Year: 2007

Showing 1 – 10 of 14 resources

Measuring and Adjusting Invert Sugar in Maple Sugar

The variability of invert sugars in syrup makes it necessary to test and adjust the invert sugar levels to match the specific characteristics desired for a given confection. Testing syrup and adjusting to a proper invert sugar level can eliminate batch mfailures and help the maple producer make confections of consistent quality. For many years the use of the Clinitest tablets was suggested as the way to measure invert sugars in syrup. Now, a simple test using the common glucose meter used to monitor blood sugar can be very helpful in selecting and blending syrups to make the most consistent products. Testing syrups before they are purchased for the purpose of making confections assures you are getting syrup that will make the confections you want.

Date:
February 26, 2022

Lecanium Scale: What A Sticky Mess!

If you have a sugarbush in the Northeast, you may have noticed brown scale insects, sticky dripping honeydew, and black sooty mold on your sugar maple leaves in 2005 and 2006. That most likely was European fruit lecanium scale, Parthenolecanium corni.

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
October 1, 2007

Vacuum Sap Collection: How High or Low Should You Go?

Questions of how vacuum affects maple sap, syrup and trees have existed for many years, and these issues are perhaps more important today than ever before due to the increasing use of collection systems that can achieve very high levels of vacuum. This article will describe recent research performed at the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center that was designed to answer questions about high vacuum.

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
October 1, 2007

Temperature Patterns with an Oil-Fired Evaporator

Knowing the temperature in the evaporator is an essential part to making quality pure maple syrup. This article will discuss observations of temperature in each partition and how the front and back pans temperatures are influenced by the draw off events.

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
October 1, 2007

Survey of Important Issues Facing the Maple Industry

In October, in Green Bay, an informal needs assessment survey was conducted by Sumner Dole, Henry Marckres and Kathy Hopkins to identify the most pressing issues facing the maple industry.

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
June 1, 2007

Comparison of the “Small” Spout with the Traditional 7/16″ Spout

The “small” spout, 19/64″ or 5/16″ in diameter, has been widely available to maple producers since the mid to late 1990’s as a “healthy” alternative to the traditional 7/16″ spout. While now in general use by producers in some regions, particularly those collecting sap by vacuum, the utility of these smaller spouts is still questioned by many sugarmakers, particularly those collecting sap by gravity. This article will review several studies conducted at the University of Vermont Proctor Maple Research Center comparing 7/16″ spouts with small spouts (for the purposes of this article, 5/16″, and 19/64″ will be considered equally as “small” spouts).

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
June 1, 2007

Results from the 2007 New England tapping survey

Results of an annual survey conducted of New England sugarmakers, capturing information on production practices and results, such as types of equipment used, sap sugar content, sanitation practices, and other data.

Date:
June 1, 2007

Comparison of Visual Grading Methods

There does not appear to have been a published comparison of the different grading kits subsequent to the research that introduced caramel standards followed by glass standards. Consequently, we undertook a comparison of most of the grading kits that are currently in use.

Publication:
Maple Syrup Digest
Date:
February 1, 2007

Maple sugaring budgeting worksheets

An Excel spreadsheet that can be used to determine profitability and project the impact of altering management practices.

Date:
February 1, 2007