Central New York Tapped in.
Look Like Central New York has lots of sap happening and not much snow. I think it is going to start pretty early this year. I have been keeping an eye on some of the videos posted to Youtube. It looks like Elizabethtown, Pa has 2012 maple syrup. Some places in Vermont are also tapped in an getting ready to produce. So it is coming soon for everyone I don’t see why Northern Ontario would be an exception!
Martha Carlson no Maple Syrup by 2100
I just found this video on youtube today about a scientist and maple syrup producer Martha Carson. She is doing some work down in New Hampshire figuring out if the maple trees are in distress down there or not.
Climate change is something we all have to be aware of especially being an agricultural business. Mike and I keep some pretty good records of what is happening in the bush but it would be good to know if we can help this cause in any way.
Take a look at the video and see what you think.
New Maple Syrup Resources
I just recived an email from a new website called http://www.sugarbush.info.
This site was lauched “in an effort to list pretty much anything the Maple Syrup industry has to offer online.” So that sounds like a pretty Nobel cause and a resource that all maple syrup producers can use.
It is a pretty new site, launched in January 2011 but already they have over 500 listings of sugarbushs in both the United States and Canada.
This is definitely a site I am going to check out from time to time.
Natunola gets a maximum of $312,250 to make maple syrup for diabetics
Someone put me on to this article about Natunola which is a Biosciences company and manufacturing plant located in Winchester, Ontario. The idea is to change the sugar in maple syrup into “isomaltulose“. This product is already used in a number of low calorie beverages and food.
There are a number of different players in this Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affair, The National Research Council of Canada, University of Guelph Kemptville Campus Agroforestry Education and Research Center and Maple Ridge farms.
I hope they are successful and since the grant money is coming from the government of Ontario I expect that the patent will to free and open to everyone! But I am sure that will not be the case.
you can read the news article here:
http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/May2011/27/c8180.html
Maple Syrup better than once thought
John found this article on Sootoday
Turns out that the sweet nectar of the Gods has more antioxidants than previously thought. I think this is great news.
So now our maple syrup is a super tonic.
The New Bloor Street Festival – 2010
I had a great time at The New Bloor Street Festival this year. It being the first year I did not really know what to expect. I wanted to get a place right on the corner of Russet and Bloor right above Hair Wave where our old apartment was.
It was great to talk to some of the people in the neighborhood. When I was living up north I didn’t know that there was a community in Toronto, I always thought that people kept to themselves and were distant to each other. Dominic at Hair Wave was, I think, the first person to teach me how vibrant and friendly Toronto can be. It was sad to hear that he would be closing his doors only one week after the festival was finished, after being there for 31 years.
The New Bloor Street Festival was put on by two great chaps Dougal Bichan and Sid Bruyn. I watched them running back and forth all day long organizing every little detail. There were also lots of great volunteers helping out. They did an amazing job and I can’t wait until next year. I wonder if they will still call it “New”?
We also had a chance to chat with some amazing people at the Starving Artist Waffle Booth. If there is one thing on the planet that goes perfect with maple syrup, it is waffles. We provided them with some of our very special Dark Syrup and it seemed to be a real hit.
There were ton’s of interesting people stopping in to say hello. One of them was a member of the Toronto Beekeepers Co-op of Toronto. They told me about a really cool plan to tap the trees in the parks of down town. Dufferin Grove park, right near my apartment, has about 20 or so really nice sized Sugar Maples most of them double or triple tappers. I think it is an amazing idea! The more sweat nectar of the gods we can get the better. This year they were able to tap silver maples and red maples but the city would not let them tap any of the sugar maples. Kind of makes you scratch you head but……. there you go.
All in all it was a great time and it gave me a chance to talk Maple Syrup with everyone who wondered by.
Lead testing part I
Mike and I are in the process right now of upgrading our equipment so that we can bring more of the sweet nectar of the Gods to you.
The problem with a lot of the used evaporator pans out there is that they are lead soldered which is considered to be a health risk.
