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A group gathers
to begin a tour of our Sugar House
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Inside, Bobby shows
visitors maple tubing used to gather sap from maple trees in a sugar
bush
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A sap bucket, not
too commonly used anymore by sap makers. Parkers Maple Barn still
uses hundreds of them
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Many styles and
sizes of sap buckets on display along with a very old evaporator in
the foreground
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300 gallon tank
full of sap waits to be boiled down in our evaporator
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Ronnie checks the
sugar content of a tank of sap using a hydrometer. The hydrometer
floats in the sap inside the metal cylinder
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The hydrometer
resembles a thermometer, but measures sugar, not temperature. The
number that is visible on the surface is the percentage of sugar in
the sap. Typically only 2-3% sugar.
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Filtered sap is
pumped into a holding tank
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The sap looks just
like water and is very clear
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With a ratio of
about 40:1, it would take this large barrel full of sap to make two
smaller jugs of syrup
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Don starts a fire
under the evaporator
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We burn four foot
slabs of pine
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The hottest fire
will make the best quality syrup
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As the steam rises,
the sap gets thicker, darker and sweeter
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A close up view
of the front pan
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Ronnie checks the
sugar content of the maple syrup with another hydrometer
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When the syrup
reaches a sugar concentration of 67%, we draw off a three gallon batch
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Does anyone know
what this white stuff is? It is called Diatomaceous Earth. We add
it to the syrup. It becomes our organic filter agent. It is then removed
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Bobby shows visitors
the filter that removes the impurities from the syrup
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Ronnie checks the
maple syrup using a grading kit in order to compare the color. This
will determine whether the syrup is Grade A light, medium or dark,
or Grade B
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The darker the
syrup color, the stronger the maple flavor, as simple as that
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Nothing goes into
our jugs but natural sugars and water from Maple trees. No additives
or preservatives! Can you find the jug on the shelf that is not pure
Maple syrup?
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A close up of our
slab pile. We can burn 40-100 cords of wood in our 6 week sugar season
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A full car park
on a busy Sunday morning in March
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A sugar maple tapped
with buckets and bags. You can see the sap inside the clear bag
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Sap falls into
a sap bucket one drop at a time
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Our
Sugar House
