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!