We want to provide our consumers with the best quality product that we can so I thought I would post some of the research that I have done in this respect.
First I found this great consumer report.
http://blogs.consumerreports.org/safety/2007/10/testing-the-lea.html
It rates 4 different lead inspectors and how they work, the following is taken from the consumer reports website:
“Homax Lead Check, $8
Lead Check Household Lead Test Kit, $18.45
These two kits consist of cigarette-shaped swabs, made by the same company, that turn pink when they detect lead. They were the easiest to use and identified accessible lead in toys, ceramic dishware, and vinyl or plastic. If lead concentrations are low, these swabs can take up to two hours to change color, but in our tests high concentrations produced immediate results. The eight-swab Lead Check Household Lead Test Kit pack is a better bargain than the Homax two-swab pack. Its packaging was less susceptible to being crushed.
Lead Inspector, $13
Swabs turn yellow, brown, gray, or black if lead is detected. It can take up to 10 minutes for a color change to occur at low lead levels. The kit, with eight tests, identified accessible lead and might be a good choice for painted metal jewelry. It also might be superior for pink or red items, because if those shades of paint bled onto a Lead Check swab, it might falsely appear to be positive. Have good ventilation and wear gloves to protect skin from chemicals.
First Alert, $13
The four test swabs provided are similar in design to those used in Lead Inspector. But we experienced some false negatives for accessible lead.
Pro-Lab Lead Surface, $10
This kit was less sensitive and more difficult to use. Two small pieces of treated paper are cut to create six tests. The paper is moistened and rubbed on the object, but we found the paper often fell apart before the two-minute rubbing time was over.”
Both Lead Inspector and First Alert have videos which showcase these kits
The following is a copy of the email I sent to all the these lead testing kit suppliers:
Hello
My name is Dave Chapman and I am a maple syrup producer. Over the past few years our industry has been phasing out lead soldered pans for producing maple syrup.
We are currently looking to upgrade our equipment but want to make certain that any used equipment we buy is lead solder free.
does the testing kit that you carry have the ability to do this.
Thanks and I hope to hear from you soon.
If anyone out there knows of another company that provides these testing kits or you have had experience in these matters please let us know.
Royal Winter Fair 2009
This was the first year that I decided to check out the Royal winter fair held in Toronto. I would have never gone if it was not for my sister who was taking care of the Guelph booth at the show, thanks Sis. It gave me a chance to see some of the different farmers in Ontario and was a really interesting experience. I have never really been interested in farming growing up, I was always looking forward to getting out of the small town and into the big city. The Royal winter fair kind of was the best of both world.
I talked to all the maple syrup producers at the show, everyone had great insight and was very helpful. Two booths let really talk their ear off and even let me shoot some video. The first was from White Meadows farms. Richard was really nice and gave me some great tips on maple candy making. It turns out that they won best maple candy at the show last year so I am sure he knows what he’s talking about.
Next I had a chance to talk to Tracy Moore at Everything Maple. I have talked about her in an earlier post. She really went through everything with me and was happy to do so. She even gave me a few books to about packaging maple syrup. The great thing was the she knew all of the maple syrup producers from the island. You can really tell in the video that she is passionate about what she does. It was great to get to know other members of the Ontario maple syrup community outside of the island.
Now I know that the winter fair was a months ago but I have not had a chance to get everything off the camera until last week. I also want to apologize for the shakiness of the camera and the strange viewing angles. It was pretty loud and I wanted to make sure I got the sound I needed. Anyway, now that I have built it up, please enjoy.
Sap to Syrup first Show.
Hello everyone
Well tomorrow is a very exiting day for sap to syrup. It is the first Christmas show that I have taken part in. I am really looking forward to showcasing all our products. The Toronto Business Development Center was part of a program I was involved in. They help entrepreneurs get businesses started and do a great job of it. This is how I moved my interactive business forward.
They have a blog about the upcoming show and I have a small write up in it. Link
Another great thing that has happened is that we have a new logo… Well not really NEW, more like our FIRST.
