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SOME NEW MAPLE TIDBITS FOR THOSE WHO LIKE TO KNOW

YOU SHOULD KNOW...

Maple Syrup producers receive no government subsidies or price supports like many agricultural producers. We support ouselves... but on a hair raising ride as prices rise and fall with crop sizes and market conditions. If you like Maple Syrup be a smart shopper. Buy extra when prices are low and lay off when prices are high, as the real thing has a long shelf life.

WHAT IS ORGANIC?

Many of our customers ask whether our products are organic. We produce products that we feel are organic. However our industry has no set standards because they feel all their production falls into that category. We thought we might explain what we do here and you folks can decide yourselves.

To us "organic" means that our Maple Syrup is, as near as possible, only the boiled Maple sap as it comes from the tree and that's all! It means we sell confections made only from pure Maple Syrup as well.

Some producers use paraformaldehyde pellets in their tapholes to boost production. The pill is supposed to evaporate in the cooking process and not appear in the syrup. We're not sure but have not used them in many years. Of late these pellets are banned in the USA.

It is common practice to use some type of fat in small amounts in the boiling process to reduce foaming and make the cooking more even. We use small amounts (1/4 lb. per year on 700 gallons of syrup) of pure butter for this purpose but some others do use artificial or synthetic defoamers. Generally this fat is removed in the filtering process as animal fat and water based syrup don't mix, however, we use a filter press to ensure ultimate filtering.

A note about Reverse Osmosis: While quite healthful, this process removes water from sap by ultrafiltration. This process uses no heat which is what changes the characters of the sugars and makes for Maple flavor. While even Reverse Osmosis users must finish their syrup over heat, the reduced use of heat in the processing of sap into syrup can, in our opinion, sometimes produce bland flavored syrup.

MAPLE WEATHER

Maple Syrup may be one of the most unique products you can give as a gift. This sweet nectar of spring is produced no where else on Earth, except northeastern North America.

Strangely, it is the annoyingly prolonged start of spring in the Northeast which makes the Maple harvest possible. Many parts of the world see spring come quite quickly with temperatures rising steadily as the season arrives. In the Maple belt, March and April bring a series of warm and cold stretches before the temperatures finally rise above freezing permanently. It is this long stretch between seasons that gives Maple producers enough cold nights coupled with warm days to yield lots of sap.

During Napolean's time, Maple sugar production was tried on the continent in order to counter the British blockade of ships carrying sugar from the tropics. The results were disappointing as Spring arrived too quickly thereby putting an end to the freezing nights necessary for sap flow. Interestingly, European Maples also give sap that is less sweet than our own Acer Saccharum, thus making profitable sugar making even more difficult.

Maples are being grown experimentally with syrup production in mind in one other country outside North America today and that is New Zealand. Tell us if you know anything about this project!