the world's largest producer of maple syrup." This fact is given in the text, and cited: "Canada makes more than 80 percent of the world's maple syrup..." etc, so the lead citation is unnecessary.

One other point: it should be possible to avoid squeezing the text between two opposite images. Brianboulton (talk) 18:50, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All addressed. Thanks for your comments! Nikkimaria (talk) 16:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]