We’ve posted videos in the past of our Hobart mixer making maple sugar, well now we have two of them! This post is actually overdue, we’ve been running both for five months now making sugar and candy. The second one is exactly the same as the first except it has a 50+ year old single phase brushed motor. We intend to upgrade it with a new, more powerful, three phase motor this summer. We’ve noticed the second machine gets bogged down easier on large batches. This video shows around 110 pounds of granulated sugar being made at once.

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We recently purchased and took delivery on this 1,000 gallon propane tank from Church Towne Gas and Welding. The 500 gallon tank we’ve been using just wasn’t enough during our peak production periods. By tripling our capacity at the sugar shack we’ll be more prepared to always make sugar, candy, and cream (our maple syrup is initially concentrated with our reverse osmosis and boiled with fuel oil). There’s also a price break on larger fuel deliveries, helping allow us to keep our prices as low as possible.

Maple syrup has some similarities to single malt whiskey and wine vintages. Every barrel is slightly different based on growing and processing conditions. Sometimes this is a good thing, but often it’s more advantageous to have consistent syrup for confections. In addition to having the right color/grade it’s also important to have the correct percentage of natural glucose/fructose/sucrose to ensure proper crystallization. Last month we started using these borrowed totes to blend up to seven individual barrels together, achieving our desired characteristics. A batch of candy or cream takes approximately 12 gallons of syrup, so these 300 gallon totes can make around 25 batches of consistent product. No need to tweak the recipe every few batches and no more ending up with soft, hard, light, dark, strong, or weak tasting results. This spring we plan on purchasing a few of our own so that we always have mixtures on hand for cream, candy, and sugar.