Time marches on and it is now time to reset the hops for year 2.  I thought an update might be in order.

We replanted the rhizomes that didn't take  last year so that there are few or no unused slots in each row.  There is a huge difference in the second year plants.  They often have 4 or 5 shoots going out already.  We had to put string out for them already as many are 3 to 4 feet tall already.  We are using the more expensive coconut string this year as the plants will climb much higher and will need more support.  This twine is much thicker (1/4 inch or so) than the baling twine we used last year and is really made from the outer skin of the coconut.  It appears to be produced as a "cottage industry" with many styles of weaving and varying diameters but it is preferable for climbing vines as it has a rough surface that is easy for the shoots to cling to. 

The vines always grow and turn in a clockwise circle as you look down on the plant from above.  Consequently when you wrap or train the vine to grow up the rope you must wrap it in the right direction.  The interesting question is does the vine grow counterclockwise in the southern hemisphere like  bathtub drains do! 

We expect to sell the hops for a wet hops brew this year which means that we won't worry about drying them but will send them directly to the brew kettle as we will have a limited crop until year 3.  We will concentrate on figuring out a good method for getting them off the treelis and getting the hops off the vines.  I will add a picture of the higher vines later in the week.

Before the Civil war white sugar was expensive as it was transported from the Caribbean and transportation overland was difficult and expensive as there were few roads and those that were around were of poor quality.  The upshot of this was that most people in the northeast "grew" their own sugar in the form of maple sugar.  Most syrup produced was not left as syrup but boiled to a much higher temperature and poured into molds where it hardened into maple sugar bricks.  These molds were smaller than a bread loaf mold but made of tin just as the baking molds.  A household might make hundreds of these bricks in a spring and then easily store them in a pantry for the rest of the year. 

Every time sugar was required for cooking or for the table a brick was taken off the shelf and the amount needed would be grated off the brick.  Maple bricks were economical, easy to store and relatively easy to make.

Today, with white sugar so cheap most maple is made into syrup and used for its flavor rather than its sugar content.  We still sell these bricks (although we make them smaller than the traditional bricks) as some people remember them from their childhoods when they were available as a cheap candy.  We also like them because they remind us that maple is a traditional food of northeastern North America with roots way back to the original settlers of the region.

The center item below is our brick from an earlier catalog picture.

I wrote him back but I'm afraid I burst his speculative bubble.  Global warming has moved our season well into February but that does not mean we make less syrup, rather it means we make syrup earlier in the year.  I also pointed  out that even if global warming were to cut production it would be done gradually over years.  While syrup can be stored (particularly if it is refrigerated) for years this fellow could be waiting a decade or more for this train to arrive.

A final point I thought of later relates to taps.  Assuming output per tap did fall over time it could easily be made up by adding taps and raising the price modestly to cover the added expense of the exrra taps.  When you consider that we tap way under 10% of the available taps in the northeastern US and Canada presently, then expanding the number of taps would not be that difficult.  On our farm alone there are a potential 2000 or more taps that we haven't hooked up.

 By the way, syrup is traded in bulk somewhat like a commodity and prices do fluctuate somewhat during the year or from year to year.  Buying syrup low with the expectation of selling it later at a higher price can work but I have seen a number of brokers who have gone belly up when they guessed wrong and could not pay back the borrowed money they used to buy the syrup that spring.  You might think twice before getting into that business.   All in all, you financiers out there should find another new precious commodity.

Below is an amount of syrup everyone could speculate on without much risk!

While we stopped making maple syrup almost 2 weeks ago spring is just now getting going.  There is always that week to 10 days when the plants are getting ready to make an appearance but haven't really committed yet.

That murky in-between period seems to be over.  The buds have swelled on the maples so next week we will start to see some leafing out.  The geese  moved back in several weeks ago with their incessant chatter but now I see geese on nests so they are getting serious about their spring procreation.  I finally am seeing some wildflowers in the woods, although no flowers yet.  The most devoted hop plants are also poking above ground just this week.  I hope to see some of the other less gung ho plants over the next 10 days or so. The Daffodils are now in bloom although they seem to be the most optimistic that the weather will get warmer.  I have seen them flowering in a snow storm.

We are presently planting new Christmas trees which is also a sign of spring.  Let us know if you have a sign of spring that you look for.

Production reports around the state show southern areas with good crops.  Northern areas have a ways to go in their season so we will have to wait and see there. Our production seems to be as expected.  For us that means about a third of a gallon of syrup produced per taphole.  Some years are less than that and some more but this year it is near our average.  When you ask a producer how his season went try to get a figure of syrup volume per tap.  That way producers with varying amounts of taps can assess how they are doing vis a vis their neighbors as well as how this year compares with past years.

Production also varies depending on what equipment is used.  Tubing systems on vacuum outperform buckets so you can't expect a bush on buckets to produce as much as a neighbor on pipelines. Even with these inconstistencies it is always nice to have  some way to assess the season.

In New York State the road sign below is the symbol for a maple operation.  If you see this sign there is a sugarhouse close by where you can find maple stuff to buy!

Our big enemy is abnormally warm periods rather than abnormally cold periods.  We had a bad warm spell at the end of last season which caused such fermentation in the tapholes with no corresponding sap flow that the season  ended a week to 10 days early.  We did not have the losses some other producers had as we had tapped early last year and so had produced quite a bit of early February syrup which helped make up for some of the losses due to the hot spell in late March.

This year there appears to be the opposite situation.  Our season is abnormally cold due to a blocking system over Greenland which forces the jetsream south into the midwest US bringing us persistent cold and snow.  The latest models show this blocking system hanging around for a week after Easter so don't get out your shorts yet!

We have never been without sap to boil on our open house weekends but that may be the case this weekend as there has been no sap flow this week due to freezing weather.  The lesson of mapling is that while everything in weather evens out over time, in the short term Mother Nature does whatever she wants and our only choice is to simply go with it.

Weather permitting we will make every effort to boil those days and to make syrup.  Visitors will have an opportunity to walk in the sugarbush and see how our tubing system operates.  Inside our store will be samples of our products as well as some samples of some maple recipes we have tried and like very much.  Syrup and maple confections will, of course, be for sale as well as maple cotton candy, maple lollipops and sugar pieces.  If you have not come before you will be surprised at the many forms of maple available today. 

The best part is that admission is free so how can you lose.  If you must see steam and boiling the best time to come will be the middle of the day but hours are from 10AM to 4PM each day. 

No matter where you live in New York State there is a sugarhouse open near you on these weekends.  It is all part of mapleweekend.  Check it out on the web.

Hope to see you ("be there or be square").

We use the cold weather to make repairs of equipment and start to prepare our retail store for the open house weekends later in March.  This year that is March 16,17 (St. Patricks Day weekend) and March 23, 24( Palm Sunday weekend).  I am more than happy to have the public look at what we do as I believe sugaring is as much about culture in the Northeast as it is about the syrup itself.  My only problem is getting production and open houses to happen at the same time.  The public wants to see you make syrup when it is convenient for them to come.  I am sympathetic to that but I can only operate when we have sap which is entirely dependent on the weather.  It becomes a balancing act to try and save sap for processing on the weekend without hurting syrup quality.  Sap starts to ferment the minute it comes out of the tree.  Some fermentation just leads to darker syrups which some of the public prefers but too much fermentation leads to just plain off flavor syrup which is unusable.  We hope the public understands that we want to show everyone what we do but Mother Nature does not always cooperate.

A saying I heard many years ago applies here.  It says you make your best syrup when the weather is nasty.  Windy, often wet weather with sleet or wet snow when the temperatures top out in the high 30's.  The pleasant, sunny days days of late March and early April when the thermometer approaches 60 does not produce the most or the best sap as the weather is too "nice".  Unfortunately, no one wants to visit when the weather is nasty!  Well, if sugaring were easy everybody would be doing it!

A grading kit is shown below.

For those of you looking for fresh syrup don't call us just yet.  While we have last year's syrup still available this year's syrup will have to wait until we have had several boils and have accumulated a variety of colors (and hence flavors) to satisfy different palates.  That will probably be several weeks but don't worry it will be here pretty quickly.  There is a sample below.