It was designed by a very good friend of mine Jesse Gibson who has worked as a professial designer for many years. You know why branding is so expensive?
It’s worth it.
new logo
I have plans to redesign the website and add in more interactivity.
New Design – fresh maple syrup
I wanted to take this time to congragulate the new maple syurp website of Tig Tillinghast for his new web design.
The site looks amazing and is much easier to navigate, really an amazing job.
Tig has some really great stories and ideas on his website which is why he is number one on my blog roll. I love his last idea of putting maple syrup in kegs, I really hope he figures it out.
Love the new URL and the site design Tig, keep on boiling!
Sap to Syrup Business Plan
Alright so I’m sitting here, procrastinating really, getting ready to write a business plan for our Sugarbush.
There’s been a lot of stuff happening in recent days. Mike and Steph (Mike’s fiancee) have successfully cut split and piled 15 cords and wood which will be our fuel this year. This is a definite load off my mind. Mike keeps me really well-informed but I still feel a little apprehensive as I haven’t seen anything, Mike still is not taking any pictures. (I think he wants it to be a surprise)
I have the daunting task to write the entire business plan for the Sugarbush. This is going to help us organize everything that we need in order to push forward. It’s also going to solidify the plane both Mike and I have.
It still doesn’t mean that I am going to enjoy this, I’m written business plans before and boy do they ever take a lot of effort, but I guess that’s why they’re worth it.
alright I’ve killed enough time doing this.
Boiling it down
Do you wonder why maple syrup is so expensive? Well the reason that it’s so expensive is because a great deal of energy goes into making it. Below is a video that shows exactly how much wood it takes when you fire boiler. We fire one side of the boiler at the time this way there’s minimal heat loss.
we put about that much wood in the archway every 15-20 minutes, that means that we are firing the boiler every 7-10 minutes. This is of course depending on the different types of what and how dry it is. This year was a bit of a disaster as we ran out of wood and had to spend some of the time burning some not so dry popular.
Mike stumbled across a great website called http://www.woodheat.org This website is full of information in regards to firewood. My favorite part of the website is the energy per air dried cord or in thousands of BTUs. This gives a list of the most efficient types of firewood to use.
I thought that the best wood to use was iron wood, I might have the wrong name for it though. As I can’t find it anywhere in Ontariotrees.com. it’s very dense wood that doesn’t grow very large, it has kind of a flaky bark as he gets older. Maybe somebody can help me. The bark looks a bit like Black Ash when it’s older, but I don’t think that’s right.
Spiles
There always seems to be new innovations out that say they are going to increase production and save the industry thousands of dollars. This blog post is dedicated to Alan at globurban.com. He sent an amazing list of all the different maple syrup festivals that are going to be happening around Ontario, thanks Alan.
Alan had great question about spiles and pointed me into the direction of the University of Vermont website. Apparently there has been a new innovation called to check valve spout. It works like this if the vacuum system is turned on than a little ball that’s inside of the spiles is pulled away from the tree allowing the sap to come out. When the vacuum system is turned off the little ball rolls in front of the opening and blocks bacteria from getting back to the hole. Alan’s concerns seem to be that you’d put excess pressure on the tree by not letting the natural bacteria seal the hole thus taking more sap than the tree is able to lose. Read the full story here.
We will see if this spile will even work this year. I suspect if you are going to try new product that says it’s going to take more sap from the tree then a producer would tend to under tap.. Most of the syrup produces that I’ve talked to basically baby their bush, if there is something that has the potential to take more sap out of the tree I’m sure it would be tried in moderation. I’m sure it was the same when they came out with a vacuum system. If it works for these innovators than I am sure it is going to catch on.
There’s also been a number of innovations that tried to solve this bacteria problem. Leader Evaporators, which is the company that is selling these new spiles, already has something on their website to try to combat the problem of bacteria.
