The end

As the semester comes to a close, we find our syrup season to be nearing an end. We are all thrilled at the progress made during this year's project. The syrup class has educated us, tightened friendships, and produced some very delicious, 100% natural syrup! Closing activities have included the open house, removing taps, hooks, and buckets from the trees, and bringing everything back to CNS for safe-keeping until next season. In addition, we designed beautiful labels that will go great with our new bottles. The bottles are in the shape of a maple leaf and are slightly smaller than last year's bottles so that we can distribute the syrup to as many people as possible. Last Wednesday some team members got together and re-bottled the syrup into the new bottles (3.4 ounces). Our syrup is grade A dark amber which is a robust maple bouquet and hearty maple flavor. It is most often used to accompany breakfast entrees and as an all-around table syrup.
Though it was a little disheartening to learn that we didn't produce much more syrup than last year, we must remember that this season was a hard one for ALL syrup producers (not just us!). In fact, Jason Hamilton informed us that professional companies all over the country were forced to end tapping 3 weeks earlier than normal this season. Considering the circumstances, we worked hard and certainly made out well.
I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we all had a blast being part of the team, and we're excited for the annual, end of the year pancake breakfast to celebrate our success and finally get to eat and enjoy the syrup.

Open House

On Saturday, April 17th, the syrup team hosted an open house for current and prospective students and parents. The open house had a great turn-out and we were delighted to share our syrup knowledge and stories from the season with the guests! The first half of the event took place in the woods at our outdoor boiling site. While we waited for everyone to arrive, we talked about the syrup business. We shared information about how our project differed from professional syrup companies (bucket tapping vs. tubes that flow directly from the trees) and how we all got involved in the project. Our guests seemed interested to learn that our team is comprised of students from many different majors within the college.
Once everyone arrived, Tyler gave a brief demonstration on tapping the tree and attaching the hooks and buckets. We gave them a tour of our tapping area and showed them the boiling set up. We were very excited to show off/share our outdoor boiling site. Rachel explained the double-pan system as well as the method of filtration. In addition, we explained the building of the fire pit and how we leveled out the ground to make the boiling as successful as possible.
The second half of the event took place back at Jason Hamilton's lab. Here, we showed the guests how we boil inside with the pots and hot plates. We concluded the open house by treating everyone to our very own syrup with french toast sticks! This was the first time any of us had tried the finish product and it tasted amazing. Over all, the team members and the guests had a great afternoon discussing our project, and I believe we successfully recruited some new members for next year :)

Open House

Come out this Saturday, April 17 and learn about the sweetest thing in the world: Maple Syrup! The South Hill Maple Syrup Company is hosting a free open house for anybody interested in the production and business side of maple syrup. We are a student-run business offered through the Environmental Studies & Sciences department, and will need people to help out next spring as well, so come out and get a sneak peek at some of the fun you will have producing maple syrup. We will be giving demonstrations on identifying maple trees and tapping them, and there will be a free tasting of our finished product. Kick off earth day and celebrate the end of winter in style. There will be a free shuttle running to take people to our on-campus sugaring site that will be stopping at the Textor flagpole at 2 pm this Saturday. If you have any additional questions, please send an e-mail to Victoria Kayden at vkayden1@ithaca.edu. Hope to see you there!

Up to our knees in sap

After a relaxing vacation week, we were quickly brought back to reality by seeing all of the sap that was boiled by loyal members that stayed in Ithaca over break! We boiled indoors for several hours on Sunday, Tuesday, and all day on Wednesday to finish boiling off 8 buckets of sap. SO, for the weeks before and during break, the final amount of finished syrup was 1.8 gallons! Since there were so many batches, we now have several grades of syrup available.