Maple syrup is the proverbial canary in the coal mine when it comes to global warming.  You only have to look at tapping dates and season length to see a marked change over the last 35 years.  Maple weather is very sensitive to weather and temperatures.  Sap flows best between about 35 and 55 degrees in the day and 20 to 30 degrees fahrenheit at night.  Moving a few degrees either way and you have no flow in the day or no freeze at night to refresh the run ( it then stops running naturally if there is no freeze at night).  If I look at our records a trend is clear.

When we first started (1977) tapping usually started in the last few days in February and we began making syrup about a week later.  I see in the the late 70s and early 80s we generally stopped making syrup (because it got too warm) in the first week of April.  As time went on the records show more and more instances of very hot weather during a a week or so after March 15 rather than at the end of March or early April.  I should note that there ar always aberrations such as one season in the early 80s where there was so much snow and cold that we didn't start making syrup until March 16 and contiued until April 16.

Having shown you a benchmark.  Let's fast forward to the late 90s and early 2000s.  In the decade of 1995 to 2005 we generally tried to be tapped by February 20 or so so we could make syrup during the last week of February but we still found that the season wore out by the 25 of March or so as the weather became just too warm for reliable sap flow.  We adjusted again in 2010 and now try to be tapped by February 15 so we can make syrup through the last half of February.  We have also begun using check valve spout adapters which are gadgets put in each tap to prevent reverse sap flow back into the hole on freeze up at night.  The result is the holes stay open longer so we can tap earlier and still catch late March runs if the weather is uncharacteristically cold in the last half of March.   The present trend seems to be that our season will open just after Valentine's Day and be over by March 25 or so.  The result is that the season seems to have jumped about 10 days over 35 years.  I could very well live to see it jump some more before I'm done.  The good news is that if we can adjust we can still make just as much quality syrup.  Everyone else might not be able to adjust as we have.

If you look above you will see us tapping last year and the picture below is tapping this year.  Notice the difference in weather as this year is much colder.

It is tapping time again. If you go back in this blog's archives you will see that this is the second year we have tapped simce our blog began. This winter is much colder than last winter with more snow but we have had two thaws already and we are not even into February. I suspect our tapping of trees is a bit premature but those who waited to tap last year lost a lot of their crop so we decided to be ahead of the curve rather than behind.

I have a double team of tappers this year which is nice because half of the job of tapping is fixing chews in the tubing by forest critters and clearing deadfalls off of lines. If I have people to tap then I can concentrate on fixing and things go along faster.

Once again, the process is fairly simple but becomes work when you have to do it 2700 times as we do. You go up to the tree and say hello. You check around to find some undisturbed bark several inches away from any older holes that have healed up. Then you pick up your drill and make a hole 1.5" deep with a slight down slope to it. If you did your job right and the weather is above freezing the tree will immediately run sap. You then tap in a new sterile spout extender which in our case has a check valve in it so no sap that leaves the tree and has become contaminated with bacteria ever gets back into the hole. This often happens when the tree freezes up at night. It will literally suck sap that is in the lines right back into the tree. The cleaner the hole stays the longer it will stay open and the more sap it will give. The final step is to gently tap the spout, which is connected to the tubing system into the spout extender. The whole process should take less than a minute per tap. Some photos below show a tapper drilling and the finished tap with a black spout and a spout extender straight behind it ( out of site).

When you connect hundreds of dripping tapholes, as we do, the lines get larger like garend hoses and flow like garden hoses too.  That is, when the sap is flowing, which is only a few weeks away!

This week we are making maple cream which we can store in the freezer easily until we sell it.  Maple cream  is best when made from syrup that has aged a little as it needs some of a particular type of sugar molecules in it (invert sugar) to crystallize properly into cream.  Very fresh syrup sometimes does not have enough invert sugar to do the job even though it may have a gorgeous taste and be perfectly fine for other uses.  Long story short, winter is a fine time to make maple cream even if the new syrup is not here yet.

We make cream in batches of 20 lbs. or so at a time.  The concoction has a real short ingredient list: maple syrup.  We add just a dash of butter in the cooking process to keep the foam down in the pan but the amount is about a teaspoon per batch.  The secret is how we cook it to get a completely different texture than maple candy.  We do not cook the syrup to as high a temperature as we would for maple sugar pieces but still 22 degrees of so above the boiling point of water.  What we do then is take the concentrate off the heat and instantly cool it in an ice water bath for several hours.  At that point we beat it until it crystallizes into maple cream but I should warn you not to try this at home with a portable mixture as the cooled syrup is very thick and is beaten with paddles like taffy rather than with beaters like a cake recipe.

The result is a smooth spread where you can not taste the sugar crystals on your tongue.  Rather like frosting I would say only all maple.  Use it anywhere you would use a spread ( even as a frosting if you like).  Here are some how to pictures.  Top left is  cooling in a cold water bath; top right is the beating process (notice the cooled concentrate has crystallized);  the bottom is cream being packaged.

January is when we repair tubing and pull deadfalls off of lines weather permitting.  Working on tubing is much more difficult when the temperature is below 25F so we do inside work on those days.  I feel for producers farther north who do not have the luxury of waiting for decent temperatures to work on their sap lines.  We should start tapping next week or we will wait if the weather gets and stays cold.  It is not a good idea to tap when the temperatures are too low as there is a greater chance of damaging the tree tissue around the hole by cracking it.  Patience is a virtue in all things.  No pictures this week as the bare ground is fairly ugly and not worth showing others.  We could easily have snow again by next week as the weather is supposed to get quite cold by next weekend. 

Christmas rush is over and big time snow has come just before the holiday.  My daughter took a break on the trail during her hike and came up with this.  I like it because it shows all 3 of our crops in one shot.  Maple tubing is in the foreground, Christmas trees across the road with the hop trellis poles in back of the field on the left.  Work on maple tubing for the upcoming season will start right after the New Year weather permitting.  This year will probably be much harder in the woods as we now have about 2 feet of snow on the ground making getting around that much harder.  We usually have a thaw for some days in mid-January so that might clear some snow out.

For those of you who tried our Maple stout quickbread in our store over the holidays we have posted the recipe in our recipe section.  Happy New Year to everyone.

I was speaking to a long time customer the other day.  We were speaking about the health of each of our families and it occured to me that this fellow's father had been an early customer when my mother (now deceased) had been doing a lot of our sales.  That would have been at least 30 years ago.  I find that my output is always slower at Christmas as someone I have known for years calls in an order or pops in the store and I end up catching up on their family or mine for quite awhile instead of whatever I was supposed to be doing.  It all makes the rush of Christmas more pleasant.

I also must confess a bit of vicarious fun in reading the notes and messages that go in gifts that we ship.  There are great joys eloquently expressed for holidays, anniversaries and birthdays.  There is sometimes sadness as well over a loss, or simply not being there for an important date. It is always life affirming to see people really care for one another.

Then there are the crazy ones (they amuse too).  They pick out a Christmas tree that is so sad that even Charlie Brown wouldn't accept it. They order maple products that cost more to ship than they are paying for the product.  It really does take all kinds.

Thank you all for making my day more pleasant and have a Happy Holiday!

I just put the recipe for Maple snickerdoodles on our recipe page.  This is a nice light snack cookie that has a nice light maple flavor.  I ate quite a few just hanging around the store.  They were free samples and I was there so I snacked!

We also tried samples of maple "soda".  The recipe is simple as it is 1 to 8 ratio of maple syrup to club soda or seltzer.  You could adjust this to taste but I would recommend a darker syrup for this to add more flavor.  Reminded me of old fashioned cream soda with a maple flavor.  This won't appear on store shelves any time soon with all the competition in soda but you might find it a pleasant change of pace.  I get tired of that cola taste after awhile.   For a more low calorie drink try a tablespoon of maple syrup ( again dark syrup) in unsweetened iced tea.  It is a good addition to tea to give it some zip.

We also gave samples of our maple pecan pie.  This is a stupendous pecan pie that has been popular for years.  We still make some occasionally for customers for special occasions.  With the price of pecans so high and the use of maple syrup/sugar in the recipe it is an expensive pie but I would still recommend it for a holiday meal or other special event.  It is really easy to make if you buy a frozen pie crust in the grocery  These crusts can be pretty good and no one has to know you didn't toil in the kitchen.  That recipe is also on our recipe page under "About Maple Syrup".  Look on the brown banner line going across near the top of our website page.