“designed to be an inexpensive bacteria free throw-away fitting to put in the tree for maple sugar makers looking for maximum production every year. This rugged extension features a female cup which will accept almost every 19/64 and 5/16 diameter spout on the market”
So will this new little device work, who’s to say? There is also another type of this spile that we are looking into for our bush, it is a stainless steel spile. Here’s a video of Bill Smith and Keith Brown discussing it.
To Market
Well today was a pretty full day of trying to get maple syrup sales going. I have been working on creating online shopping cart in order to sell my syrup off the website. I’ve got something together the only problem is shipping, I don’t really know exactly how to charge for shipping, still working out the bugs.
I did however get a chance to go into the post office and I found out exactly how much one liter of maple syrup weighs.
I’ve also been trying to get in contact with all the different farmers markets that are around Toronto. I contacted an Anne Freeman at Dufferin and Grove Park. She was very helpful even though she they already had a maple syrup producer that was selling product. She said that she would pass my name along to some of the other Farmers markets.
I found man named Chad at the Trinity Bellwoods open market. He was an incredible wealth of knowledge explains me about how to get involved in these farmer markets and what it was like selling maple syrup in a downtown area. (insadently he is the one that sells his syrup at Dufferin) It is nice to know is that my prices are pretty much dead on with his.
That’s the nice thing about the maple syrup industry, most producers are happy to help each other out which is fabulous for a newcomer like me, thanks again Chad!
Stay tuned for an update on Mike in the Bush. I had a nice long chat with him today but we won’t get any real news until about Friday a very special visitor is coming to take a look at our operation.
More info on the Famers markets in Toronto.
Hello All
My name is Mike Garside. I am the bush operations guy in this adventure. Dave wants me to start a Blog about what I am doing in the syrup trade. I first should give a little info on myself. I spent 7 or 8 years working for the second biggest Maple syrup producer in Ontario, Doug Thompson’s Maple Products. I tapped trees, cleaned tanks and pans, added mainlines, spur lines, tap lines, repaired squirrel damage check the bush for leaks, worked on the steam system, vacuum system, filtered syrup and I even changed a motor in the old bush truck. During my time there I saw a lot of things that can come up in the bush, so I have a pretty good idea what we will be up against. In my career I have a back ground in electrical and work for a company called Brookfield Renewable Power which owns and operates hydro electric generation stations. I am part of the Maintenance team that keeps the power flowing.
I will start giving Dave so material to post when I get a chance. They maybe few and far between, as I am in the middle of a big project at work, and a million little projects at home. I also only have dial up and that is not going to work for anyone so if you’re interested in what I have to tell stay tuned.
lets get selling
So I’m all ready to start selling my maple syrup through Craig’s list. I must say that I am pretty happy about how it’s going so far. I can’t decide whether I should sell it all directly myself or whether I should find a health food store or grocery store in the area that would like to purchase it. There is still the online way of doing it but again I have a limited supply.
I’ve also noticed that there is maple syrup in this area that is certified organic. I don’t really know how to go about getting my maple syrup certified organic but I can say it was probably made more “organically” than any other type of syrup in the area (wood fired).
I have uploaded a picture of all of the stuff I brought back from St. Joseph Island. I also finished up the labels that I’m going to put on the maple syrup to drive people to the website so they can see exactly where this maple syrup comes from. I think this is a real selling feature to the product.
Things to Think about
Well there are so many questions to be asking when putting together a new Sugarbush. Right now I’m having a bit of trouble trying to find the right size bottles to sell Maple syrup in.
The 250 mL bottle seemed to be the most popular but as it turns out I only have one left. This means that I’m most likely going to have to break up some of my great big 4 L jugs into 250 mL. Fortunately I have all the equipment I need to do this. I have also found a comprehensive manual which gives the process of hot packing in detail.
In and I’ve been thinking about is what we are going to name the new Sugarbush. I was thinking about keeping the same name as the URL that I have now, sap to syrup I still want to get some feedback and not necessarily do with that in 100%.
Most likely will come up with a short list and then maybe have a poll to see which one wins.
Mike has a good priceless together of all the equipment that were going to need. It’s pretty good starting point and I think that we can cover a pretty comfortably.
