Our start to the 2024 Vermont maple sugaring season

This sugaring season has started fast and furious for us here at Wild Woods Maple. We began tapping our trees on our traditional timeline and got it done in a normal amount of time. We had a few warm days which enabled us to get some leaks checked which was nice. Then after glancing at the forecast, I was surprised to see what looked to be great sugaring weather coming sooner than any of us had expected.  So shortly after finishing tapping the sugar maples we get sap from it was time to start collecting sap, no break for us!

We cleaned all our tanks, releasers and got our vacuum monitoring system turned on and let it update. Sure enough we had some good sap runs and we also put together a plan to use our newly installed syrup production equipment. We had some nervous anxiety in our veins as we identified a good first day to boil in our newly built sugar house.

Since this first boil we have gotten much more efficient in our sugar house operations. Another huge highlight for us is our organic certification became official and we are now proud to say we produce organic Vermont maple syrup! This is a way for us to show our customers we welcome outside eyes on our forest management and syrup production. The application and inspection processes were extra work in an already busy time for us but we feel it was 100% worth it. It gives us a feeling of satisfaction to know we met the certifier’s requirements.

We are getting tired of moving firewood. That is one thing we did not get right. We should have realized the location of our wood pile and daily restocking of wood in our sugar house takes too much time away from other very important jobs like checking sap lines and washing sap collection equipment. We also drain and clean the hole evaporator between each boil to make sure the niter is removed and we feel it is a good practice to keep everything clean. We disassemble all the pipes and clean the float boxes then we put the whole evaporator back together for the next days boil. This is something we need to get faster at.

Our first boil of 2024

The whole family was on hand for this monumental occasion for us. Our plan was to take it easy and do everything one step at a time so that if anything failed, we would be able to react and fix it. We had a few thousand gallons of sap in our sugar house tank. I carefully opened the valves that feed our reverse osmosis machine and easily got the concentration cycle going. No leaks, no problems, everything was going good! The RO processed the sap and we soon had a tank of concentrated tree sap to boil in the evaporator. Before boiling I re-read the instructions and got the RO rinsed and washed.

We flooded the pans with the concentrate and paused to enjoy the moment. This was a huge deal for us as we had spent 3 years working very hard to get to this point. The boil went well with only a few small issues with the filter press but we got through it fairly unscathed. No equipment got damaged, we did not lose any sap, exactly zero marital strife and the syrup was outstanding!

Ageing real maple syrup in a bourbon barrel

We have chosen to age maple syrup in bourbon barrels this year and add bourbon barrel maple syrup to our product line. This involved hours of research and sourcing of freshly drained barrels from a local distillery. The folks at Smugglers Notch Distillery have been great to work with and I have enjoyed their samples each time I go there. The barrel is beautiful and I enjoy seeing it in our sugar house each day. I am very excited to try it sometime this summer and get it bottled. When emptied we will have a beautiful oak barrel to use for something, not sure exactly what yet but I’m sure we’ll find a use for it.

For us, this 2024 Vermont maple season has blown last year out of the water! Last year was horrible for us. It never really warmed up enough during the day for us to collect much sap. Then it would freeze hard at night. The snow was up to the bottom of our rib cages. This year we have had gentle freezes at night, low snowpack and very warm days to get the sap flowing. Our sugar house is over 2,000 feet elevation which is unique for most sugaring operations. I’m not aware of any maple sugaring operations that are as high as ours in New England. Our tree sap all flows into our sugar house from our forest that is slightly higher than the sugar house site. This makes for a maple syrup with a unique terroir (taste of place) and we have noticed a robust maple flavor in all the syrup we have produced in the last few weeks. I’m excited to make more syrup and see how, or if, the flavor changes throughout the season. So far we are extremely pleased with the flavor from our young sugar maples and the soil they grow in.

We have had some good times in the sugar house this year and we have had awesome company while boiling. We have met new neighbors and had friends and family spend some quality time with us. The girls are learning all the little details and asking great questions about real maple syrup production. I am a proud dad seeing my daughters clean the tanks and sample syrup with huge smiles on their faces. Katie has been a tremendous help and is learning a ton about the production process.

The trees have been frozen for a few days giving us some much needed rest, time to fix our dryer vent and write this blog post. Its been nice to have a day or two to take care of life’s little things. The weather forecast though, is saying we will be back to the grind for the next week. Highs in the 40’s and upper 20’s at night mean we will be making more organic Vermont maple syrup soon. We cherish every day the sap runs and do everything in our power to make sure we don’t miss a drop of it. We love boiling sap into syrup and we look forward to some valuable face time with our band of faithful customers this summer.