This weekend we will try a cake recipe or at least something in a cake pan!  We'll report later.

First is getting the tree into the house and set up.  We always bail the trees we sell so that they are in a compact bundle that is easy to get in the house without scratching you or the walls.  If the salesman asks you if you want the tree "wrapped" say yes instantly as it is worth the wait or the small cost.  We do it for free but I recommend it even if you have to pay a little more.  Do not cut the wrapping off the tree until it is set up inside, in the stand.  It is to help you move the tree easily so don't take it off until you are done moving the tree! 

The second important item is to use a  tree bag.  This is a large plastic bag that will hold the whole tree.  Take it open end up and fully open and let it drop to the floor on the spot where you will have your tree.  Place your tree stand on top of the bag and then place the tree in the stand.  Alternatively, you can place the stand on the tree outside and then bring the whole arrangement inside all ready to go but still wrapped (as I pontificated about above).  Decorate the tree, enjoy it with the bag on the floor underneath catching any water that may miss the pot on the stand that you will fill to keep the tree moist.  When you take the tree down try to take the stand off while the tree is still standing (perhaps with a buddy to help) and then pull the bag up over the tree and you can remove the tree from the house without needles going everywhere.  You can take the stand and tree out together in the bag but you will have to take the bag off outside and then remove the stand.  Now your complaint is that the bag is plastic and a problem in disposing of the tree.  You are correct but I never said to leave the bag on the tree as you send it to the shredder.  Take the bag off and use it again for leaves or even as a large garbage bag.

One last tip is proper care of the butt of the tree where it was cut.  Like all natural beings trees try to seal up any wounds or piercings of its "skin".  The tree takes sticky sap and has it dry over the cut on the tree butt.  This somewhat preserves the moisture that is in the tree but also makes it very hard for the trunk to take up water.  When you get your tree home and are about to put it up make a fresh cut on the bottom of the butt of the tree to reopen the cut so water can be taken up by the tree.  Don't do this until you are erecting the tree or the new cut will seal up as well.  You don't need to take much off the bottom to open up the butt,  even a 1/2 inch is enough.  Keep the butt in water and the butt will not reseal and the tree will take up much more water making it last longer and smell nicer..

We believe if we don't try to make a natural Christmas tree easy to have no one will have one!

We sell, for the most part, two families of Christmas trees.  They are firs and spruces.  We have balsam and fraser firs and blue and white spruce to be specific.

Balsam fir is the classic tree dating back a century or more in the northeast. Frasers have replaced balsams in popularity as they share many characteristics with fraser beating balsam in a couple of categories.  Firs have soft needles so there is no pricking of fingers and they also have a wonderful smell.  They are tall and slender which some folks like as they take less floor space in a room.  Balsam grow more dependably on our farm but frasers have somewhat stiffer branches (but not as stiff as spruces) to hold ornaments better.  

Spruces have a slightly "chubbier" base  and a perfect conical shape which the public identifies with Christmas trees.  They also have stout branches which hold lots of ornaments without sagging.  Their low points are that they have prickly needles.  Blue spruce has a very pleasant bluish color while white spruce grows  thicker foliage which looks very healthy in a tree.

We also grow a few white pine and are starting a large number of concolor fir but more on that another time.

balsam fir

Colorado blue spruce

November is the in-between month here on the farm.  Fall, the warm days and cool nights, and the foliage colors are over and we begin to think about the end of year holidays.  Our main job this month is preparation for the Christmas tree season.  We have to mow the fields where cutting will take place so the public can get around easily.  We order tree netting and tree bags.  We locate and cut some lower grade trees that have some good branches to use for brush for wreaths.  We get out the tree balers and the tree stands to display trees.  We decorate a bit to spice up the season. 

Inside will be more interesting to customers.  We have started making hot mulled cider for customers to have while they shop or cut.  We will have samples of all our products as usual but dkuring the holidays we try to have some samples of recipes we have tried that we thought were very good.  We have a new recipe for maple soda pop which we think the kids might like to try.  If you are reading this and live close by you might stop in to have a taste. 

Our farn is really the opposite of most farms in that we harvest in the cold rather than the warm.  Our first harvest is Christmas trees in December and our second harvest is Maple in March. 

We may try a new technique this year.  We now use special spout adapters ( the part that actually goes into the tree) that get replaced each year.  The result is much less contamination of the taphole by bacteria over the course of the season.  We feel this may allow us to tap much earlier in the season as there is less risk of contamination.  The result is that we will tap earlier and have more time to organize the sugarhouse in late February.

On a separate note I promised a recipe for Maple pecan pie last blog and that is easily delivered.  Simply go to http://cedarvalemaple.com/our-favorite-recipes/   and it is all there.

We have tried several types of nuts and many types will work with this process.  Pecans go best with the maple flavor but are admittedly an expensive nut by the pound.  Almonds are much more reasonably priced and stay very crisp as well.  We have done peanuts in the past but find their taste does not go as well with maple and they are an oily nut that does not go well with maple.

I, personally eat way too many of the pecans as they are a pleasant snack particularly when I am making them.  I will often have help make nuts for me as part of a weight watching program!  Pecans are below.  I will give you the maple pecan pie recipe next time.

I would like to talk this week about an old fashioned sugar that we call Maple Rock.  It is a very hard pure maple sugar that cools in molds and forms a hard brick.  It can be cumbersome to eat as the brick doesn't break off in your mouth like a cracker .... you almost need a hammer to break it up.  The back story is what makes this product interesting.

Before the Civil War maple sugar was the primary sweetener of northeastern North America.  White sugar had to be imported from the tropics and then hauled inland at great expense over questionable roads and bridges.  Maple sugar was local and easily produced.   In fact, most sugaring at that time was not to make maple syrup but to make maple sugar for every day use. 

Here's how it worked.  When the sap was cooked it was cooked well beyond syrup stage and was eventually taken off the fire and poured into molds that were shaped like miniature bread pans.  The concentrated liquid cooled into sugar blocks that were hard and easily stored in the home on any shelf.  They kept easily all year (except for rodents and pests that went after any food around the house) and were available anytime.  If you needed sugar for a recipe or really for anything you just took a brick and grated off what you needed and but the unused part back on the shelf.  These bricks were a staple in many households of the time.

Today, we use maple mostly for syrup so these bricks are an afterthought.  We don't list them in our on-line store, as they are not too popular, but we still make them so if you come to the store or simply contact us we could supply some for you to try.  They do have an even better shelf life than syrup and they are easily carried abroad in your suitcase.  If you want to you can break up the brick and dissolve it in water and turn the sugar back into maple syrup!  Remember though, maple syrup is 66% sugar so not much water to a brick of sugar.  I found this old picture showing some maple rock on the front left with our maple sugar coated nuts on the right.  We'll talk about them next week.

This week my musings will be about our maple sugar pieces which many of you refer to as candy.  We don't call them candy for a special reason.  They are pure maple sugar so they are not a combination of products.  Beause they can be turned back into maple syrup if necessary they are not classified as a candy by the New York State sales tax folks so we do not have to charge you sales tax when we sell them.  If we labeled them as candy we would have to charge tax.  The moral of the story is keep this candy name to yourself or you'll end up paying more for your fix.

Our candy is different from the normal maple candy that you find in shapes and are formed in molds.  Our cooking process does not allow us the option of pouring in a mold so we make drops instead using a very small ice cream scoop.  We cook the syrup to a higher temperature as you would making any maple sugar but after we are finished cooking and concentrating the syrup we take it off the heat and cool it in a water bath before we beat it into sugar.  This produces a softer, smoother tasting sugar piece that is a little more like a fondant than a sugar piece.  Our process, however produces a beaten sugar that is too stiff to pour so has to be scooped out of the pan rather than poured into molds.  We're hoping you will appreciate our finer tasting sugar.

We do offer individual sugar pieces in heart and maple leaf shapes which are fine tasting but made in the traditional manner so are a bit harder and not as smooth on the tongue as our drops.  There are no special eating or cooking instructions for sugar pieces.  Just bite and eat!  I have relatives that I have seen eat a 1/2 lb. of our sugar in 20 minutes or so but I don't recommend that pace.  Enjoy.