Maple syrup for everyone
I was listening to the point today on CBC and heard these crazy guys talking about affordable maple syrup for all Canadians. It was pretty good, some of the suggestions was to have a tax credit for maple syrup.
You can listen to the full audio of the show, part II.
There is a serious reason that the price of maple syrup is so high, last year was a pretty bad year. A number of farms did not make much syrup and this caused there to be a decrees in supply, this in turn drove the price up.
Also people that don’t buy real maple syrup will not be really missing anything as they don’t value it at all. This reminds me of some friends’ kids who were visiting and decided to put real maple syrup on their pancakes rather than fake stuff. It was so sweat that they ending up throwing it out, what a waste.
It’s not that big a deal to buy maple syrup as it is not something you buy everyday. You buy a 4L juge and it can last you the whole year.
I could go on and on about this but I won’t as I think this segment of the program was put in to lighten things up, It has to be a joke.
Maple Syrup Insurance
The province of Quebec today is going to help out with some insurance for maple producers. Today Country Guide reported that the “personalized insurance program will cover producers up to a certain volume when their yields are affected by poor climate conditions.” read the full story here.
You can download the English content of the Individual crop insurance information form. The insurance is basically propped up by the province of Quebec. The government pays 60% of the premium and the participant pays 40%. There is a minimum of insureable quota of 2000 pounds and it covers excessive heat, excessive rain and front. The deadline to apply is February 15, 2009 not too much time if you ask me.
Here is the example of how it works found on the back of their Individual Crop Insurance brochure
- Producer’s Quota is = 10,000lb
- The historical adjustment factor = 0.93 ( I don’t really know )
- Which makes the quota = 10,000 lbs x 0.93 = 9,300 lb
- There are three options, this is for 80% = 9,300lb x .80 = 7,440lb
- The insured value = 7,440 x $1.85/lb = $13,764
- payment by government – 2.59% = $356.49 (60%)
- payment by participant - 1.72% = $236.74 (40%)
so by this same model if you only make 6000 lbs your loss is 7440 – 6000 = 1,440 lb. This would entitle the participant to 1,440 x $1.85/lb = $2,664.
I used the same numbers because I don’t know if there are clauses with other numbers and there are no legal documents about the program.
Seems like a pretty good deal if you find out about it in the next 11 days.
The article goes on to say that Quebec is responsible for “71 per cent of world maple syrup production in 2004″ and that of it’s producers “12 per cent have 10,000 or more [taps] and just one per cent have over 30,000 [taps]”
If I had that much invested in maple syrup production I would most likely get insurance too.
Nothing for Ontario producers as of yet and I don’t imagine there would be.
New blog
In my travels in cyberspace I found a new blog. McCucheon’s Maple Updates is a blogspot blog about a sugar bush in Coldwater, ON
They also have a flash website which has a great song playing in the background. Aparently they were very sucessful at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair. Congradulation!
Though they have not posted very much in the last little while I think that once they see there are other that are creating blogs about maple syrup they might be more keen to keep up.
Are you afraid of the dark?
The Chap over at flavorchase makes a very sugar rich maple syrup. He says it is around 70 to 72 percent solid. This causes the maple syrup to crystallize much easier than the normal maple syrup. I think it also makes it darker in colour.
I have always like light maple syrup, it is also the hardest to make. I was surprised by Tig’s results from his online survey:
“When asked both if they knew their preferences well and whether they liked lighter or darker maple syrup, the folks who indicated they knew their preferences mostly said darker maple syrup, perhaps by a 2-1 ratio.” – flavor chase blog
I thought this was crazy until I found an old report on consumer preference for graded maple syrup (1978). In it they test about 1000 housewives on 4 grades of maple syrup and one table syrup. Interestingly enough their study reviled that people do prefer darker syrup to lighter syrup. Here are some highlights:
Grade B was preferred over Grade A, 49 to 27 percent
Over one-half (53 percent) of the participants preferred Log Cabin and less than
one-fourth (23 percent) preferred Grade AA syrup
Dissatisfaction with pouring consistency decreases with darker syrups and correlates with actual density of the syrups tested. Although all pure maple syrups, in theory, have the same density, variation inevitably occurs between batches. The densities of the syrups in this study were Grade AA, 65.4 percent solids; Grade A, 66.0 percent; and Grade B, 67.6 percent. Log Cabin syrup, which is about the same density as pure maple, appears thicker because it contains corn syrup which is more viscous.
