Visiting Sugarhouses
An annual Spring even is visiting Sugar Houses when they are boiling sap. The smell of wood smoke and maple syrup is delightful.
New Hampshire has five seasons, the fifth being Mud Season. Mud Season arrives with Frost Heave signs and weight limits on the roads. Travel on dirt roads can be an adventure but Mud Season also corresponds with the flow of Maple Sap.
The bucolic scene of farmers gathering map sap in metal buckets is a thing of the past. Blue plastic tubing carries sap to large collection drums and pumped into the Sugar House.
Reverse Osmosis
It takes a lot of wood energy to boil off the water from the sap. Most operations force the filtered sap through a reverse osmosis membrane before finishing in the evaporator.
https://flic.kr/p/2oposN2 Reverse Osmosis Unit at Somero Maple Farm - Mar 28, 2015
The 2019 sap season will be short. Sap only runs with nighttime temperatures are below freezing with warmer days. I took the opportunity to visit three Sugar Houses while they were boiling sap, Somero Maple Farm in New Ipswich NH, Sawyers Sugar House in Jaffrey, NH and Ben's Sugar Shack in Temple, NH. I visit for the aroma of boiling sap and the opportunity to taste the syrup directly from the evaporator.
The sap is boiled until the sugar level reaches the range of 66% to 68%.
