How Our Maple Products are made
Our maple products contain 1 ingredient, pure maple sap. The most efficient collection of sap for our production starts around President’s Day Weekend in February every year. We start out the season walking our tubing lines (piped throughout the woods, from tree to tree) making sure that damage from the previous summer through winter is repaired prior to the new season. Once the winter weather gives way to days above freezing and nights in the mid 20’s, we set out to tap are several thousand trees in our sap woods.
Each tap (similar to one shown above) is drilled far enough away from past years tap holes to ensure proper healing of the tree and to maximize sap flow. The holes are drilled using a 5/16 tapping bit just deep enough to allow the sap to flow. Most of the woods in our production today have been tapped for over 70 years and are in good health due to the proper tapping method used throughout the decades. Improper tapping techniques could lead to premature death of a tree or insufficient sap yield.
Once the trees are tapped and the sap starts to flow on the days warming up well above freezing, we will gather our sap and bring it into the sap-house and fire up the evaporator. This is where the magic happens. Maple sap on average is 2% sugar and 98% water and has the consistency of water. Maple syrup has about 67% sugar and 33% water. So how do we get it from practically water to that delicious pancake topping? It’s simple…. We just boil it! The process that the sap goes through in order to become syrup is the boiling off of water and caramelization of the sugars. When we are boiling it is the best time to visit the sap-house. You can smell that sweet smell all around the building.
After the syrup has reached our desired consistency it is taken from the evaporator and filtered into stainless steel barrels. From here we can store it in our barrel room until we are ready to can it into your favorite container.
When the weather begins to change in early April into the more spring like days that we all love. The maple trees begin to form and sprout buds and during this time the sap becomes unusable. The trees now are focused on leaf growth and the harvest time of maple sap is over. Every year at the end of the season we remove all of the taps from the trees to allow them to heal for next year. While doing this we clean out our sap lines, in preparation of next season.
Although this is an abbreviated “How-its-Made” if you are interested in visiting our sap-house to see the full process from start to finish. Be on the lookout for NYS Maple Weekends that are hosted around the state in the month of March. If that doesn’t work, contact us for possible days during the season (usually in the month of March) that we could give you a tour.