The Official U.S. Maple Syrup Almanac 2015 | Page 9

HIGHLIGHTS SEASON
OF
THE

2015 maple industry at a glance. What people were talking about …

Birch goes mainstream

First time sugarmakers big and small
The maple industry continued to see a huge influx of
rookie sugarmakers tapping trees and boiling sap for the
first time in their lives. A new trend in the industry was
for first-timers to go big from the get go, investing huge
dollars in installs and equipment before boiling their
first drop of sap. David Riendeau of Irasburg, Vt. had
11,000 taps installed before his first boil. He had also
built a huge new sugarhouse and run miles of wet-dry
pipeline through the woods. But lots of other sugarmakers were getting into the industry in the traditional way,
starting small and growing over time. John Montefusco of Russia, N.Y. enjoyed every
second in the sugarhouse during his inaugural season, boiling on a Leader 2x6 off
of 200 taps. He and his wife Linda planned on marketing their modest crop at the
farmers at the farmers markets in their hometown area of Northern New Jersey.

With the advancement of R/O technology, tapping low-brix birch trees
has become more viable. Birch trees
have much lower sugar content but sap
runs are prolific, with birches running
far longer into the spring than maples.
Michael Farrell of Cornell University’s
Maple Program in Lake Placid, N.Y.
has established himself as a kind-of
birch guru, hosting the first ever birch
syrup conference in Lake Placid in the
spring with good turnout and even
more enthusiasm. Georgia Mountain Maples in Georgia, Vt. is leading
the Northeast with 2,300 birch taps
installed this season. In Palmer, Alaska,
the Kahiltna Birchworks is boiling off
of 12,000 birch taps.

3/16 revolution continues
More and more sugarmakers were switching woods over to
the natural vacuum through 3/16 pipeline on slopes. Nearly
all of the big equipment manufacturers were offering 3/16
rolls of tubing and all the fittings. Sugarmakers using the
technology claim they were getting 28 and 29hg inches of
vacuum without any mechanical help. Andy Hutchinson of
Mount Pleasant Sugarworks in Leicester, Vt. said he had tanks
overflowing on the new gravity system, off of woods that in
other years were sometimes dry as a bone.
U.S. Maple Syrup Almanac

2015

9