I have been talking about maple confections and would like to explain maple cream a bit more.   This is basically a spread made from only maple syrup.  It is very smooth such that you can't taste the crystals easily on your tongue when you are indulging.  This happens because when we concentrate the syrup by boiling to a higher temperature we then "shock" the concentrated syrup be cooling it super fast in an ice bath.  We then beat the stuff in a large paddle beater and the syrup sugars in a delightfully smooth spread.  I would supply the recipe to interested parties but you would still have a few failed batches until you got the hang of it as there is a "feel" element in making this confection.

What you might do with this concoction is a bit easier.  If you don't eat pancakes but you do like toast try maple cream on toast.  It also makes a delightful frosting on cupcakes and the like.  My favorite is to use maple cream as a glaze on meats.  It is very good on baked ham when you glaze the ham during the last minutes that it is cooking.  I also like to bake corned beef and then put the maple on as a glaze during the last few minutes.  Maple and the salt in the meats seems to make a nice combination.  In the end you can do what my grandmother always did and that is take a spoonful every day because she just liked it..

One proviso on maple cream.  It is made only from maple syrup so it has no synthetic stabilizers in it.  This means it is more like old fashioned peanut butter that would separate into peanut paste and oil after being left sitting for awhile.   Maple cream separates into sugar and syrup after sitting for awhile.  In both cases there is no reason to worry, simply remix by stirring and you are good to go again.  You wanted organic food so you might have to work a little more!

I thought folks might benefit from knowing a little more about maple products beyond maple syrup.  Many people have heard of maple candy and many people enjoy it but there are a lot of other products available which are actually more practical and easier to use as you don't have to make pancakes to taste them!

Indian Sugar is one and gets it's name because it was a native sugar rather than an imported cane sugar from the tropics.  For us it is nothing more than pure granulated maple sugar.  This stuff looks like granulated brown sugar you might cook with but a little drier and, of course, with that delicate maple flavor.  This is the same stuff as maple candy but in a more useful form.

You can substitute it in recipes for white sugar but don't use as much.  Depending on taste you might use 1/2 to 3/4 the amount of white sugar called for in the recipe.  We like to use the stuff straight which is more convenient for non-cook types.  Try it in your coffee or sprinkle it on toast.  I like it on my sliced grapefruit.  It makes a great topping sprinkled on hot muffins so it melts slightly and sticks to the tops.

This sugar is very convenient to keep.  It requires no refrigeration and will keep for months.  You can travel with it as it packs easily and you can use it to make a reconstituted maple syrup.  Just dissolve it in near boiling water at the rate of 8 pounds of sugar to one gallon of water.  You don't want to make that much at a time but the ratio is the same. It will make a darker, heartier flavored syrup so be prepared for a little different taste if you are a light amber syrup lover. 

  You won't use that much at a clip so Indian sugar is not really that expensive. Try some, change can be good! 

When we started  years ago it took 5 gallons of fuel oil to make a gallon of maple syrup in a traditional evaporator.  At 20 cents a gallon that was not too much to pay.  If wood was used ( which was us at the time) then one full cord of wood made 25 gallons of syrup.  A full cord is a stack of wood 4 feet high by 4 feet deep by 8 feet long.  Now syrup was $12.00 a gallon but still the fuel component was not too large.  When the price of oil shot up the industry spent several decades perfecting new techniques of evaporation and for awhile paying alot for fuel. 

Pans were added to evaporators that used the steam over again to increase efficiency.  Some evaporators used the steam over and over again recompressing it each time to raise the steam temperature.  Reverse osmosis, which is a process of forcing sap through membranes under pressure thus separating some of the water from the sugar,  came to be used as well.  All the systems had bugs to be worked out over decades but the results were stunning.

Today, once again, we can produce a gallon of syrup for between one and two dollars in fuel costs.  Not a whole lot of difference over 35 years EXCEPT for one thing; capital costs.  The equipment required for this energy "miracle" costs around $60,000 new while 35 years ago the evaporator might have cost $6,000.  Even with inflation our capital costs are much higher.

So,  if you want cars to use a whole lot less gas, it can probably happen, but I think they will cost a whole lot more to buy.

Usually people think that forest management means growing sawtimber and cutting it for sale.  That is certainly a prime use of forests but we also were schooled in developing wildlife habitats, controlling invasive species, proper trail construction techniques, and other economic pursuits besides growing timber.  We heard everything from how to encourage ruffed grouse to ginseng production.  All in all, a very useful program.

Now to the you folks.  Anyone out there who would like information on how they might improve their tree growth, change the species in their woods, encourage more wildlife, bring certain types of birds to their property or have any forestry questions you now have a friend.  Just contact me and I will try to answer your questions or more likely put you in contact with a specialist at cooperative extension who will help you.  I am also available, locally, to walk your woods with you and offer any help I can to help you get what you want from your land.  If you are not sure what you want to do with your forest perhaps I can give you some options.  This is a free service ( I have already been rewarded with a free education) so what do you have to lose!     

We take about a 1000 3"x5" cloth bags and fill them with the "smelliest" (think fragrant) soap we can find.  Deer are very sensitive to smells and as they approach a tree with one of these bags hung on it they become hesitant as the smell is unnatural and off putting to them.  They often will move on without munching on those trees.  Customers ask us why the bags are there but they are not put off by the smell at all. 

The bags can be especially helpful with bucks who want to rub the velvet off their antlers in the early fall.  This rubbing can strip the branches from a middle section of the tree making it unsalable unless we cut off the tree below the rubbing and start again.  These trees are then set back 3 years or so. 

The soap system is not 100% effective but helps significantly in reducing damage.  I have a new appreciation for responsible hunters. 

While the technology is not difficult to understand I enclose a picture so you can see what our "deer decorations" look like.

process next year.  Pictures below:

Basically, we are trimming the branch ends of each tree to keep it in the traditional Christmas tree shape which is conical.  In the industry we call this process shearing as we shear off the the branch ends with various knives and then we call the decorating of the tree trimming.  Call it what you want, shearing should be done once a year to most every Christmas tree over 5 years old or so.  Think of it like getting your teeth straightened!  One in 20 people don't need braces and have perfect teeth naturally for a nice smile.  The rest of us had to have pushing and pulling to sort out that nice smile that was in all of us all the time.  The same is true of the trees who get odd shaped growth or branches headed the wrong way and need shaping to give them an attractive figure.

We use an electric powered rotary pruner to shear as it is faster and less back breaking but traditionally long "knives" were used (25 to 30 inches long).  they are very sharp and can cut off tips easily as they are drawn down the side of the tree in a quick, forceful sweeping motion.  We still use these knives occasionally. 

Besides the sides, the top branch or leader must not grow too long or you will have a lean, "leggy" tree and must also be growing straight up as it will become the trunk as the tree continues to grow.  A large tree can take 2 minutes or more to trim with smaller trees taking a minute or less.  Shearing is a form of artistry as you shape the tree but it must be done quickly so one must develop a quick, discerning style.   We have between 5000 and 6000 trees so you can see this job can take several weeks even if you work at it full time.  The public's demand for a perfectly shaped Christmas tree is the reason we go to the trouble of shearing every year.   I get pleasure from seeing a field of well shaped trees waiting to get to your living room.

Some before and after pictures are below so you can get an idea of what comes off!

Before:

After:

Now you might say this is giving secrets away to the competition but my experience is that each operation is different and what works in one may only work in another with some changes or may not work at all.  I always get useful tips from tours like this but more like keeping up with trends than gaining a competitive advantage.   If you visit us this weekend you will get our "spruced up" selves rather than the usual summer hibernation so that might be a reason to show up right there.

Anyone who is interested in the tour as entertainment can still sign up.  Early registration is over but if you show up at the Holiday Inn in Auburn on Sunday afternoon (July 22)you can still get on the tour.  The tour is on Monday July 23 and Tuesday July 24 with a banquet on Monday night.  You can sign up for just one day if both days would be maple overload. 

A nice view of our sugar house from our south sugar bush.

