Maple Syrup Wood-Fired Evaporator Test Boil
At the start of the maple sugaring season, we do a test boil to clean and flush the system. This ensures that everything is ready for when we boil the sap into maple syrup.
The wood-fired evaporator is fed by logs harvested sustainably from the property. Students spend time chopping and stacking the dense hardwoods for use in the evaporator. They also help tap hundreds of sugar maple trees, collect the sap, and boil it into maple syrup.
Thanks to Adam Wild, who is a specialist with the Cornell Maple Program, Director of Cornell University's Uihlein Maple Research Forest in Lake Placid, NY, and overall maple enthusiast. -https://cals.cornell.edu/adam-wild
Tapping has begun but weather is still too cold for the sap to flow as of 3/4/23. We’re at over 2000’ elevation in the high peaks of the Adirondacks so we’re a little later than most others in New York. We had a period of warm weather a few weeks ago where the sap was flowing but it was a short window. As far as I know only the larger operations were collecting during that window earlier in February. This is a pretty small scale operation using buckets instead of lines, so it wouldn’t have been worth it to collect then. We anticipated a return to cold weather, which did happen and we’re currently still too cold for the sap to flow, through the 10 day forecast as well. So we’re not even going to be really collecting and boiling until mid March at the earliest.
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The purpose of this work is to establish a low-maintenance food production system that engages the community in sustainable & ethical land management. It is intended to provide food / medicine / materials as well as provide interdisciplinary educational opportunities for people of all ages & backgrounds.
This work demonstrates more sustainable agricultural practices such as agroecology (agriculture that mimics natural ecological systems), permaculture (sustainable & self-sufficient design), regenerative agriculture (conservation approach that focuses on topsoil regeneration, biodiversity, improving water cycle, biosequestration, & mitigating climate change), agroforestry & silvopasture (integration of trees & shrubs with animals), organic agriculture (growing & processing food without the use of synthetic fertilizers & pesticides), and food sovereignty (the right to healthy & culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound & sustainable methods), among others.
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