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In 2005 testing was started at the Cornell Food Venture Center to see if common diabetic meters could be used to measure invert sugar levels in maple syrup for making a variety of maple value added products where crystalizing the syrup is critical.
No two sugarmakers follow the exact same path. For some, their business grows slowly, one weekend farmers market at a time, and they prefer to stay small. Others build their backyard operations into wholesale businesses that keep them busy year-round. Some enjoy selling directly to their customers. And others would rather focus on production, and let established retailers take care of the rest. These snapshots of four sugaring enterprises illustrate just a few of those successful models.
Planting for commercial forest production is the traditional mainstay of tree planting, but planting for wildlife food, watershed protection, urban environmental improvement, ornamental enhancement, wetland mitigation, and carbon sequestration are all on the increase. Ecosystem management, now commonly used in the management of many federal and other governmental forest lands, has decreased the use of planting to regenerate the forests and has increased the role of natural regeneration. Those who apply these practices will find this book useful also in the data on flowering and seed production.
Thinning is a specific woodlot management practice to concentrate growth on the most desirable trees. Peter Smallidge, Senior Extension Associate with Cornell University’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, reviews the benefits of thinning, how to know if you should thin your sugarbush, potential problems from thinning, and reviews research about how thinning in sugarbushes affects health, tapping options, and production.
When getting ready for maple weekend, or for any time that you’re welcoming customersto your sugarhouse, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Acquiring the ability to identify common off-flavours in maple syrup is important for producers. Detecting buddy off-flavour in fresh sap can be difficult, although much easier to taste in finished syrup. Buddy syrup can be described as an unpleasant chocolatey aroma and flavour having a lingering bad aftertaste. Buddy flavour in maple syrup is a food quality issue, not a food safety issue.
The level of invert sugar in maple syrup affects how well it crystalizes when making value added products such as maple candy and cream.
The U.S. grading laws.
Voluntary U.S. grade standards are issued under the authority of the Agricultural Marketing Act of 1946, which provides for the development of official U.S. grades to designate different levels of quality. These grade standards are available for use by producers, suppliers, buyers, and consumers. As in the case of other standards for grades of fresh and processed fruits, vegetables, and specialty crops these standards are designed to facilitate orderly marketing by providing a convenient basis for buying and selling, for establishing quality control programs, and for determining loan values.
This spreadsheet can be used to determine the price per gallon paid to the seller for sap or concentrate based upon a finished syrup density of either 66.0, 66.5, or 66.9¡ Brix and calculated using the “Revised Jones Rule” which can be found at: http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/jones.pdf