Buidling on our [keg concept] from some months ago, Ellie and I installed a system the new counter top that sits on our dishwasher. For less than $50, we purchased the hardware needed to have a professional draft beer tap hooked into a 13 gallon keg of maple syrup sitting under our sink. Pressured up [...]

It all started out, as so many things do, with a clever plan. I did not then anticipate that I would later be rushing up I-93 to get to a formal event while covered in 18-month old beer. Such is maple syrup entrepreneurialism.
The problem that needed to get solved was transportation and dispensing of maple [...]

We took down the old greenhouse where we used to keep our main sap tank and its vacuum system, replacing it with the “sap barn,” a two-story affair that Robert and the boys put up in a few weeks over the summer. The barn itself is nice enough, but there are a couple special features [...]

We’ve made some pretty thick batches of maple syrup. This is probably the largest sugar crystal-to-maple-syrup-volume ratio I’ve seen in one of our bottles. This is a 500 ml bottle, with a rock sugar crystal at the bottom that might be more than 5 percent of the original volume of the maple syrup. It was [...]

We packed some of our Grade A Dark Amber maple syrup into our square bottles a few nights ago. We pack it strong. They were left overnight on the cold concrete floor, as temperatures dipped pretty low. The maple syrup at that temperature can keep only so much sugar in solution, so some of it [...]

Different states will have slightly different terms sometimes, but syrup grade systems are essentially the same: they all are based solely on the color of the syrup, and the lighter the syrup the “higher” the grade. In Vermont, the grades start at Grade A Fancy and move on, in order, to Grade A Medium Amber, [...]

Sometimes customers decide to buy a large amount of syrup to pack into smaller containers. They might do this to make gifts to friends, or they might do this to create smaller sets of supply. That helps them keep their syrup fresh. This post will give some step-by-step directions for packing syrup to make it [...]

Nothing beats glass for a great looking syrup package, not to mention preserving flavor. The problem, though, is that you have to finish your syrup just right for it to consistently look good in glass over the long-haul. We like to make our syrup extra-thick, and this sort of syrup develops sugar crystals eventually, clouding [...]