I know this is a very old study but it does show that more people in this study do prefer darker syrup. The study also shows that people in syrup producing regions seem to like table syrup rather than anything else.
I don’t put much sock in this study 
Trying to verify
There are a number of things that have happened in the last little while. First of all I someone in Vermont has a great maple syrup blog, His operation is called Tillinghast Maple . The sugar shack has been around for about for a really long time, has some great pictures on there. Tig also asked a great question about one of my earlier posts,
“I bought some syrups a few days ago at a
nearby store and I would swear that one of them tastes like cane sugar.
I’m wondering if there’s some sort of a simple test one might use to
determine that.”
Great question and I wish that I had an answer, truth is that I have not had cane sugar before so I can’t make a judgment. I know that true maple syrup does not freeze so you could test it that way, also I know that Maple Syrup crystallizes after a while (which can easily be fixed by heating it up). Both of these things are not really simple test, for all I know cane sugar does the same thing.
On my travels trying to find the answer to this question I ran into a better version of the labeling guidelines by the Canadian food inspection agency, you see if some of the regulations have been followed but again this is not really that simple.
Another thing it could be is Cane Sugar and Maple Syrup, I found this product.
Looks like it could be a blend, kind of like cutting drugs to make them worth more. I’ll Keep my ears open for more info on this.
Syrup Slumps – Bad production season
Well It turns out that this year was pretty bad for everyone, not just Sugar Island Maple Grove.
A recent article in the Ottawa citizen show that there was an industry slump in both Maple Syrup Production and Honey production.
you can read the full article here.
Canada production was down from 5.1 million gallons last year to 4.9 million gallons of maple syrup this year, a 4.8% drop in production. The main culprit was of course the weather, even though I think ours was more of the stack!
This however drives the price of syrup up as there in more demand than supply. So if you are an independent producer of maple syrup SELL NOW!
Christmas is a perfect time to sell maple syrup because many people want to give it as gifts in addition to regular consumption. Once Christmas is over I feel that the price will drop again until the end of the year. Kind of like the price of pumkins in the simpsons.
Real Maple Syrup
Maple Syrup is one of the best gifts to give at Christmas. It is compact, decedent and at a great price point. It is perfect for the person who has everything because you can always use more Maple Syrup.
I was shopping at the mall the other day and found some maple syrup for sale. Naturally I took a look at it to see what grade it was and what price they were selling it at. The price tag I found but that was about it.
The laws governing maple syrup production in Canada state that:
12. (1) Every container of maple syrup that is graded under these Regulations shall bear a label marked
(a) with the words “maple syrup” and “sirop d’érable”;
(b) with the grade name on the same panel as the name of the product and in letters of a size set out in Schedule IV;
(c) with the name of the colour class in English and French adjacent to the grade name and in letters of a size set out in Schedule IV;
(d) with a true and correct declaration of net quantity expressed in litres or, where less than one litre, in millilitres;
(e) with
(i) the name and address of the sugar bush establishment, the packing establishment or the maple syrup shipper establishment, or
(ii) the name and address of the first dealer and the registration number of the packing establishment.
Some of these regulations pertain to other section of the act (12.1.c) but I wanted to put these laws up verbatim.
If you see Maple Syrup that does not follow these regulations then you might not be buying the best maple syrup. Let the store clerk know that what they are selling might not be legal, they most likely did not know them selves.
It is great to know exactly what you are getting when you buy Maple Syrup. If you want to find out a bit more about maple syrup regulations in Canada you can always check out the following links:
