What a year 2024 has been! We’re currently pulling spouts and tying up loose ends. Here are some highlights from our 9th season

• 68 days, January 15th – April 1st. Second longest season (2018 went 89 days with two extended freeze ups)
• Most sap ever collected, beat our previous best in 2023 by 13%.
• Sugar content down 13% from last year, and down 21% from our high in 2021
• Tied for most syrup produced. We still have to get the last bit out of the evaporator tomorrow, but we’re pretty certain we’re within a barrel or two of last year
• Retapped ~2/3rds of our trees mid-March. Increased total sap by ~25%

Thanks to our incredible team, none of this would be possible without everyone’s hard work!

We’re still going strong despite the warmest season we’ve ever had! While the freeze on the 10th did fill the trees with sap, our tap holes were too far gone to collect a meaningful amount. With a decent long term weather forecast coming, we decided to re-tap around 2/3rds of our trees from the 12-15th. Since then we’ve had two good runs with another one coming this evening. We’re definitely making commercial syrup at this point. Mondays boil had a sour sap off taste, but we boiled 12 ounces of concentrate Tuesday night and the sour sap taste was replaced with a slight buddy flavor. The color also disappeared, late season sap is usually more acidic which prevents some of the caramelization chemical reactions from taking place while boiling.

The season that started strong may be coming to an early end. We usually run until late March/early April, but this year the last sap run may have been March 5th! We’ll know for sure tomorrow evening if this weekend’s freeze is enough to rejuvenate old tap holes that just experienced a week of warm temperatures and no freezing nights. If the sap tastes good we’ll continue on, with the possibility of re-tapping later in the week if the extended forecast looks good. If the sap tastes bad we’ll throw in the towel. The trees are close to budding, which changes the flavor for the worse. Check out the picture of a small yard maple with swollen buds starting to flower. We’re currently at 90% of a crop so the season has been a success. Even with more sap than average the total amount of syrup produced has been lower due to low sugar content in the area this year.