In The Sugar Shack

At a glance: in the Sugar Shack…

The Springboro Tree Farms Sugar Shack is designed with sugaring in mind. Inside storage tanks are located in a loft on the north end of the building and provide on-demand gravity fed transport to the evaporator. The evaporator is located at the south end of the Sugar Shack with a 20 ft. cupola engineered to help vent steam vapor off the evaporator.

Inside storage tanks are stainless and all transport lines for final sap (as it is fed into the evaporator) are food grade stainless. A lot of our storage and transport equipment is also found in the dairly industry.

Along with the evaporator other key components of the sugaring operation include an RO machine to help concentrate sugar levels (and hence lessen cooking time), a UV machine to help retard natural bacteria growth in the sap, a filter press to enhance the clarity of the final product and new in 2021, a water jacket canning tank used to achieve and sustain appropriate tempatures during the bottling process.

Purification filters are found in a variety of locations throughout the process and along with our filter press result in a crystal clear amber bit of goodness in our maple and walnut syrup products…including our bourbon barrel aged maple syrup.

Like most sugaring operations in the Midwest, straight from the tree our sap tends to be 1.5% (+/-) sugar. After processing, our maple syrup is 67% sugar…the industry standard for quality maple syrup.

The picture below is a pretty good look around the different pieces of equipment used in the production of maple syrup.