My first experience with making maple syrup was from Bob Raker, a witty old man, who’s family had been making syrup on their homestead since the early 1800’s in Liberty, Pennsylvania. He would always have popcorn for us to dip into a dixie cup of hot fresh syrup. I will never forget his hospitality and willingness to teach the next generation about maple. That’s about all it took, I’ve been hooked ever since! We had a couple maple trees in our front yard we hung buckets on and processed in turkey cookers (talk about time consuming) on the weekends. We decided we needed a faster method, so we converted an old wood stove my dad had built years ago into an arch and welded a stainless pan with a few divisions to cook faster. The homemade evaporator was set up in an old shop my husbands grandfather used to work on his tractors in. We also started tapping about 50 maples in the sugar bush on the hill. Knowing how much potential there was to expand, I decided to take the plunge and started penciling out the design of my official shack. In 2017, with the help of my father, husband and other family we began construction on a 20’x30’ sugar shack. We were able to utilize the completed building in the 2019 season. We are now equipped with 3x8 evaporator, a 250 GPH Reverse Osmosis machine, and a filter press. We currently collect from over 2,500 taps. Sugar Mama's makes: Pure Maple Syrup Pure Maple Candy Pure Maple Cream Maple Sugared Walnuts & Pecans Maple Cotton Candy Maple SapSuckers Maple Fudge Maple Marshmallows Maple Hot Chocolate Every year on the third weekend in March, 10AM-4PM Saturday and Sunday, we have an Open House. Guest can tour our sugar shack and learn about our process to make make pure maple syrup. While you visit have Sugar Mama's Walking Breakfast Kebabs! We hope to see you there.