Here is the interesting part.  This program has required my whole maple career and longer to play out and still most producers are not in a positon to use these trees.  In addition, it is still unknown what other genetic traits have been carried along in the crossbreeding.  Are these trees more susceptible to disease?  Is the wood softer so they are more prone to injury or insects?  At the same time the industry has been developing more efficient ways to remove the water from sap so that sweet trees are not quite the advantage they once were.  At one point in the early 1980s I knew many producers who evaporated with oil as the fuel and spent about $4.00 on fuel for each gallon of syrup produced.  Today many commercial producers spend less then half that amount.  Now the picture is not quite that rosy as evaporation equipment costs many times more than it did in the 1980s but my point is still valid.   At the same time we have worked on increasing vacuum in tubing collection systems to get more sap from each tree in a season thus getting the extra sugar out of the tree by just incteasing the amount of sap we draw.

Now it sounds like this is a slam on the sweet tree program which is not my intention.  The program has added alot to our knowledge about maple genetics and tree vigor among other things.  I was just pointing out how intractable nature can be and the nature of maple farming.  Our time frame in maple is decades not months like other crops.  Changing the nature of a maple forest is a job for decades (or centures) not years.  Maple is a lesson in working with what you have rather than rebuilding from scratch.  For more try this link  http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=article.php&i

If you lhave comments or questions just ask on our facebook page and we will get back to you.  http://www.facebook.com/cedarsyrup

Normally, our customers would breeze into our store, restock on syrup or sugar and then move on.  They would say hi or ask how the season was but they have errands and appointments to get to so they don't linger.  Vacationers are another matter.  They are from out of town and may not be familiar with maple products or our line of maple products.  They may not have seen maple syrup made or may not know how it is made.  We find that we open the sugarhouse often in the summer even though our equipment is in hibernation.  People often go up into our sugarbush to look around even though the tubing is disconnected and the trees are in full foliage. 

We don't mind at all and often have an array of products that customers can sample.  My only regret is that looking at a maple operation in the off season requires a lot more imagination than looking at a working operation in March.  If you're coming our way during the summer stop by on the weekend or call us during the week.  You are more than welcome to look around and if we can we will answer questions or let you taste.  One of our jobs is to educate the public about maple.  Maybe we will see you!  Our store hours are listed on this site under visit us at the bottom lof each page.

Above is a hop plant climbing a temporary cane stick.  It's about 2 feet tall at present but only 2 months old as well.  I have no idea what 2 months old for a hop is in human years but they do last for decades I am told. 

There's a look down an assembled set of rows.  You can't see the hop plants well from this distance but it should be clear that they have a long way to go to get to the top of the poles.  Next week we should finish putting in the poles and we will begin throwing string over the top of the wire and tying the ends to stakes in the ground near each plant.  Each string will then start by a plant on one side of the pole climb up to the wire and come down the other side where it will end by another plant on the opposite side of the pole.  We'll let you know how that works out!

Here's the view from our Sugar House.  One friend said it looked more mystical than practical.  She likened it to Stonehenge!  I don't think so but it does seem to stop traffic as they drive by and wonder what's going on.

We are presently building a trellis arrangement in the field so that the hops can happily climb.  When I say climb here we are not talking grape vines.  This trellis will be a horizontal wire  suspended on posts 16 feet in the air.  With a post every 25 feet we will need about 150 posts to cover the initial plot we have.  We are fortunate in that the farm has large stands of eastern white cedar which traditionally make fine, rot resistant, fence posts.  We have been cutting 19 foot poles which we will use to build the trellis.  When this oversize fence is done then you throw a string over the top wire and stake the two ends of the string to stakes by the hop plants.  The plant then climbs the string, happy in its work, like the beanstalk in Jack and the Beanstalk ( okay, not quite as high and with no giant or gold).  We have the poles lined up in the field now and we will try to start raising them next week.  A picture below.

There was one interesting part about making the trips that is toatally unrelated to wood and that is how incredibly busy wildlife is in the spring.  They are active constantly and therefore they run into me more often than they would like.  During just one day I saw deer (which I see almost every day in the woods), a fox, a heron, a snapping turtle, ducks , a resident flock of Canadian geese and a turkey.  The deer know it is not hunting season and will boldly come out into the edge of fields or roads.  The heron is nesting in the high grass of the swamp and travels back and forth as it gathers food, etc.  This is the time of year when turtles roam as they select a spot to lay eggs.  It is this time of year that they get caught by cars on the road.  My turtle was easily avoided on the road and shrank back into its shell as I approached but would not have survived a thumping by a tractor tire. The geese come in early spring from the south ( I assume) and hang out in some shallow ponds we have on the property.  They waddle back and forth from the water to the Christmas tree fields where they feed on grass, seeds and small critters they find in the grass. Some of them are couples and proceed to nest and produce some goslings.  When the heat of summer comes on (as it did over the weekend) they become unhappy and move on (farther north I assume).  We will see them or other geese again in the fall.  The real rarity was the turkey.  As the weather warms they retreat into the woods and roost in trees so are not often seen in open areas where I spied it.  I took some geese shots as they are the only ones who pose for photos properly. 

The little goslings are floating beside one of the parents.  Every time the family moves one parent is in front of the brood and one brings up the rear.  If you approach the parent in front will plan a retreat and the parent in back will squawk continually until the tots move faster.

Here is the group just pecking around in the open field.

This takes me back to a statement I read from the writer Michael Pollan who has written extensively about food and health.  His rule of thumb is that the more ingredients added or put into a food the less likely it is that you should be eating it.  He cautions about any foods with more than 4 or 5 ingredients.  He also cautions about ingredients which have names you don't recognize.  Have you looked at the ingredients list on a container of (for instance) Log Cabin syrup?  Way over the 5 ingredient limit and several additives that are unrecognizable except to a food chemist. Fresh fruits, vegetables have, for example, just one ingredient.  The same would be true for real maple syrup.  We don't need a list of ingredients on our label because it is in the title!  

Here's my point.  Good, healthy eating doesn't have to be a crusade but you might want to read the label and practice some common sense.

Above is a shot from this year's wood yard or area we are thinning.  We take trees that are diseased or wounded or just too thick in numbers in that area.  It is rather like gardening on a large scale.  We use the large chunks from the main trunk to stoke our wood furnace which provides heat and hot water to the house and retail store.  The branch wood and upper trunk wood is cut in longer lengths (30 inches) for the wood evaporator.    You can see our blue mainline for sap collection in the background.

Above is a shot of our log splitter which we use mostly for "sugar wood" rather than furnace wood.  It is conical screw which turns and attaches to (or engages) the piece of wood after it is lifted on to a stationary bar by the screw.  As the screw turns it draws the wood up the cone forcing it apart while lodging it against the stationary bar.  It is a turning screw that requires caution in using  for safety but it allows us to split any length wood (including long split rail fence rails) unlike a hydraulic splitting ram which is a more typical wood splitter. 

I could go on but am always concerned that I have told folks more than they ever wanted to know about the subject.  Thanks for listening.

Every year the New York State Maple Producers sponsor a tour of sugar houses in a different area of the state.  This year the tour is in the central part of the state centered around Auburn, New York.  We will tour 6 different maple operations as well as have a scenic boat tour of Skaneateles lake and visit a water powered flour mill.  The tour covers two days (Monday and Tuesday) with a banquet on Monday night.  We will be one of the six maple operations on the tour.

No doubt this is not for everybody but it might just interest some who are not commercial maple producers but might want to know a bit more about maple or those who like to figure out how things work.  Novices and gawders will be welcomed as well as other commercial sugarmakers.  The tour starts in Auburn each morning and goes by modern motor coach to each destination through the day.  The scenery will be spectacular and the area around Skaneateles lake and Auburn, New York offers a ton of other entertainment.  While the the total tour cost including the banquet and lunch each day is big bite at $170.00 beginners can just do one day and skip the banquet for as little as $70.00 for meals and entertainment for a whole day.  If you were planning a vacation in the area or wanted to know a little more about maple you should consider this tour. 

Some information is available at www.cornellmaple.com.  Click on 2012 New York State Maple Tour.  There will be more detailed descriptions of the stops for each day in a few weeks.  If I can help explain anything for those interested just email me from this website under contact us.  Thanks for listening.

Many think that by using wood over oil we are more environmentally friendly.  I am not so sure but there are a number of reasons we still use wood.  Using wood forces us to clean dead and diseased trees from our woods which makes the woods healthier.  Rather like weeding your garden but on a larger scale.  Using wood also is a renewable resource thus making its use sustainable.  Visitors also much prefer seeing a wood fired evaporator rather than an oil fired one.  Some say the wood smoke adds flavor to the syrup but I don't subscribe to that.

