The Process
We use pipeline in the sugar woods to bring the sap down to the sugarhouse and remote sap tanks. Each side of the sugarbush has its own vacuum pump to help extract the sap from the trees.
The sap is passed through a reverse osmoses machine (RO) where a lot of the water is extracted. We concentrate to about 10% sugar concentrate. Naturally, the sap is approximately 1.5% sugar.
The evaporator is equipped with a steamaway. Running the maple sap through the steamaway removes more of the water from the sap, increasing its sugar content to about 14%.
The sap leaves the steamaway and enters the back pan where it boils some more and removes more of the water. By the time the sap leaves the back pan and enters the front pan it is probably made up of about 20% sugar.
The front pan is the last stage where we take the sap to syrup. We boil the sap until it gets to 220°F. At 220°F, maple sap is now Maple syrup.
I am constantly checking the thickness of the syrup with a hydrometer to make sure Black Crek Maple Syrup is just right. If you make it too thick, it will crystallize in the syrup container. Too thin and it will spoil sooner. So, you have to get it just right.
