Our 2023 Maple Syrup season has just ended on Friday night with 254 gallons of maple comprised of both Amber and Dark grades. With 843 trees tapped on March 4th, the Sugar House wood fired evaporator ran six (6) days a week with ten and eleven hour days including four (4) overnight runs to keep up with the flow of maple sap. It was not unusual to have 2500 gallons of sap in our cold storage tanks and without the use of Reverse Osomosis to remove water from the maple sap, we continue to make maple syrup by the traditional method of continious evaporation versus shortening up the cycle by removing water to increase the sap sugar content.
If you are wondering how much we evaporate an hour the answer is based on several variables however the main being the size of the evaporator. In our case, our evaporator is rated to remove 70 gallons an hour and our method of making maple syrup maintains a steady heat continously assuring that our maple syrup will yeild the best taste possible.
The surgar content of our sap from our 40 acre Sugar Maple trees started at 2.2% and we ended our last 1000 gallons at 1.5%. This equates to 39 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup at 2.2% and 57 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup at 1.5%, Traditionally, we see the start of the season at the 3% sugar content of our sap and then a gradual decrease of sugar % as the season progresses with an average of 2% for the last run of the season .
Our Maple Syrup initially was graded Amber and as the month of March continued, we began to produce Dark Maple Syrup and the last batch was graded Very Dark, which means that as the syrup darkens, the taste has a more maple flavor. Those who like more maple flavor seek the darker syrup and we all agree that even though Amber Maple Syrup is often consumer preference, the Dark Maple Syrup is close behind, The remaining grade of Maple Syrup is called Light and our Maple woods has never produced any as long as the family has been making syrup.
With our OEFFA USDA Organic Certification, we continue to offer a speciality Maple Syrup made the traditional way affording our customers the opportunity to choose a Maple Syrup that is processed with the best practices and certification. If you have not tried the MapleWorxz brand of Maple Syrup, we encourace you to and “Taste the Michigan Tradition”.