A Sweet Season for Maple Syrup

Local farms and sugar shacks say harvesting maple syrup has yielded an incredible season this year, and the tradition is one that's sure to tap your taste buds.

The cold below freezing nights and above freezing days of winter is what made this season so ideal and nearly doubled production at some local sugar shacks.

Keith Marshall of the New Canaan Nature Center said syruping aficionados were disappointed last year because the temperatures did not reach the necessary levels much of the time, which made for a very short season.

Ambler Farm in Wilton reports this year's production has totaled about 800 bottles, which is nearly double last year's harvest.

"We had 450 taps this year, which produced so much sap we couldn't even process it all," said Kevin Meehan, a science resource teacher at Cider Mill School who helps run Ambler's maple syrup education program.

To top it all, Meehan said the season yielded 208 bottles of the lightest syrup he's ever tried.

"This year was lighter than the lightest grade," Meehan said, adding that it was lighter than the Vermont Fancy syrup many people look for. "That means it's not even on the market, so it's quite extraordinary."

Ambler sells the syrup at its farm stand and expects to sell out quickly.

The color of the syrup depends on the time of the season and the skill involved in making it, Meehan said. A lighter syrup usually results from colder temperatures earlier in the season and will taste "cleaner and more sugary," Meehan said.
A dark syrup usually results from later in the season, has a different sugar content and "lingers in your mouth," Meehan said.

It takes 40 gallons of sap to make just one gallon of maple syrup.

Inside the maple sugar house at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center, the sap is heated in an evaporator to 219 degrees. At that temperature it will have the perfect water to sugar ratio for maple syrup, said Will Kies who directs the center's education program. In a good year, the museum produces about 50-60 gallons of finished maple syrup.

The evaporation is key, said Kyle Deviney who is a sugar shack operator at Ambler Farm.

"We evaporate the water away as much as we can because we want (the syrup) to get thicker," Deviney told a group of third graders who came to the farm to observe the process last week.

Marshall at the New Canaan Nature Center said his staff works with Ambler Farm and the Stamford Museum to learn more about the maple syrup process.

"Once you start sugaring, it's just that kind of hobby," Marshall said, adding that the nature center offers an "Adopt-a-Tree" program to allow families an ability to participate in the maple syrup season.

"We had 35 families this year," he said. "We ask them to come out one to three times a week depending on how fast the sap is flowing."

Marshall said "sugaring" is not a big business but something people do just because they love it.

After four years of harvesting, Marshall said he's turned into a syrup connoisseur.

"Four years ago, yes, I definitely enjoyed pure maple syrup and I'd do that over Aunt Jemima, but now I look at the grade and the color," Marshall said. "People do it with wine, and I do it with maple syrup."

"There's something about the harvesting," Marshall continued. "You feel like you are participating in a New England tradition. There is something special and down to earth about taking part in a tradition and seeing out of your work, all these hundreds of gallons of taps turn into syrup and then tasting that pure sweetness."