Over the years, we've had many customers request that we package our certified organic maple syrup in larger glass bottles. Not only do they trust the bottles to be better for the syrup, reducing plastic waste is better for the environment. As a company committed to sustainable farming, after thorough research, we've made the decision to switch from bottling our syrup in plastic to glass.
Throughout the next several months we'll be transitioning from the plastic packaging you've been used to and switching to all-glass packaging for our syrup. Your orders may be fulfilled with the same container you've always gotten, a glass bottle with the old label on it, or finally our new screen printed bottles.
What won't change is the syrup. You'll continue to get the same great syrup you've come to expect from Sterling Valley Maple.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to us from our contact us page.
Happy Earth Day from Sterling Valley Maple! Being as we are a business dependent on nature, the cycles of the Earth, and sustainable practices, we take Earth Day very seriously! Did you know that every year, there is a theme for Earth Day? This year’s theme is “Restore Our Earth,” which focuses on natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems.
So, where does Sterling Valley Maple fit in with the “Restore Our Earth” theme? Much of our effort is focused on land stewardship, organic farming, and forest management. Maple syrup is an inherently sustainable crop because it doesn’t involve cutting and replanting a crop the way other sugar production methods (such as sugar cane or field corn) do. A maple tree will live for decades or even centuries and continue to remove carbon from the atmosphere while producing maple sap. We protect our tree health by using the smallest spouts available (under ¼ of an inch) which reduces the impact tapping has on a tree. We use tubing systems to avoid the necessity of large equipment in the woods (reducing rutting, tree damage, and carbon emissions) and we use Reverse Osmosis to make our boiling more efficient. While we do have to burn a fuel to heat the syrup to boiling temperatures, we choose to use wood. We are able to mostly burn trees that have already died and fallen down in our woods (much of our firewood comes from limbs and trees that have been blown over during storms). This way, we’re releasing carbon that was stored only decades ago instead of releasing carbon stored millions of years ago, which is what using an oil fired evaporator does.
We hope you will join us on Earth Day in seeking to honor and sustain the Earth we live on. Everyone can do a part, little actions add up! If you are looking for ways to participate in Earth Day, here are some ideas:
Personally, we’re in the process of making bird feeders and are working toward using our compost bin much more. We’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!
Happy Spring,
Sterling Valley Maple
]]>You Have Maple Syrup. Now what?
We frequently get asked for advice regarding how to store maple syrup, choosing the right syrup for your needs, and cooking with syrup. Here are some general guidelines that we hope will answer some of your questions.
We hope you have these tips for storing, selecting, and using maple syrup helpful. Remember--in addition to having a great taste, Sterling Valley Maple’s syrup is certified organic. We carefully harvest our syrup to provide you with quality, nutrition, and safety. If you have any recipes that you use with our syrup, we would love to hear from you and try your recipe!
Happy February, and Bon Appetit!
Sterling Valley Maple
]]>
It’s that time of year again...love is in the air, spring is just around the corner (or not--probably not), and you are wondering what to get your love for Valentine’s Day (or your mother, father, grandparent, child, mail carrier--you get the idea). Well, look no further, because we have the perfect sweet treat for you. Bonus: it’s organic, sustainable, available in a variety of sizes and forms, and can be shipped directly to you, or your sweethearts, door.
We, of course, are talking about Sterling Valley Maple products! We have a large variety of products in stock, including maple-glazed walnuts and sugar cakes. Show that someone special you love (are you sick of the over-the-top Valentine’s Day sales pitch yet?) just how special they are!
Products available:
So, if you are freaking out over the fact that you don’t have a Valentine’s Day gift picked out yet, let us take care of it for you. IMPORTANT: If you want your items to be received in time for Valentine’s Day, they must be ordered no later than Thursday, February 9. If you use the discount code "LOVESYRUP" you can take 10% off a Valentine's Day gift (or gifts) over $50!
Head on over to our website at www.sterlingvalleymaple.com, to browse our great gift ideas. Make that someone special feel special (bleh, that was really cheesy, but you get the idea!).
Love,
Sterling Valley Maple
I hate winter. Oh sure, the first snowfall is magical and the snow is so pretty dusting the trees. But after the magical prettiness, it’s just annoying. I hate snow and winter--shoveling snow, driving in snow, when it hurts to breathe because it’s so cold out, and that awful feeling when my feet get all wet and cold from snow. Have I mentioned I happen to dislike winter?
