Sugar on snow time again in VT - Saturday March 29

The last weekend in March saw many of the area's sugarhouses open their doors to the public for VT's annual Sugar On Snow events, celebrating the new seasons crop of maple syrup. The weather has been just beautiful so it made for a very nice day or two of travelling about the countryside and sampling some of the local fare... Bubs would have been wondering why Mum's diet suddenly went to 75% sugar!

Anyway, here are some pics of the sugar shacks we visited...


First up was Dakin Farms, who also do fantastic cured meats and maple sausage chilli as well as their maple syrup.

The guy in the forefront here in the checked shirt is Sam Cutting Sr, the elder of the brothers who have owned Dakin Farms since the 1960s

The maple sap boiling away to make the yummy syrup - it has to reach approx. 220F before they run it out of the boiling vat.

Adam gets a closer look

The syrup hits temp and is run out into a stainless steel bucket - then we were all given toasty hot fresh samples of the new season's maple syrup to try - Mmmm!

Adam chats with Sam Cutting Sr about the history and process... and yes, he asked a LOT of questions!

Next up was Hillsboro Sugarworks, about 30 mins away...

We reached the sugar shack after what would normally not have been too strenuous a walk up the steep hill... suffice it to say under current circs Jayne was more than aware of Bubs taking up valuable lung space!

Adam chatting with one of the owners, Sue Folino... yes he was still asking LOTS of questions ;) Overhead you can also see the blue pipes running sap in from the trees on the mountain side into the shed where the storage tank resides

This pic shows the big evaporation tank where the sap is boiled down. In front are the two filtration clamps where the syrup is run through to remove any unwanted residues before it goes into the storage barrel

The boiling syrup leaves the evaporation tank

Sue fits the filtration clamp together...

... putting sheets of special filter paper between each layer...

... and tightening the whole thing up before it is turned horizontal

Dave Folino adds a special powder to the syrup which draws out any impurities before filtering removes it all

... a good stir by Sue...

Once it's all filtered Sue pours off the hot syrup into a jug so the watching crowd can all get a taste of it.

Yup, it was pretty good stuff... a darker, richer flavoured syrup than we'd tried at Dakin Farms. Cheers!

Looking out one of the windows you can see the sap lines weaving from tree to tree up the mountain side

Dave shows us what a bear can do to the sap lines... I don't blame 'em for gnawing on the pipes to get to the sweet nectar with all that snow on the ground! Mind, it sounds like a job and a half trying to keep the lines all up and running over the season... especially when you have some 15,000 trees tapped!