The Sugarhouse is open this weekend (2/25 & 2/26) for free tastings & sales. Saturday 10-5 & Sunday Noon-5.
The warm temperature has put a halt on boiling for the past few days but cold nights are predicted to return Sunday evening! So for now we’ll be bottling Batch #7 and doing some tidying up in the Sugarhouse.
Stop by, say hello and taste from a variety of batches.
The day started at 5:30 this morning as Russ collected sap & fired the evaporator. Today marks the 5th consecutive boiling day this week. So far this season, we have bottled a little over 100 gallons of syrup. That puts us at the 50% mark compared to last year’s record of 205 gallons. This week’s warm temps have us a little worried that Spring will make an early arrival and the sugaring season will be cut short. So we will wait, take a break over the next few days and keep our fingers crossed that the colder nights will return.
We will be open for free tastings & sales Saturday 2/18 10:00-5:00 & Sunday Noon-5:00.
We’ve spent a few nights this week boiling and bottling Batch #4. Before temperatures drop tonight, Russ is out collecting sap from 2 remote tanks before they freeze into a solid blocks. We plan on starting the evaporator first thing in the morning and hope to continue boiling throughout the weekend so our visitors can experience the process.
Miles & miles of tubing carry sap from the trees to our main pump house collection tank.
Open for free tastings & sales:
2/11 1:00-5:00 & 2/12 Noon-5:00
Bottling Batch #3 Saturday afternoon!
Mother Nature blanketed the Sugarhouse with a sizeable snowfall this past Thursday…Winter has arrived! This week’s forecast is a little too cold for the sap to flow. Ideally, temperatures in the low 40’s & sunny during the day with a drop below freezing at night, signal the trees to send their stored sap upward. Right now, next weekend’s forecast is looking pretty good. Keeping our fingers crossed!
Well today’s temps were a sugar-makers dream! Fifty degrees, sunny with no wind. WOW, did we get sap!
Our 680 taps rewarded us with 1100 gallons of fresh, clear sap! After work, we spent the evening concentrating the sap through the Reverse Osmosis machine, boiled off the run, and enjoyed our dinner from Jerry’s Pizza…no time to cook when we’re out in the Sugarhouse having fun and making delicious syrup!
A high pressure pump forces the raw sap through the RO membrane. The membrane allows only water molecules to pass through leaving concentrated sap. We then continue to process and boil this concentrated sap on the wood fired evaporator until it reaches a temperature of 217 or 218 degrees Fahrenheit
The syrup is then transferred into a propane finishing tank and boiled until it reaches 219 degrees and measures the proper density of 66.9 Brix. The finished syrup is then filtered through a series of cloth fibers which capture impurities and finally hot-packed into various containers for sale.
We spent most of the afternoon boiling off 500 gallons of sap from this morning’s collection
Batch #2 was bottled by our daughter Erin 14 Gallons packaged in 1/2 Gallons, Quarts & Pints
A beautiful Medium Amber Syrup, darker than we would expect for such an early batch
This season is going to be quite unpredictable. Taps were set over two weeks ago and the trees burst with sap. Unprepared for such a response, we gave away over 600 gallons of sap to a neighboring sugarer. Why did we tap so early you ask? Weather.com predicted conditions for a perfect 10 day run…BUT then Mother Nature decided otherwise and we ended up with a sporadic period of small runs. Good news is we’ve boiled 3 nights this week and have bottled the first 12 gallons of our fresh maple syrup! Batch two will be bottled this weekend.
Open this weekend for free tastings & sales Saturday 2-4 Sunday noon-5. Regular weekend hours will resume in the next week or two depending on weather conditions. We’ll keep you posted!
Typically the first early batches of syrup are light in color but this year’s warm temperatures have given the syrup a lovely medium amber color.
durham sugarhouse 