Michael Recino Michael Recino

2025 Season Update #3

We are officially in the thick of our production season. It has definitely started slower than any of our previous seasons. As of yesterday, we have produced 230 gallons of syrup for the year over 4 boils. The syrup that we have made has ranged from amber(72) to dark(33), and had fantastic flavor!

It appears that there is going to be a shift in the weather pattern and winter is going to loosen its grip on our region. The snow melt is almost gone and we should start to lose the frost in the ground. This will allow the sap to really start running and hopefully the sugar concentration in the sap to increase. We have been averaging less than 1 gallon sap per tap on days that it has run and only around 1.5-1.6 brix sugar. This week we should see closer to 2 gallons sap per tap runs and the sugar building to 1.8-2.0.

On the season we are averaging 76 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. We can only deal with what nature gives us, but are hoping to get down into the 50:1 ratio in the coming weeks as the sugar concentration builds.

When can you see us? This year we are taking part in NYS Maple Weekends Open House event. This will take place on March 22/23 and 29/30 from 10am-4pm at various sugar makers across the state. We will have free syrup tasting, tours of our facility and for purchase homemade maple sugar waffles and chicken/sausage, maple glazed doughnuts, maple coffee, maple cotton candy, maple syrups and an array of other maple items. If you can kindly reply that you plan on coming via our event page on facebook. This is not required, it will just give us a better ideal with planning.

Thanks and have a great day - see you all soon!

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Michael Recino Michael Recino

2025 Season Update #2

Welp - predicting when to tap and what the weather will be like is certainly no exact science. We finished tapping our woods the last week of January. While we had a few small runs of sap it looks like we probably could’ve waited a few more weeks. Maybe the third week of February based on current forecast models. Why not tap early and let the woods just sit idle? Well that is because if you think of the taphole like a cut on your own body, the hole wants to start healing itself once “wounded”. We aren’t actually wounding the tree because of our healthy tapping and sanitation practices, but rather an analogy to explain the hole closing.

We did finish up with the monitoring system upgrades! The CDL system looks great so far. During the few runs that we had, it certainly helped us locate leaks very quickly. More to come on this once we get into the season.

The vendor from Memprotec, our Reverse Osmosis Manufacturer, was just down yesterday completing an upgrade to our unit. Previously, our machine would take our raw sap from 1.4-2.0 brix (or % sugar in solution) to 14-17 brix concentrate. With the upgrade of an additional membrane (3-4 post) and adding a booster pump, we should be able to consistently hit 20 brix concentrate. This will decrease the amount of time we have our evaporator running to produce syrup, decreasing our syrup/fuel ratio.

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Michael Recino Michael Recino

2025 Season Update #1

We are anxiously awaiting the first drips of sap to kick-off the 2025 maple season! We have been busy the last few weeks:

  • The winds to end 2024 and start 2025 left us with plenty of trees, limbs and smaller branches to clear off of our lines. There was no significant damage, but plenty of work to do!

  • We purchased a monitoring system to help us remotely keep track of our sap flow and production. High vacuum is applied to all of our lines in the woods, trying to achieve 25+ inches of mercury vacuum in the lines. This aids in production by almost doubling sap yield over a gravity system. It also allows us to prolong the tap hole, which like a cut on your skin, wants to start healing once drilled. The monitoring system will tell us precisely which line has a leak so that we can deploy someone to go fix it quickly! For each 1” of vacuum over 20” sap yield increases another 5%. Squirrels love the sap almost as much as we do!

  • We started to drill our woods. With 3500 taps this will take almost a week to complete. Although we don’t expect any sap runs in the next 7-10 days, we can take our time tapping and ensure a tight system is ready to go once the late winter days warm over the freezing point during the days.

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Michael Recino Michael Recino

Holiday Markets 2024

We are fast at work preparing for both the upcoming sugar season in addition to filling holiday orders. With miles upon miles of tubing in the woods and changing out spiles there is plenty of work to be had and now is such a beautiful time of year to be doing it. The brisk mornings, leaves falling and animals abound make it more like a nature walk at times. We will share more in upcoming blogs about the the preparation of the tubing system and the maintenance of our forest.

But for now lets talk about upcoming markets you may see us at.

We will be at:

  • The Irondequoit indoor farm market (exact nights to updated soon)

  • The Christkindlmarkt @ the United Church of Christ on Sat, November 9th from 9-3 (570 Klem Road Webster)

  • Rochester Regional Market November 13th and December 11th from 11-2 (Riedman Campus)

  • Rochester Public Market Dec 1st, 8th, and 15th 8-2 and the 19th from 6-9 pm.

Come sample our products or pick up your favorites! We have gift boxes sampling our 3 infused syrups (Sweet and Spicy, Vanilla, Cinnamon) for $40 in a beautiful gift box. Grab them for gifts before they are gone. If you have enough maple products already because you have bought every variation that we carry or produce - no worries we love your company. Stop by share any new ideas or recipes that you have crafted, we always love new ways to use our syrups!

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