Using wood does have issues, though.  It is dirtier in the sugar house with wood chips and bark around.  You get some ash from the wood that gets blown out the chimney and falls on the immediate surroundings of the sugar house.  I don't think using wood adds to air pollution any more than burning oil in the big picture but I doubt it helps at all at reducing air pollution.  It does create smoke right around the sugar house but that is not an issure as we have no neighbors. 

In the end,  I stick with wood for political and economic reasons.  I want to control my costs and resent being dependent on large corporations and foreign countries who together seem to make the price of oil go up and down like a yoyo!  Wood allows me to control that cost even though it can give me a backache at the end of the day from cutting it. it. 

I am pontificatiing, but it would seem to me that trash disposal is rather like municipal sewage in that whatever you flush down the toilet is disposed of in return for your sewer fees.  It would be nice if that were true for trash.  If everyone shared the trash disposal costs as part of annual fees then trash disposal at the waste disposal site would have no on site fees and people would be encouraged to dump there rather than in the "boonies" where I have to pick it up and the county has to pay anyway!

We got a pretty small haul this year (which was pleasant) but I'll show you below all the same.

Our new endeavor is to see whether we can grow hops on our farm along with maple syrup and Christmas trees.  We have been planting all last week.  I promised photos and here they are.  Not much to look at yet but you can see why it took time to plant.  You plant rhizomes or cuttings here and not seeds.  Each row has to be laid out so a 14 foot high trellis can be constructed between each two rows with the plants climbing each side of the trellis.  Each pair of rows is seven feet apart between the two with each pair of rows 10 feet apart from the next pair..  Each plant in the row is 3 feet apart.  This is our first time at this so comments about our potential problems are welcome.

Below is a closer look at one row.  The type of hops in that row is on the label "Cascade".  Each cane stick marks a plant .

Below is a closeup of a rhizome or cutting.  The whitish growth is the new plant starting much like a new potato growing out of potato you have stored for some time.

That's all for now.  We will post more as things develop.

With maple season now completed (don't worry we will have your maple goodies all year long) we move on to planting season on our farm.  For us that means planting 1000 new Christmas tree seedlings and 2000 new hop plants (our new crop). 

For trees we use transplants which are 12 to 18 inches tall and have spent 2 years in a transplant bed to build their root systems so they will survive better out in the big field.  Our trees are 5 years old before they make it to the "big leagues" where they spend another 8 to 10 years.  It seems all our crops have growth cycles in decades rather than months.  I guess our farm just has a slow metabolism!  This year we will be planting two types of trees,Fraser firs and blue spruce.  They will supplement plantings we already have with white spruce, balsam fir and concolor fir.  I know everyone prefers pictures so we will provide them as the season progresses.

To plant hops is more involved as they require an elaborate trellis system as mature hops climb 14 to 16 feet in the air in a season.  We will be cutting our own posts for these trellises from the farm as we have a large supply of eastern white cedar which make fine poles for fencing.  It will be interesting to assemble a trellis that high.  This is all new to us so comments from hop experts would be welcomed.  Pictures here as well when they can be taken.   Until next time....

I want to thank everyone who came to open house.  We stopped counting at 400 visitors but enjoyed talking to folks about maple, the season, how we make syrup, how they could make their own syrup and a lot of other topics. 

Most asked question when they look at our steaming wood fired evaporator is "how long does it take ".  Unfortunately, my answer is a little flip as I say "I have no idea".  Truth be told they are thinking that the evaporator is a big pot on a big stove which you fill with sap and boil it down to syrup.  That could happen but modern evaporators are continuous in nature.  They are more like a long trough (120' or so) than a big cooking pan.  The sap enters one end of the trough constantly pushing what sap is in there farther along in the trough and we make syrup about every 10 minutes so  liquid leaves the other end of the trough and is replaced by what is behind it.  The result is continuous flow albeit slowly.  I really do have no idea how long it takes the sap to get through the long trough!

We will begin flushing all 10 miles of tubing to rinse it of any sap that would sit in it and degrade over the summer.  This process takes a week or so and then there is evaporator to clean and tanks, filters etc. to clean up.  We will also have wood to cut for fuel for next year as we need to give it time to dry before we burn it in the evaporator. 

Our yield was only a small bit below average.  We were only mildly effected by the hot spell in mid March as we tapped 2 weeks early ,due to the warm winter, and ended two weeks early due to the warm weather.  There will be plenty of syrup for our loyal customers.  We will talk more next week.

This picture shows some visitors tasting sugar sand which is from  minerals in the sap which solidify when the sap is concentrated enough.  It is filtered out of the finish syrup in the final step before barreling the syrup.  The stuff is harmless and tastes slightly sweet but also tastes gritty like sand. 

This group is enjoying a stroll through the sugar bush discovering how we collect sap using tubing.

Below is a group enjoying free samples of all our products as well as a little free sugaring off snack. 

If this looks nice then droop by next weekend as we have one more open house March 24 and 25 as an ending to our season.

Shot #1 shows me stoking the fire.  The evaporator boils off 250 gallons of water an hour so that is a pretty big fire.  Note my special gloves and my pants are lined so I don't burn my legs while loading wood.  We use a full cord of wood ( a pile of wood 4 feet high by 4 feet tall by 8 feet long) every 6 to 8 hours of running time.

Shot #2 shows the final filtering process that occurs just after syrup comes off the evaporator.  Naturally occurring dissolved minerals in the sap become crowded as more water is removed and more sugar must stay dissolved in less liquid.  Something has to give and the minerals precipitate and come out of solution making the syrup look like it just came out of a mud puddle.  The pressure filter on the right removes the solids leaving a clear, golden syrup to be barreled.

Shot #3 shows me testing a bucket of syrup as it comes off the evaporator.  The gray box on the right is an automatic valve that lets syrup out of the evaporator when the liquid boiling in the last compartment reaches 7.1 degrees F. above the boiling point of water. The more sugar in the liquid the higher the boiling point.  7.1 degrees above boiling water corresponds to 66% sugar which is one of the legal requirements of maple syrup.  The instrument I am holding is a hydrometer that measures density at a particular temperature.  The boiling point of water changes with the barometric pressure (the weather) so we need a hydrometer to check our work and keep the temperature valve accurate each day.

Our season has started.  The winter this year has been almost non-existent.  We have no snow to speak of and have started making syrup aobut 2 weeks earlier than usual.   We have already made more syrup in February than ever before in my 35 years making syrup.  We will see what March brings us for weather. 

This might or might not be the result of global warming.  I will say over my career the tapping time has moved about 8 days back into February when it used to be March 1 or so.  This year we started 10 days before that (about Feb. 8, if you're now confused).  I doubt global warming will put maple syrup production out of business but it might change the time of the season beginning and ending.  I have posted some pictures of our first sap.  Notice that it looks very similar to water.  The sap is running through the mainline plastic blue hose so the hose is blue not the sap.  A common misconception is that sap comes out of the tree brown in color.  Well, the syrup is brown but the sap looks to most folks like a dead ringer for water.  In fact, it is mostly water with only about 2% sugar.  Syrup is 66% sugar so that is one reason syrup is relatively expensive.  We have to work fairly hard to get rid of all that water!

We have one tree tapped for a bucket.  It is hard to believe that millians of drips can lead to thousands of gallons of sap.

I am continually surprised by when and how much sap will flow on a particular day.  Our best sap flow ever happened after a hard freeze with no snow on the ground.  My best runs are usually what I call periods of "nasty" weather.  Days above freezing but with little sun and dreary skies.  Clear, cold nights with sunny days in the 40s do produce sap but not always the best "runs".  In the end we know something about sap flow but there is still some interesting mystery about the process.  Our vacuum system does help us produce more sap over a season but it can not produce sap in freezing weather or in extended warm spells.   It can only enhance the natural flow of sap.   

Hammering in the spout extender.

Drilling the taphole.

The spout extender tapped in.

The spile and spout extender both tapped in. Job finished.

