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looks good
Mmmmmm
SAP training not sap training.
Sap to syrup was contacted a little while ago by a company that does S-A-P training. They basically do training for a myriad of different clients. You can check out more of what they do at teksoftventures.com
They found us somehow in the online world and thought that it would be fun to use our product in the one of the commercials that they were shooting. Mike and I thought that would be a pretty cool and just today we received an email saying that the commercial was completed.
I think that the subject matter is very enlightening when it come to extracting sap from a maple tree. A very good seminar, but you be the judge.
flannel will never go out of style
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.
No work in the Sugarbush – Trillium time
No work to be done in the sugar bush in the next little while so that we can let all the Trilliums do there thing.
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
How to build a Sugar Bush – Main line
Hello out there
I am glad to have had a little break from the maple syrup season. Both Mike and I are sad that it is over but at the same time THANK GOD.
I had a great question from T. Miller a little while ago.
Any tips on starting the main lines would be great. My land is flat and I have been thining the crap trees out for a few years now.
Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you.
I would get your self something called a sugar bush transit. It is a little tool that tells you were where a 4% grade is. We did a little video of it a while ago, here it is again.
I would also say that you should get gripples and a gripple tool to tighten your lines:
and finally you need a wire tie twisting tool to attach the main line to your freshly run cable:
I would say those are the three main things that you need to start running your main line. Please let me know if it helps T.Miller.
The legend of Burnsie
I just wanted to put together a little post on our favorite evaporator to date. Yes she is very inefficient, yes she is warped, yes she is not 100% square but this pan and archway has so much character that we can’t help but love her.
Mike’s father is the only one who really knows the history of Burns and it is spotty at best, his memory is not what it use to be. As the story goes Mike’s Grandfather was using a very old style flat pan with no channels in it. Burns was custom made by someone in Sault Ste Maire. She is a three channel flat pan made out of 1/4 stainless steal.
The reason we call her Burnsie is because of how much wood she burns. This pan is so inefficient that we can’t possibly produce Maple Syrup for the market on it. The Days of old wood fired maple syrup are going to be a thing of the past.
There are however very fun facts about running Burnsie.
If you burn the pan it is no big deal – When I tried to run the pan with 3/4” of sap in it the first time I started it up I burnt the pan pretty good. The nice thing is that you can use a grinder to get it clean again. Try that with a delicate raised flu pan1.
It is easy to Run – Once you get a few inches of sap in her there is pretty much nothing that can go wrong2. No floats to jam up, no pipes to check on. Just keep the level high and the fire hot!
The Syrup is AMAZING – If I had my choice I would love to run this pan all day and I am sure that Mike would agree with me. The syrup is so thick and rich it is hard to describe, it like what maple syrup tasted like half a century ago. Mike calls it his Grandfather’s maple syrup.
This year we made a special batch 6 which took a ton of wood and over 2 days of boiling. I don’t know if we are going to run it next year or not but hopefully we get the privilege.
Thank you Alain for your comment the other day about getting one of these old pans for yourself. I would love to know more about it like how many channels does it have and what size it is? Chances are you will have a blast making syrup on it. If your really ambition you might even use it for a couple of years if you don’t break your back feeding it thousands of man hours of fire wood.
But I bet you it will be the best Maple Syrup you have ever tasted.
1 – please don’t do this for any reason!
2 – never say that within ear shot of your evaporator.
End of 2011 Season
Mike and I have official called it the end of season. This year was amazing we learned a lot about maple syrup and we have both decided to do it again in 2012. Mother nature gave us 14 batch this year which we are both exited about.
Our first day of boiling for 2011 was March 13 and Our last day of boiling was April 22 for a total of 40 days of boiling.
We both want to thank everyone for showing up and lending a hand.
First our syruper of the year Spencer Cain
Also my parents Chuck and Peggy and Mike’s parents Roger and Wendy.
Thanks to the Cyborg Johnny and Julie.
Bill, Joe, Kristen, Pops, Katelyn, Lex, John Cain, Travis, Curt and Ashely, Dan and Adrian, Linus, Byron and Donna
Also thanks to Dave Stadnyk and Keith Brown for giving help and advise when we really needed it.
Now the clean up begins!
Winter is back?
Winter is back
It looks like the season is coming to a close for us this year. We have run out of firewood and are not able keep making maple syrup this year. We went though almost 30 cord of wood this year which is all the dry firewood we have.
We were able to get 11 batches so far and we are going to finish up batch 12 as soon as possible. We still have about 2 cords of wood left so we might try and get a 13th batch out, we will see how it goes.
The weather in over the last little while has been bad to say the least. There were a few days this spring that felt just like summer and now it feels like a dreary fall day. That is one of my favorite things about being in the bush during spring, you get to see all the changes in the season first hand, without the insects.