So, it’s the January “I hate winter” doldrums, and what’s a person to do? Make wax on snow! That is one thing that snow is good for. What’s wax on snow, you ask? Wax on snow, also known as jack wax and sugar on snow, is a delightful maple confection that occurs when you heat maple syrup to 234 degrees and then gently drizzle it on to hard packed snow. The syrup rapidly cools into a sticky, semi-solid state that you then wrap around your fork and eat. It’s sweet, slightly messy, and something wonderful to look forward to in the winter! When I was growing up, we always accompanied it with pickles or some other salty side dish--the salt “cut” the sweet and allowed you to eat more. I also have fond memories of freezing snow in the freezer and then have wax on snow in the middle of the summer.
Note from the "Boiler in Chief": When you start to boil syrup it should boil around 219 degrees. Keep the pot on medium heat and as the water evaporates the boiling point will slowly rise. The hotter the boiling point, the sweeter your syrup has become. Four tips:
And now back to your regularly scheduled blog:
I’ve included some pictures of our wax on snow adventure--as you can see, our snow wasn’t quite the packy kind, but we punched it down with the bottom of a pot and it sufficed.
Not quite packy snow |
Syrup boiled to 234 |
The drizzling process |
Ready to eat!!! |
If you are like me and hate winter and all things cold, this is the culinary experience for you to liven up your January! Also, if you are one of those winter-loving people, who like to be outside and snowmobile, hike, snowshoe, ski, and all those other things that just seem to be REALLY COLD, this is also the treat that you want. Because, really, when is it not a good time for maple syrup and wax on snow?
Best wishes,
Sterling Valley Maple Chef-In-Residence
]]>A quick tour of the new pump house that we made out of an old trailer. This post makes a little more sense if you read the previous blog post "The Recycled Trailer"
]]>At that point, the happy little trailer became a sad little trailer and was parked in the field, lonely and forgotten, while Sterling Valley Maple got a brand new bigger, better trailer. But wait...the intrepid, creative, and mechanically minded Josh (who never throws anything away-for real, ask his wife) thought of a new purpose for the sad little trailer. What if the little trailer could be repurposed into a storage shed for maple equipment in the woods? Eureka!
The little trailer was retrofitted on the inside and spray foamed to help insulate its contents from the cold weather. Then, on one fine, cold winter day, Bob (patriarch of the maple family) brought over his bucket tractor and helped hoist the trailer onto another trailer in order to move it (check out the picture, it will make sense--notice, no more wheels).
Finally, the happy little trailer was transported to the woods, and gently put into its new place (in reality, there was much more to it than this--endless strapping, careful driving, and the use of the bucket tractor to dig out its new landing place). The happy little trailer now lives in the woods, and come sugaring season, it will keep the releaser and vacuum pump from freezing in the cold nights.
The final resting place of the happy little trailer
We hope you have enjoyed this true tale of the happy, then sad, and now happy again little trailer. Remember--according to Josh, everything can be repurposed and recycled. Even wheel-less trailers.
]]>
But, with that said, there are many reasons that maple syrup is a MUCH better choice for sweetening food compared to using regular table sugar or even (shudder) a "maple-flavored" pancake syrup derived from genetically modified corn.
According to nutritiondata.com, maple syrup contains many vitamins and minerals that you won't get if you sweeten with table sugar, corn syrup, brown sugar, or even honey. 1/3 cup of maple syrup will give you almost 1/3 of your daily requirement of zinc, and 165% of your daily requirement of manganese. It will also contribute riboflavin, calcium, magnesium, and potassium to your diet in quantities that are simply not present in other sweeteners.
In addition to the minerals, maple syrup has been found to contain at least 24 different antioxidants. If you want to maximize your antioxidants, going with a darker syrup (such as our Grade A syrup with Dark Color and Robust Taste) will yield you an even greater quantity of antioxidants. (National Institute of Health)
Healthline.com suggests that maple syrup is a better option than white sugar in terms of its glycemic index. Maple syrup has a glycemic index of 54, while table sugar's glycemic index is closer to 65. The lower the glycemic index of a food, the more slowly it will raise your blood sugar. Again, a darker syrup will have a marginally lower glycemic index, making this effect more pronounced.
There are many of reasons to believe that maple syrup is a healthy choice when you need a sweetener. But, we want to start where we began: it is still sugar. Anyone selling a "sugar-free" syrup isn't offering pure maple syrup; they're selling you something that was made in a lab, not naturally harvested from trees. On the other hand, if you are going to use sugar anyway, such as on your cereal, in your coffee or tea, in your cooking and baking, or on your pancakes, maple syrup is a great choice when compared to other sweeteners.
Do you want to start replacing other sugars in your diet with maple? You have two choices: first, you can use our granulated maple sugar. This sugar is made by removing almost all of the water from maple sugar and then stirring it as it crystalizes to encourage the sugar to form crystals the perfect size for replacing table sugar. We go a step further by screening our sugar through a sieve and using a food grinder to make sure the granules are consistent. Maple sugar can be used as a 1:1 replacement for table sugar in most recipes. So, if your favorite bread calls for 1 cup of sugar, simply substitute 1 cup of maple sugar instead to enjoy all of these health benefits and add a dash of maple flavor besides.
Second, you can use maple syrup as a substitute for table sugar in most recipes. Although you'll find many different variations on this formula across the internet, we generally recommend that if a recipe calls for 1 cup of table sugar, you replace it with one cup of maple syrup, BUT also reduce other liquids (ideally water if present in the recipe) by about 1/3 of a cup. This is because 1 cup of syrup is really 2/3's sugar and 1/3 water. Any color maple syrup is suitable for baking, but darker syrup tends to have a strong maple flavor that will carry through into the finished product better.
If you want to try some recipes that are tailor made for maple syrup, check out our other blog posts to see some of our favorites!
]]>If you are anything like us, this holiday season has been a season like no other. We’ve “hunkered down” to keep us, our family, and our neighbors healthy. Normally, we would be looking forward to large family gatherings, holiday events, and our usual traditions, but not this year. Our hope for you as we end 2020 is that you find simple joy this December.
Without the typical craziness of the season, we have been enjoying more family time--evening board games, sitting wrapped up outside watching meteor showers, holiday TV shows, and baking. Who could forget the baking? A new favorite of ours for the munchy times is Maple Caramel Popcorn. It’s very good. Seriously good. If you want to try it, here’s our recipe:
Maple Caramel Popcorn Recipe from Sterling Valley Maple
Ingredients:
Directions:
We hope you enjoy this recipe during the holiday season (and throughout the whole year, because, why not?). From all of us at Sterling Valley Maple, thank you for supporting our small business throughout this crazy year. Without you, we wouldn’t be here. Wishing you and yours a happy, healthy holiday season and new year!
]]>I’m not going to finish that slogan, because I’m creating a new slogan. “Sometimes you feel like a nut...a maple glazed walnut.” Actually, maple glazed walnuts are good for all times, not just sometimes. Sterling Valley Maple is pretty excited about this new product we are offering, and here’s why:
Sterling Valley Maple offers maple glazed walnuts in a convenient 3 oz. package. These are perfect for a healthier alternative to holiday sweets, and can be enjoyed by people of any age (trust me, we have to guard them from our 9 year old). Head on over to www.sterlingvalleymaple.com, visit us at one of our farmer’s markets in the month of December (schedule found here), or contact us directly to get some maple glazed walnuts and cross some people off your Christmas shopping list!
]]>You see, when most of us buy toilet paper, we're looking for just one thing- how to get the most number of sheets for the least amount of money. The shopping experience is really nothing but a math exercise- sometimes made a little more difficult because there are no standards for roll sizes or number of sheets per roll, but still just a matter of figuring out what is cheapest.
A lot of people buy maple syrup the same way; they take the cost and divide it by the number of ounces and figure out which syrup is cheapest. Unfortunately, this often results in some pretty poor experiences for the consumers.
When looking to buy maple syrup, here are some things to consider:
At Sterling Valley Maple, we personally test each batch of syrup to ensure quality, and if there is a question about quality or taste, that syrup is stored separately and sold (usually to the large packing houses that then mix it with other syrup before it goes to a big box store-see the results of that in the above paragraph).
So, how do you avoid buying "toilet paper" syrup? It’s simple:
If you're a wholesale purchaser, you have to decide:
So, now you know why maple syrup isn’t like toilet paper. Besides the obvious (*ahem*), syrup taste and quality DO MATTER. Where the syrup comes from and how it is made IS IMPORTANT. And most importantly, establishing a relationship with your sugar maker so that you can ask these questions and find out what you need to know will ensure that you get the best product for the best price.
]]>This week's blog post is actually inspired by a conversation we had at the farmer's market last week. A customer came through very concerned that we were boiling our maple syrup, because they thought that boiling would cause a loss of vitamins and minerals. This isn't true, but we understand why someone might worry about this. After all, we've read about how boiling your vegetables (like broccoli) causes them to be less nutritious, and we've read that heating honey can destroy some of its antioxidant properties, so why doesn't the same thing happen to maple syrup?
The devil, as they say, is in the details. When you boil a vegetable such as broccoli, you'll notice that the water tends to pick up a little bit of the color of the vegetable. This is because the nutrients are indeed being leached out of the vegetable into the heated water. The longer you boil the vegetable, the more pronounced this effect will be. After boiling, we toss the vegetable into a colander and let the water run down the drain. The problem is that we've done a process that removes vitamins and minerals into the water and then done a second process that disposes of that water.
When making syrup we remove water in a fundamentally different way. Instead of using a colander or strainer to run the water down the drain, we either use reverse osmosis to dispose of pure water at the molecular level or remove the water by boiling it to steam. These processes actually concentrate the vitamins and minerals present into the finished syrup instead of reducing them. It is true that certain vitamins (particularly vitamin B) are degraded by high heat. However, the boiling process is highly effective at concentrating many other beneficial substances, as well as killing any bacteria present in the sap, and, most importantly, developing the rich maple flavors through the maillard and caramelization reactions that take place during the boiling process.
Check out this chart from the NYS Maple Producer's Association:
Nutrient | Maple Syrup | Corn Syrup | Honey | Brown Sugar | White Sugar |
Manganese | 95% | 0% | 4% | 2% | 0% |
Riboflavin | 37% | 1% | 2% | 0% | 1% |
Zinc | 6% | 0% | 2% | 0% | 0% |
Magnesium | 7% | 0% | 1% | 2% | 0% |
Calcium | 5% | 0% | 0% | 4% | 0% |
Potassium | 5% | 0% | 1% | 1% | 0% |
216 Calories | 220 Calories | 261 Calories | 216 Calories | 196 Calories |
% of Recommended Daily Value (DV) per 1/4 Cup of Sweetener
Want to try some delicious maple syrup? Head over to our online store.
]]>Crystallization is an inherently exothermic reaction. This means that it is a reaction that releases heat. We see the opposite of this all the time in real life: any time we see a solid melt into a liquid we are familiar with it being a reaction that needs heat added. It doesn't make as much intuitive sense that when a liquid converts to a solid that heat is released, but we do know that the heat energy that we add to solid to convert it to the liquid can't disappear- instead, that energy is stored in the liquid and must be released as the liquid goes to a solid.
In this video you can see that when the concentrated syrup mixture changes to a solid there is a release of heat: the heat is released as steam that causes the syrup to bubble and foam. We hope you'll find it as interesting as we do!
]]>The colors (and most of the delicious maple taste) in syrup are generated during the boiling process as the last of the water is removed from the syrup. Two chemical reactions are in play during this process. The first is caramelization. Caramelization is a process in which sugar is heated and turns brown. The chemical reactions are complex, but they result in flavors being generated as the sugar is heated and subjected to other chemical reactions.
There are three kinds of sugar in maple sap: sucrose, glucose, and fructose. Glucose and fructose are sometimes referred to as simple (or monosaccharide) sugars, and contain six carbon atoms each. When a fructose molecule and glucose molecule are bonded together, they form a sucrose molecule (which is the sugar present in table sugar). Sucrose is much less reactive than glucose and fructose. In fact, fructose begins to caramelize at temperatures 90 degrees cooler than sucrose. So, the more simple sugars that are present in sap, the more caramelization will take place during the cooking process.
The second process that produces flavors in syrup is the Maillard reaction. This process was named for a French chemist who described it about 100 years ago. It is a process where amino acids are heated to produce a brown color and literally hundreds of different flavor compounds. The more amino acids that are present in the sap, the more the Maillard reaction will occur and the more flavor compounds are produced.
As you can see, changing the ratio of complex to simple sugars, and increasing the presence of amino acids are the two variables that affect the final flavor of the syrup. Amino acids tend to increase as the maple season progresses- simply put, the trees come out of dormancy and start to release more of these proteins later in the season. Syrup made later in the season will naturally have more of the complex flavors produced by the Maillard reaction. The caramelization reaction is more nuanced: when the sap leaves the tree, almost all of the sugar in it (regardless of when in the season it is produced) will be sucrose. However, that sucrose almost immediately begins being broken down by enzymes. The warmer the weather, the faster these enzymes work. The more time between the production of sap and the cooking of the syrup, the longer the enzymes have to work. So, even early in the season you can produce a darker syrup with stronger flavors if the sap is allowed to age prior to cooking.
One final variable in the process is cooking time and temperature. Sap that has been processed by a reverse osmosis machine to have a high sugar content will spend less time in the evaporator than sap that begins the boiling process at a lower sugar content. Although there haven't been many studies on the effect this has on flavor, we believe it is important for syrup to boil long enough to develop the richest possible flavors. Because of this, we limit our use of reverse osmosis by only concentrating the sap until the sugar concentration reaches 8%. We feel this provides a good balance of efficiency while still allowing the syrup to cook for significant time in the evaporator. We also use a traditional wood-fired evaporator. While a significant benefit of oil-fired evaporators is their steady, even heat, we believe that the "hot spots" created naturally in a wood-fired evaporator are actually a good thing, allowing the cooking sap to be exposed to higher temperatures and accelerating both of the chemical reactions that produce the characteristic maple flavors.
]]>
The first variable for us is that the markets we attend are pretty far away. Our drive time varies from around 70 minutes to a bit over 3 hours depending on which market we go to. For example, when we go to Syracuse we need to be at the market by 6:45, so we have to get up at 3:30 in the morning. The alarm is quite jarring that early in the morning! We need a big cup of coffee to start the day. And, what better way to enjoy a cup of coffee than to sweeten it with maple sugar!
After the coffee gets us moving in the morning, the next step is to complete packing our trailer. We love having a dedicated trailer for our markets because it reduces our preparation time the morning of a market (and anything we can do to reduce preparation at 3:30 AM is a bonus!). However, perishable items such as maple cream and maple sugar cakes are not packed until shortly before we leave. After a quick check to make sure that the lights are working we hit the road.
When we arrive at the market, we're greeted with an empty spot. Every market has a different procedure, but for most markets we have to wait until a certain time to check-in. Once we have been assigned a spot, we begin setup. For us, this involves using a ramp to roll the larger items out of the trailer, set up our banners and graphic displays, and then make sure that the glass and more fragile items are unpacked and displayed.
After that, we do our favorite part of the market: getting to visit with our customers. We love getting to know the people who buy our syrup and offering people a chance to sample our different products. We really think that the interaction with the customers helps us to make sure that we're selling you a product that will meet your expectations and taste exactly the way you want it to.
Want to see our farmers market setup in person? Visit our Farmers Market Schedule page to find a schedule of our planned markets with information about times and addresses.
]]>Bourbon barrels actually have an interesting history. In the late 1700's Scotch-Irish settlers began moving into Kentucky. These settlers were skilled at distilling but they didn't have their usual ingredients readily available, so they began experimenting with maize (sometimes known as "Indian Corn"). This produced a fairly sweet spirit. It was shipped downriver in used fish barrels. A preacher named Elijah Craig (who, in addition to his church duties, also liked to make whiskey) discovered that the cheapest and easiest way to clean these fish barrels before storing whisky was to char the inside of it. The whiskey was then stored in these charred barrels and shipped downriver, which took around 90 days. When the barrels were at the other end of the trip, it was discovered that it was a very different product compared to what started the journey. The consumers in New Orleans started asking for more of this smooth, vanilla tasting whiskey that came from Bourbon County.
Bourbon barely survived Prohibition, but the last element that gives it its intrinsic taste came in the 1930's. Most of the white oak (which is the only wood that undergoes the proper chemical changes during charring to produce the desired flavors) came from Arkansas. A congressman from Arkansas helped to pass the Federal Alcohol Administration Act and worked in a provision that bourbon could only be made using new barrels. His theory was that this would increase the demand for his state's lumber.
And so, today, bourbon must be aged in new, charred white oak barrels. After the barrels have been used once federal law says they cannot be used again to make bourbon. However, we can take the used barrels and get the same flavor benefits in our maple syrup that the bourbon distillers enjoy in their product.
Once the barrels have been used to make maple syrup, their life-cycle doesn't end. We resell these to brewers who get additional flavors from the maple-bourbon barrels in their beer.
Want to taste the delicious flavors of our bourbon barrel aged maple syrup? Head over to our store: https://www.sterlingvalleymaple.com/collections/featured/products/bourbon-barrel-aged-syrup-16oz
]]>
On the plus side, packing peanuts are amazing. Stuff doesn’t break! Imagine that! So, when you get a package of goodness (that’s totally a noun, right?) from Sterling Valley Maple, expect packing peanuts (not the ones out of my sink though). That way, the lovely glass items we ship for you come unbroken for your epicurean enjoyment
Oh, and then your husband just leaves the big box of packing peanuts on the floor because it is too hard to pick up a box of AIR and put it back on the shelf. No wait, that doesn’t happen at your house, only mine.
I hope you enjoyed this monologue of all things maple and packing peanuts. And I really do want to know why they are shaped like peanuts.
Sincerely,
The Female Half of Sterling Valley Maple
]]>Once the tubing is clean and ready for the off season (we do this first so that we can get it done before the bugs get too bad) we use a pressure washer to clean out all of our tanks and pressure wash the evaporator. We then pressure wash the floor of the shanty and make sure we leave everything as clean as possible to be ready for next year.
After all that is done, we like to fill the woodshed with firewood to dry for next year. We can fit about 2/3rds of what we usually need in our woodshed, and we stack the rest outside and cover it up to dry. Finally, we've made a point each year of taking a different section of our woods and doing what we refer to as "woodlot management."
We go through this section looking for any trees that are dead or dying and cut them down. We remove any dangerously leaning trees or broken tops, and also any trees that have fallen since the last time we were there. We cut these out to make room for new growth and then drag the logs out of the woods so we can use the logs for firewood.
So, even though the maple production season is over, there's been lots of work going on here at Sterling Valley Maple getting ready for next year's maple syrup season. And, once that work is done, we can get on with one of the jobs we enjoy much more than cleanup: sharing our delicious maple syrup with our customers. If you want a taste, head over to our store and check out our selection!
]]>
So, we created a virtual tour. Check out this video to get a little taste of what you would have gotten to see if everything was normal this year.
And, if your favorite part of Maple Weekend is buying some delicious maple syrup, use the code "MW2020" at our checkout screen to take 5% off your entire order. We offer free shipping on most of our syrup (we do have to add a shipping charge for glass and some of the more delicate items).
And, hopefully we'll get to see you in person next year!
Click here to visit our online store!
]]>
Fish or Venison Marinade
Combine marinade ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir with a whisk until well blended. Use ¾ of the mixture as a marinade, allowing the meat to soak overnight. Use the reserved ¼ to baste the meat while cooking.
]]>
If you're interested in the geologic history of the Adirondacks, we'd recommend Storey's book. It's fascinating reading, and we enjoyed learning a bit about what we see around us every time we head for the woods.
]]>
Tree #1 is NOT a maple. This is a yellow birch. Notice how the bark looks as if it is almost curling into rolls of paper If it were a white ("paper") birch tree these sections would be larger and even more prominent (and the color would be an even brighter white). We're told you can tap birch trees to produce syrup, but we're busy enough with the maples.
Tree #2 is a "hard" (sugar) maple. This is the traditional tree for producing maple syrup. Notice how the bark (particularly at the bottom of the picture) is in long vertical strips. If you were fooled by the top of the picture this is because there was some damage to the bark, especially in the upper left hand corner. However, the rest of this tree looks healthy and should produce maple syrup for years to come.
Tree # 3 is a white ash tree. Don't tap this, although if you did you wouldn't be the first sugarmaker to get confused, as these can look very similar to a hard maple, particularly if you're in a grove of soft maples and come across this tree (I'm speaking from experience). Notice how the bark is just "tighter" to the tree than the maple bark, and the grooves between the pieces of the bark are deeper.
Tree #4 is a "soft" (red) maple. This tree is also just fine to tap. The sugar content of the sap is a little weaker, but some sugarmakers believe that having a mix of soft maples in your woods produces a better maple flavor (we would agree, since we have a nice mix of soft maples in our woods and are proud of our maple flavor). Notice that the strips of bark are wider and looser from the tree than on the hard maple above.
Tree #5 is a soft maple. We hope you got this one right, since it has a healing tap hole at the bottom of the picture. For your reference, this tap hole is from a 7/16" bucket spout and is about 2 and a half years old.
Tree #6 is a cherry tree. Notice that the bark looks a little redder than the other trees. Also, I always think it has a slightly "scaly" look to it with the overlapping triangular sections of bark.
]]>The fact is, recognizing a maple tree is really easy during the summer- just look for the iconic maple leaf. When you're tapping trees in the late winter and early spring there are no leaves. The best time to set up tubing (for us at least) is in the fall, after the frost has killed the bugs and the bare trees make it easy to see the lay of the land.
So, a crucial skill for any sugarmaker is identifying the maple trees from the bark. Below are 6 trees that we took pictures of in our woods. Which ones would you tap? (We put a "gimme" in there in case you need a hint). If it helps, we didn't take pictures of any evergreen trees (the needles are a dead giveaway that we shouldn't tap that tree) and our woods are located in northern NY state in climate zone 2.
I'll put the answers up in a week or so... Enjoy!
]]>Besides attending at least 5 markets every month (and often more when we can get to these markets more than once each month) we've been busy with a couple of projects. We have been working on setting up about 1000 taps at the snowmobile trail (continuing our expansion in this area from last year) and also started working on a complete redesign of our labels. We'll have some pictures of that to show you once the process is completed!
It's been a busy summer season, but we've gotten lots done, and we're already counting down to the 2020 sugaring season next spring. Hope to see you and share our great tasting maple syrup with you!
]]>The first job at the end of the season is to "boil out pans." This is the process by which we collect the final syrup of the season that is remaining in the evaporator.
Because our evaporator is a continuous flow style, we don't drain the evaporator at the end of each boiling session (in fact, the evaporator needs the sap in it to help keep it cool as the fire goes out and the evaporator temperatures drop, so we can't drain it or run it too low). However, there's actually quite a bit of sap in the evaporator pans that we don't want to lose. To get this sap, we close the valve connecting the front and back pans and then use a small pump to pump all of the sap in the back pan into a temporary holding tank. We then fill the back pan with water and put water in our head tanks (remember that the evaporator can't be heated when it is dry, so we have to keep a level of liquid in both pans, and the water just protects the back pan during the next steps. As a side benefit, the boiling water helps make the cleanup process later a little easier).
Once we have the sweet sap in a holding tank and water in the back pan, we start to boil the sap using only the front pan. This takes a while because now we're not boiling with a 5x14 evaporator- instead we have a 5x4 flat pan (with the back pan disconnected). As the sap in the front pan boils off, or when we draw off, we pump more sap into the front pan and continue to process this sap until we've used up all of the sap stored in the holding tank. Although it varies from year to year, we've found we can have as much as 60 gallons of syrup produced from this process.
The final stage of the process is tricky and usually takes at least two people who are paying attention. If we've done everything right, the fire is just about ready to go out as the sap level in the front pan drops. One person then watches the draw-off while the second uses a paddle to push the sap slowly out of each section in the front pan and then plugs the connection between the sections with a clean cloth. Water from the back pan can then be introduced into the now-empty section and we boil again for a while. In essence what we're doing is slowly reducing the size of the front pan and pushing the "almost-syrup" around until it is eventually all in the pan closest to the draw-off. When this sap has boiled long enough to become syrup we draw it off and introduce water into this final pan. If we've timed everything correctly, this is exactly the moment when the fire has died down and the water is just steaming a little (if there's too much fire we can remove some logs with tongs or just add extra water to boil as the fire cools). Although the syrup we produce this way still is generally acceptable, we package it in 40 gallon stainless steel drums to be sold to a bulk syrup buyer. There it will be used in processing to provide maple flavor in baked goods or other products. We reserve only the highest quality, best tasting maple products for canning and our direct-to-consumer sales.
Once this final syrup of the season is drawn off we can clean the evaporator. After letting it soak for a a few days (or even a week) we've had great success using a pressure washer to remove any residual sap, leaving the pan clean and ready to use next year.
