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Southwell Sugar Shack is not your typical maple syrup operation. Although we are a commercial-level maple syrup producer, we are entirely family owned and operated. Family members spanning three generations pitch in when there is work to be done. Follow along below as we explain the process of making maple syrup,
from our trees to your table.
Spring is a very exciting time for our family.
Sugaring season requires much work, but the rewards cannot be beat.
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Tapping our trees
Late each winter as we anticipate the start of maple syrup season, the family straps on our toolbelts and snowshoes to head out into the sugar bush. Even the youngest members get involved in the fun as we change out last year's spiles for new, drill holes, and tap those spiles into our trees. Grandad's careful oversight and training ensure sustainable tapping as we endeavor to produce quality maple syrup while keeping a healthy forest.
Repairing our lines
After our forest is tapped, we carefully watch the upcoming weather for days that are ideal for sap flow. When those days arrive, we turn on our vacuum pump and head back into the forest to fix any leaks or trouble spots in our tubing system. Once we know our sap collection system is operating at its prime, we look forward to watching that sweet sap flow into our sugar shack!
Boiling maple sap
The process of making syrup at its simplest is just a matter of boiling sap in order to evaporate excess water, leaving us with pure maple syrup. In our family, we blend timeless traditions with modern technologies to increase the efficiency of our process and the sustainability of our products. We start our syrup-making process with reverse osmosis to remove a good portion of the excess water. Then, just like our great-grandfather, we boil our sap in a wood-fired evaporator. When our syrup reaches the perfect concentration of sugar, we draw it from our evaporator and move to the next step of grading and bottling.
All About Maple
Grading and bottling
Here at Southwell Sugar Shack, producing the highest quality maple syrup and maple products is a top priority. As a result, we choose to be organically certified in order to ensure our customers that all our products are produced using approved organic methods and materials. Additionally, five of our family members are Certified Maple Graders through University of Maine Maple Grading School. We carefully follow international maple grading standards and monitor the density, clarity, flavor, and color grading of our syrup.
All our products are made and bottled on our farm by our family members. We pay careful attention to every detail of our operation from our trees to your table as we endeavor to produce only the best maple products for our family...and yours!
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