Outdoor boiling

As the outdoor pan from last year was worn down, we had a new boiling pan custom made for us this year by Accufab. There are many benefits that come with our new model boiling pan. The pan has a valve located on the bottom front edge that easily transports syrup from the pan into buckets. In this way, the transportation speed can be controlled for filtration purposes. Transferring sap to the buckets helps us to easily bring it over to our indoor boiling site. Also, the brand new pan helps to ensure our syrup comes out as clean and pure as possible.
In addition to the new boiling pan, we had a drip pan custom made for us as well. The drip pan has a couple of useful purposes. It is placed directly over the large boiling pan and held in place by two metal extensions. Since it takes a while for the large pan to reach boiling temperature, it slows down the boiling process to constantly add cold sap. By putting the cold sap into the drip pan BEFORE the large pan, the steam from the large pan preheats the cold sap so that when it drips into the large pan, it is at a warmer temperature that won't slow down the boil. Another benefit of the drip pan is that it provides a smaller and more workable destination for the sap to be filtered into.
We also improved outdoor boiling by remaking the fire pit. We realized that over the winter it had become uneven. Tyler dissembled the whole thing and then leveled it so now boiling will be more efficient.

Midterms and Spring Break... We're Halfway There!

These past couple of weeks have been a real challenge for our team as we have had to overcome some obstacles to be able to keep up with the unusually high early March temperatures. While we were thrilled to be collecting so much delicious sap, the timing was difficult to work around as nearly all of us were seniors trying to get through our last midterms. Also an issue was that our 10 day long spring break followed this crunch time, and most of us would not be in town to collect and boil the sap. Fortunately Tyler stayed behind and took charge, putting in massive overtime to make sure that we kept up with everything and did not let any sap spoil or harm any trees. With the help of Dylan, Taryn, and Brooks, Tyler spent 12 hours collecting and boiling on both Tuesday and Saturday, giving him quite the wilderness experience.

That Sunday and Monday (the 14th-15th) we got a ton of syrup because the days were so hot but freezing at night, and thankfully Tyler and Dylan were there to do some much needed boiling, as we reached the capacity on our 50 gallon storage bin and were down to our last bucket!

The Beginning of the Syrup Initiative

Two years ago, a few ambitious and creative students began searching for a way to combine their love of winter weather with the idea of creating a sustainable business. They connected with a local maple syrup producer. Tapping only a few trees this first year, and using the producers sugar shack for the boiling, the students successfully completed their goal, producing enough syrup for all of their families and friends to taste and enjoy. The following year with the help of Professor Jason Hamilton and a few more students, the group sought out ways to expand this side-project into an expansive study delving into the business-related and scientific nature of maple syrup production. Last winter 20 trees were tapped, and although a comprehensive marketing and advertising plan had been developed the lack of product could not meet the high demands.

With the original syrup pioneers having graduated, this year the two remaining veterans are taking charge in leading the biggest (and what will surely be the best) syrup season we have seen yet! Lead by General Manager Rachel Glassberg and Production Manager Tyler Glassman, ten students from diverse majors and backgrounds have come together to expand the project to new heights and bounds!

On February 13th, the crew spent three afternoons tapping sugar maples on IC property. This year, due to the size of our team and the knowledge of previous years, we were able to tap an astonishing 50 trees! This date had been determined to be the best possible day of the year to tap, as previous independent research had indicated.

For sap to flow, the weather conditions must include below freezing temperatures at night and above freezing during the day. Sending out teams of two or three each day to check on the taps, last week we had collected enough sap that by Friday afternoon we were ready to get the boiling going!

The sap boiling process begins outside. A few student's worked diligently on setting up this outdoor chimney and fire pit, so that the boiling pan could rest easily on top. After spending a jolly afternoon into evening bonding over our shared excitement and chill, we packed it in and decided to finish the rest in doors. On Sunday afternoon we proudly finished boiling our first batch of 64 ounces of syrup, marking this the most impressive start to any syrup season yet! Shocked and pleasantly surprised by the warm temperatures of this week, we have been collecting numerous gallons of sap and can look forward to much time spent over a fire this weekend!