Maple Geography and weather

For those of you who live in northeastern North America I’m not sure you realize how unique the Sugar Maple really is.  You thought you lived in a dull and boring place but read on!  While there are literally over a hundred species of maple (genus Acer) and it is thought that the genus probably originated in China and/or Japan the “hard” or sweet maple are native to only North America and in particular the northeastern quadrant of North America.  In particular, the sweet maples do not thrive much south of the Virginias or west of Minnesota.  They do, however, range north to southeastern Quebec and the Canadian maritime  provinces. 

Now you can tap the other maples and boil the sap down into syrup and sugar but the sap is not as sweet.  This is where maple weather you may dislike steps in.  The northeastern winters and springs with their violent shifts from cold to warm and Mother Nature’s constant changing of her mind in March at to whether it is still winter or early spring make for many opportunities for sap flow.  I suspect the Great Lakes have something to do with the on again off again spring as well.  The maple producing region is either around the lakes themselves or between the lakes and the Atlantic Ocean.  While sugaring can be profitable in Minnesota the season is generally shorter than in the east showing that as you head west the weather as well as the trees change.  Take solace in the fact that someone is benefiting from that on again off again weather we complain about here in the northeast. 

A story to support my point:  During the Napoleonic Wars sugar was scarce in Europe due to the British blockade of supplies from the tropics.  Numerous attempts at tapping and boiling European maples were made in Bohemia, Austria, Germany and Sweden.  While the trees were not as sweet the mild, short transition to spring in Europe simply did not provide enough sap to make the industry viable.  Europe pursued sugar beets instead.  I suspect with the vacuum systems we use today to draw sap from the tap holes that the results would be better but still not commercially viable. 

So chin up!   The winter you’ll soon be sick of makes for more maple, that “sweet nectar of spring”.

For more on that story go to

http://books.google.com/books?id=n8Gy44hrdKEC&pg=PA133&lpg=PA133&dq=napoleon+and+maple+sugar&source=bl&ots=7tfAyIvljs&sig=awcjsV92-Au4_Fc-o4ZU3EqBeOI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ujgYT8jLBKj00gGIwZW2Cw&ved=0CF8Q6AEwBg - v=onepage&q=napoleon and maple sugar&f

      winter view from our sugar house

Well, excuse me while I brag a little.  Brooklyn Brewery, a craft brewer, has come out with a Maple Porter as their winter Brewmasters Reserve.   Cedarvale Maple has supplied all the beer for this brew.  It is called Mary’s Maple Porter after my wife who was a brewmaster for 30 years while I made maple syrup (full disclosure: she now works for Brooklyn Brewery producing beer). 

Now I must admit I am not a porter fan.  I prefer a light colored lager when I drink beer.  This porter, however, is very smooth and sweet.   We have contributed syrup for two other commercial beers over our 35 years of making syrup but this is the first time a brewer has used maple syrup as sugar source for the yeast rather than just a flavoring.  The result is a very interesting brew that you might like on a cold night.  It is rather strong both in alcohol content (7.5%) and in taste so my wife calls it more of a sipping beer rather than a thirst quencher.  Even I found it very likable for a dark beer.

So there you have it; Cedarvale Maple invades the Big Apple with a splash!

http://thefullpint.com/beer-news/craft-beer-news-roundup-smuttynose-ipswich-ale-four-peaks-and-brooklyn-brewery

Many people think that the maple season begins in the spring.  There are others who think that all products are harvested at the end of the growing season in the fall.  Maple syrup production is the first crop of the year and is produced from sap runs in the early spring (for us late February and March). Truth be told, however, our season starts much earlier.

We are presently hard at work, at least I think so, fixing up our tubing system for the season.   Most folks look at our tubing system with 14 miles of branch lines and over 4 miles of mainline as great time saver in collecting sap and a good way to keep sap clean as it is collected.  They are right about that but they do not realize it is feast for forest critters that like to chew on plants in the woods.  Critters in our case include squirrels, chipmunks and deer.  While they are cute they can cause major damage to a tubing system as they browse along in their everyday activities.  They chew holes in the tubing making it leak sap on the ground.  More importantly, even the smallest hole in the system lowers the vacuum we’ve artificially created with pumps and reduces our sap yield (don’t be alarmed, this vacuum sucking extra sap out of the tree does no harm to the tree).  

Over a years time these pesky neighbors can cause a lot of damage.  We need to go over every inch of line looking for leaks and then patch, cut out, or replace chewed tubing.  This means literally going down each line feeling the tubing as it slides through your hands.  If you feel any cuts or scrapes you stop and examine for holes.  Some areas where deer do not travel or where there are no nut trees present have only minimal damage but other places have more and persistent chewing,

Besides critters there is storm damage as well.  Trees fall on lines or branches break off and fall on lines or heavy snowfall buries lines.  These repairs are also made in January as we go through the system. So if you thought we were in Florida or the Caribbean when we don’t answer the phone this is what we’re doing.  For a better look at tubing go to the “Maple syrup production” section of About Maple Syrup in banner menu at the top of this webpage.       

Maple sap does make a good cold beverage and does contain vitamin c.  There is, however, no longer any vitamin c by the time it reaches syrup stage due to the cooking process.  Native Americans knew this and often chewed on Maple branches, particularly in winter, as this would avoid the fatal disease scurvy.  You probably have heard of the disease as it killed many sailors who had no access to fruits.  I doubt the natives could make the connection between scurvy and vitamin c but surely they understood the health benefits of maple sap in preventing scurvy.  I know of one written confirmation of this, which I stumbled on in the writing of a college paper on Samuel de Champlain, the great early explorer of the St. Lawrence.  He did over winter with a group of men in North America, who did become ill with scurvy over the winter.  The tribes of the area (what is now Quebec) showed the group how to chew on live maple branches.  It did the trick and many who were sick recovered and survived the winter.  The paper was written so long ago I can no longer cite the book I got the story from (but hey, it’s a blog not a college paper with a bibliography) so you’re just going to have to trust me on this.

Maple syrup does contain various trace minerals which the body requires and is low in sodium which can help lower blood pressure (they are listed in another section of this website called about maple syrup.  More important is what is not in Maple syrup.  There are no additives of any kind and no preservatives either.  Michael Pollan (http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating) has a good rule on whether a food is healthy.  If the food has more than five ingredients it probably has stuff in it you shouldn’t be eating.  Maple syrup does not even need a list of ingredients on the back as the only thing in it is; you guessed it, Maple syrup.  The same goes for all of our confections as well.  Even our sugar-coated nuts are only the nuts and maple sugar.  We do add a touch of pure butter to our Maple crackle and lollipops but that’s all.

We have from time to time been asked to supply Maple syrup for “purging” diets.  Many of these diets originate in Europe and make the rounds every few years.  I am not even going to provide a link to these as I do not think they are healthy (even though they increase syrup sales!).  Any diet that asks you to starve yourself for a number of days just to get started does not seem like a good idea.

One last point is the idea that maple sugar is easier for some diabetics to digest.  I am not aware of any scientific evidence that this is true but I would be interested in any feedback on this notion.  It strikes me that the body looks at most sugars as the same but perhaps there is more here I do not understand.      

I have been making syrup and meeting with the public about syrup for 34 years. I swear I have heard every possible story about backyard sugar making possible. They were a youngster.... there was tons of sap...they burned cords and cords of wood... it cost a fortune in gas on the barbeque... they ruined the stove top in the kitchen... the wallpaper was steamed off the wall... they fell asleep (sometimes on their own sometimes with the help of beer and wine) and the whole thing boiled over... there was hardly anything left when they got to syrup stage... it tasted sooo good! Variations on the theme include sections on the design of their "evaporator" which might include barrels sliced in half, old milk gathering equipment, or something they welded together from suspect parts. There also might be a sequel on what happened when they tried to make sugar. My complaint (only to my family) was that I had heard it all and it was too much like having to spend a whole evening looking at someone else's pictures of their vacation to some not too exotic spot.

Well, I confess I missed the point! The story is not about the process, but rather the result and the culture that goes with it. I have learned that I should be more appreciative of backyard sugar makers. They usually make a small amount of a product that tastes pretty good so they want more. They realize how much work it is to make this product and so they often come in subsequent years to buy syrup and they never complain about price!

