We started tapping our trees last Saturday. With weather in the 20s we can drill below freezing, maximizing taphole health, then once the weather breaks all of the trees should run hard at once. We’ve never been more prepared or had a better crew than this year’s group. Halfway done after six days while simultaneously working on other projects – we should be finished next week sometime then it’s up to the weather!

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.

View Video

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.