A busy week & news about the weekend

The sap has been flowing well again this week and we are about halfway to our annual production target.  We made plenty of amber and dark syrup with wonderful flavour. Big flows of sap mean long hours on the job and less sleep than usual. However, we run with the sap and would rather be making syrup than sleeping anyway. We enjoyed seeing many visitors over the past week and are busy filling customer orders.

On the production side, we are focused on maintaining vacuum levels in the woods throughout our 45 km of pipelines over two farms. Branches and trees fall on lines pulling them apart and dislodging spiles from trees. Various critters also chew holes here and there causing leaks. Leaks reduce sap yield so fixing them is a priority.

Major factors affecting syrup production are the level and type of sugar in the sap. The sugars in the sap that we are gathering has been generated from the starches that the trees have been storing over the past 5 years. There is an exponential relationship between sap sugar content and syrup yield. To estimate the yield, we divide the sap sugar content into “86”. It takes 43 litres of sap with 2% sugar content to make a litre of syrup. Our sap had 2% sugar content when we started the season. It dropped to 1.6%, which means the ratio has increased to 54 litres of sap to make a litre of syrup. This means we need more sap to reach our production goals. We hope the weather cooperates!

The type of sugars in the sap affects the colour of the finished syrup. Sap contains sucrose, fructose and glucose. Each type of sugar starts to darken at different temperatures during the boiling process. The lower the darkening point of the sugars in the sap, the darker the finished syrup becomes. Darker grades of syrup contain higher levels of fructose and glucose, where lighter grades are higher in sucrose. I believe that we have not made any golden grade syrup yet this season in our process due to the low sugar concentration and higher levels of fructose and glucose in the sap.  I am hearing similar reports from producers throughout the maple region.

We are open daily from 10 to 4. With the ghastly weather forecast for the coming weekend  – March 29 and 30 – the Kettle Boys and Shantymen will not be operating, however, our store will be open and we can provide tours in our main sugar camp. Please travel safely if you plan to visit.