A second part of this is that these hobbyists are celebrating a part of northeastern North American culture that is unique to this part of the world. Like shrimp in the Gulf or olives in the Mediterranean this practice had gone on hundreds of years and is now embedded in our culture. Backyard sugar making is really a cultural experience that I should be encouraging rather than complaining about. When we say "us" to describe ourselves sugaring is part of that.

So if you have a backyard or home sugaring story to tell me... go ahead ... I now get it and want to hear all about it! We're part of the same club.

At this point I am dismissed as being flip to the customer (generally not a good way to make a sale) or I am the “expert” who isn’t.  Truth be told, there is no one answer for everyone.  No species of evergreen supplies all the features that people are looking for in a Christmas tree.  It is rather like whether you like red wine or white wine; a matter of taste.

            The traditional tree is a Balsam fir.  It is a fine “smeller” and has soft needles that don’t prick your fingers.  It does have a very narrow and taller shape that is good if you want to preserve floor space in the room where it is placed but not so good if you like a bushier, more imposing tree.  Firs also have softer branches so they can droop a little if you really like to pour on the decorations.  A Fraser fir helps here as it has somewhat sturdier branches but still does not prick your fingers.  I don’t think it has as much aroma as a Balsam but some others would disagree.   Douglas fir also has sturdier branches, but also like a Fraser it is not quite as thick in the branches as the Balsam. Douglas fir definitely does not have as grand an aroma as balsam. 

Now on the other side of the coin are the spruces.  White Spruce is a good Christmas tree with very sturdy branches so you can add huge ornaments to your heart’s content without making the tree droopy and sad.  Spruces do not smell as much as firs but they do grow wider at the bottom so they can make a real statement when displayed in a larger room or one with higher ceilings.   There are several other spruces that would also have the same characteristics.

Now to the final question that everyone is rightly worried about.  Will the tree hold its needles?  All the species above will do well if the tree is reasonably fresh and not beset with any diseases.  Fresh does not mean cut in October and then shipped to your state for resale.  I suspect that is why real trees are not as popular in places where there are not growers (as well as the prices!).  I don’t expect you to know tree diseases but trees are a lot like people in that if they look sick they probably are sick.  Don’t be alarmed by a few dead needles in the center of the tree as long as they are near the base.  All trees shed a few interior needles particularly near the ground.  Be alarmed if the tree has no interior needles. 

We can’t guarantee that you won’t bring any “critters” home with your tree but we can sure try to help there.  I always look for nests in trees in the summer when we trim.  We always go after wasp nests and anthills but generally leave bird nests, as they could be part of the tree’s appeal.  Remember, the tree exists in nature and things sometimes move in undetected.  I always shake the tree vigorously for a minute or so before I bail it to shake out stuff that you might not want to take home with you.  I suggest you do that again before you bring the tree inside.

I haven’t even talked about pines but I suspect many already have learned more than they ever wanted to know on this subject.  I put some pictures of the needles of some species below to help you identify them in the field.  More next time.

 Balsam Fir                                                                   Fraser Fir

White Spruce                                                              Eastern White Pine

            I like to think our overall effect on the planet is positive or to go back to my analogy that we dirty the dishes and then clean up the kitchen after dinner leaving things as we found them.  For instance we grow Christmas trees and Maple trees.  These 200 plus acres of woods sequester tons of carbon each year helping reduce greenhouse gases, however, we do burn wood and use electricity to make maple syrup so we put some carbon back into the air.  When we burn wood we are using a renewable resource so that is sustainable but our containers and plastic tubing for collecting sap are made from oil which is technically not renewable.  We do recycle our plastic tubing and so the plastic is repurposed when we are done with it (after 10 years or so).   Real Christmas trees also help in that they reduce the sales of plastic Christmas trees which are not renewable.

            While I could go on a while I was just trying to show that producing a product is not either all good or all bad.  To assess whether you should buy or use that product from an environmental standpoint is a complicated business.  For just sustainability you need to consider the net effect  of the whole process not just a part of the process.  I think we get a passing grade here as I think we contribute more than we take away from the environment.

            Christmas trees are a fine example of how consumers sometimes do not look at the whole environmental picture for a product.  People will tell you that artificial trees are better for the environment because no trees are cut down.  The whole picture shows you that Christmas trees are a crop and that land devoted to them is always growing trees so cutting one down doesn’t reduce the number of trees in the world as they are simply replanted.  Besides Christmas trees sequester carbon while they grow while artificial trees use up oil to produce the plastic to make the tree. 

            The take away here is that branding something as good or bad for the environment is a tricky business so be careful when you call something environmentally friendly or evil.  I enclose a picture of our trees busily sequestering carbon.

It all started my last year of college when it became apparent I would have to do something besides going to school.  I was an economics major so starting in business was a natural but the business most people associated with my major was banking or corporate America which did not interest me.  Graduate school did not look attractive as I had been in school so many years already.  I liked the outdoors and had done a good bit of camping in my teen years but that was a hobby not a career.  What to do?

I had read alot of politics as I had taken a lot of political science and in doing so I came across some old writings of a far left professor by the name of Scott Nearing.  His writings, it turned out, were so far to the left that he had lost his job in academia at the University of  Pennsylvania.  He then bounced around radical politics for a decade or more before winding up with his wife Helen in rural Vermont on a farm.   Now don't get discouraged; this is where we get back to maple.  The Nearings created a lifestyle in Vermont that we would call "living off the grid" today.  No electricity, growing almost all the food they ate, cutting wood for their heat and building their own house stone by stone.  For cash, they would produce maple syrup and maple candies.

Now, in the 1970s we called their lifestyle "back to the land".  It was the heyday of the Mother Earth News and the Whole Earth Catalog.  It was the early days of organic foods.  Their ideas fit right in to what I, and many, were into in those days.  To crown it off, the Nearings wrote that they only worked on their farm half a day and spent the other half on their writings.  That sealed the deal for me!  I would only have to work half a day to get by.  I was off.

i convinced my father to let me tap trees on parts of a farm he had acquired but didn't use for anything else.  I later would have to buy that farm (and work the other half of the day to do that).  I found an old sugarmaker who wanted to quit who sold me all his equipment including an evaporator.   I borrowed some money and built a sugar house.  In February of 1977 we made our first maple syrup.

It was in late March of that year that I saw the failure of my logic.  I had spent months putting up tubing to collect sap and soon I would have to take it all down and clean it (which was the practice at the time).  My evaporator only produced 2.5 gallons of syrup an hour so there were countless hours of boiling.  What was worse is it ate a full cord of wood every 8 hours.  It took more than 8 hours to cut that full cord of wood.  It was clear that this half day thing just wasn't working out.  To top it off my politics were not nearly radical enough to write about.

I did, however like the outdoor work.  There also was a lot of business in making and selling maple syrup.  Besides, here was a product you could produce and really stand behind.  I decided to stick with it.  The rest, as they say, is history.

An old timer once gave me some good advice.  If you find a job applicant who has made maple syrup with any regularity you should hire them.  Making maple syrup is too much work for the lazy.  Anyone who has made syrup for awhile must be a good worker.  He had a point.

Anyone who is interested in the writings of Helen and Scott Nearing should read The Maple Sugar Book  for starters.  It is much more than just a 'how to" manual; full of good history, etc.

As for the Nearings..... they continued to write and support far left causes but sold their Vermont farm to have it become part of a ski resort.  They moved to Maine and continued their lifestyle, but this time grew blueberries as a cash crop.

By way of introduction I am Karl Wiles and have been producing pure maple syrup for 34 years now.  Over the coming months we will try to share recipes, tidbits about what we are doing on our tree farm, and musings about anything else that might be interesting to someone else.  If there is anything you want to hear about just comment.

Our business is trees.  We grow Christmas trees for sale here on the farm and we make maple syrup and all manner of pure maple confections.  I enclose a picture of the farm only to show the beautiful fall colors.  Our farm is approx. 265 acres with most being woods.  It is not like a normal farm as we have no animals and we raise no crops that are harvested in the fall. 

My tidbit for this writing is about strange and wonderful uses for maple.  In the Wall Street Journal of Sept. 24-25 is an article on food used in massage.   Yes, you guessed it.  Maple syrup is one of the primary ingredients in a exfoliant used at the Mirror Lake Inn in Lake Placid, New York (mirrorlakeinn.com).   Apparently maple sugar of various roughnesses also helps smooth the skin!