]]>Looking for even more ways to use maple syrup as an all-natural sweetener? Check out this recipe for maple glazed walnuts. Nuts contain lots of healthy fats, and syrup has minerals and natural anti-oxidants, so you can eat these without feeling guilty, even if you're on a gluten-free diet. These are a tasty treat for a party, a gift, or just to keep around the house (not that you'll keep them around the house for very long).
Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups shelled walnuts
1/3 cup pure maple syrup
Put walnuts into a pan on medium heat and pour the maple syrup over. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, until walnuts are glazed and golden, syrup is caramelized and fully absorbed, for about 5 minutes.
Turn glazed walnuts out onto a rack and allow to cool and dry. Store in a tightly-closed container. Variations: add a pinch of salt, or other seasonings as desired.
Need some syrup for this recipe? We recommend Sterling Valley Maple's Dark Color with Robust Taste syrup for cooking as it has a strong maple flavor, but any grade of our delicious maple syrup will work great. Click here to view our syrup for sale.
]]>The surging or pulsing of the sap isn't actually a good sign- it means there's too much air entering the system in the woods. We know we have some leaks to fix, and plan to do a comprehensive "leak check" of the woods in the next day or two. If that goes as planned, it will make the sap flow smoother and also increase the vacuum.
We've also had some people ask us what exactly a "releaser" is and how it works. We need a releaser because our tubing lines are under vacuum, but our tank isn't (you can avoid a releaser if you use a tank that can be under vacuum too, but tanks built for vacuum are much more expensive- our tanks would be crushed if we exposed them to the vacuum we have in the tubing lines).
There are many styles of releasers; ours are a simple single-chamber mechanical style (even though there are two chambers, they're called single-chamber releasers because they only have one chamber for the sap to "dump" from). The way it works is that sap enters the upper chamber from the woods. Under normal conditions the sap flows immediately from the upper chamber (sometimes called the manifold, because it can have many sap lines entering it) into the lower chamber. It can't leave the lower chamber because the vacuum holds the "flapper valve" at the bottom of the chamber closed. When the lower chamber is full, a float inside the chamber activates a piston that shuts off vacuum to the lower chamber and vents it to outside air. The one-way valve between the chambers prevents the loss of vacuum from reaching the upper chamber, so the tubing lines and upper chamber remain under vacuum (although they will slowly loose vacuum as the sap enters from the trees). Since there is no vacuum holding the flapper valve closed, the sap "dumps" or falls out of the lower chamber into the tank. The same float valve and vacuum piston then reconnect the lower chamber to the vacuum pump again, and any stored sap in the upper chamber can flow freely into the lower chamber. This cycle repeats itself as long as sap is flowing.
Here's a quick video of sap dumping from our releaser:
Want to see this sap turned into syrup? Hit the "Visit Us" link at the top of the page for information about stopping by during the maple season, or use the "Catalog" link to check out our great tasting maple syrup for sale.
]]>If you've never seen a maple tree tapped, or you'd like to see how we do it at Sterling Valley Maple, check out this video:
Want to try some of our delicious maple syrup? Check out our online store- we have lots of syrup available.
]]>We were able to easily pick the line up around the top of the tree and then replace the side-tie. After riding around the rest of the woods we found no other damage, and we're all ready to tap these woods.
The long-range forecast suggests that it might be sugaring weather starting in the middle of the week after next (around the 13th of March). We're hoping to tap next weekend and be ready for a gentle start to the season.
]]>
Here you can see the flue pan tipped on its edge on the far side of the arch. The ridges you can see are the underside of the flues. The purpose of the flues is to increase the evaporation rate by creating more surface area (an interesting fact is that liquid mostly boils on the surface of the pan. You can see this if you watch water boil in a pot; most of the bubbles will form on the bottom and sides of the pan and then move up through the liquid). By "folding" the bottom of the pan we can more than double the surface area and make the boiling much more efficient. The smoke and other gasses created by the fire actually travel through the flues of the pan, allowing us to capture as much heat as possible from the wood.
The movement of the smoke through the pan means that at least once a year we have to "punch" the flues, which simply means cleaning the soot off from them. (If we let this go too long, the soot would eventually fill the flues entirely, rendering them useless). Usually this is a difficult process because we must work from the underside of the pan, accessing it through the firebox (there's an opening in the back of the arch as well, but its not convenient in our shanty). With the pan on its side we were able to give the bottom of the pan a good brushing, which should increase our efficiency next season since the soot acts as an insulation.
]]>