Hi everyone, it’s a beautiful Sunday here in Vermont. Well today I want to write a bit about how most sugar makers collect that maple sap the modern way. Now most people have the image of maple sap buckets made out of tin, hanging from tree to tree with a tin lid over it.

Now a lot of places still do that, even big operations in areas where that is the only way it can work. But today most places that make a lot of that pure Vt. maple syrup just tap too many trees to make that feasible. Heck some places tap over 20,000 maple trees! You would have to hire a crew of 20 to work non stop collecting in buckets.

So the maple sugar industry came up with a practical and environmentally safe way to make collecting all that maple sap a whole lot easier. Now as I’ve said before, Vermont is a very hilly state. You almost can’t find any flat ground around here. So, sugar makers take advantage of the fact that most maple trees are up in the hills above the sugar house. (more…)