Sugarhouse Upgrades

This year promises to be exciting! We're in the process of implementing some essential upgrades, which included finally replacing our leaking roof. Our sugarhouse has always been a welcoming spot for visitors, but it's not very enjoyable when water drips on you in the observation area!

We also applied for and received the Vermont Sugar Makers Association Sugarhouse Certification grant! This brings significant improvements in food safety measures- including new, stainless steel sap tanks to replace our galvanized tanks, a new filter press, and (drum roll please…) a new evaporator…

The decision to get a new evaporator was not made lightly. One of the things I love the most

about our sugarhouse, is walking in and seeing our old Leader arch hard at work. However, some of the older fittings and solder do not meet food safety standards. On top of that, burning through 20-30 cord of wood per season to run that arch just does not work for us anymore. So, through some extensive Facebook Marketplace research, Joel was able to find us a gently used Leader Vortex arch. What this new evaporator will give us is increased fuel efficiency, and a safer product so that we can continue to provide the highest quality maple syrup.

The Arch pre-cleaning

After some good, old-fashioned elbow grease

After cleaning, and ready to store for next season

As many of you know, we have always been proud of the way our syrup is produced in the traditional way, with just gravity and wood fire. However, we have come to grips with the fact that if we want our family maple operation to continue for generations to come, we have to increase our efficiency. To this end, adding vacuum, and reverse osmosis must be in our future.

That being said, we do still plan on having a limited release of “No RO” syrup for our traditionalists (myself included). More on that coming soon!

I was shocked to learn that many sugar makers are RO-ing their syrup to 20+ % sugar content. Our intention is to RO somewhere in the 4-8% range. Just enough to reduce our wood consumption to a more manageable range, while maintaining the quality of flavor that is expected from us. *UVM’s Proctor Maple Syrup Research has determined that there is no discernible change in flavor in sap RO’d to 21.5% or less.* We will let you be the judge of that...