Bigleaf Maple Syrup: Oregon’s Next World Class Culinary Delight
Video by Good News Tree Service, Inc. Watch on YouTube
Twenty-four minutes in our woods and our sugar house, from tap to bottle.
An arborist and video journalist from Good News Tree Service spent a winter day with us in Sheridan and filmed the whole process. Elliot Croker, our production manager (and Dan’s son-in-law), walks the lines through the maples, opens up the pump station, and runs the sugar house while the sap is flowing.
If you have ever wondered what actually happens between a tree and a bottle, this is the one to watch.
What you’ll see
- How the drop lines and main lines run through the woods on a 2% slope back to the pump station, and why the vacuum system matters.
- The freeze-thaw cycle that makes bigleaf sap run, why our season starts around the turn of the year, and what “bud break” does to the flavor.
- Reverse osmosis pulling about 95% of the water out before the boil, then the evaporator taking it to syrup at 66 to 68% sugar.
- Why bigleaf takes roughly 125 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup, against about 60 to 1 for East Coast sugar maple.
- Our research partnership with Oregon State University, and what the OSU maple project is doing across western Oregon.
- Farm tours: winter is the best time to come, while the sap is running.
Good News Tree Service is an Oregon arborist company whose YouTube channel covers trees, gardens and the outdoors. Their channel has the full video.
