The Orebed Sugar Shack Maple Weekend Tour Demonstrates Vacuum System, Reverse Osmosis, and Modern Evaporator in New Sugarhouse

On Sunday, March 22, I went to the second sugarhouse on my self-directed tour - The Orebed Sugar Shack in De Kalb Junction.

Though it was a long, winding isolated road through leafless and brown countryside (the green of spring has not yet arrived), this sugarhouse was a modern-looking, cheery building full of activity and, to my novice mind, totally state-of-the-art equipment.

This is a family-owned operation that has been making maple syrup for three generations. Jeff and Lori Jenness head up the operation now.

The visitor enters this lovely, newly built, two-room sugarhouse, through the retail section, which is wood-paneled, bright, and filled with colorful displays of maple syrup, candy, and cream, plus maple soap, hand and body lotion, and lip balm!

Lots of helpers wearing dark green shirts with 'The Orebed Sugar Shack' and their names embroidered in gold were there to provide information and guide visitors around the facility.

In the second room, a very shiny and new-looking evaporator dominated the array of equipment, which included computers, panels of dials and thermometers, and the all-important Reverse Osmosis machine.

Jeff Jenness, sporting a shirt with "Sugar King" printed in huge letters on the back, was holding court at the evaporator for all of us eager visitors interested in the syrup-making process.

I learned that the 35-acre Orebed Sugar Shack sugar bush encompasses approximately 1,100 trees and they have about 1,400 taps in place.

The sugar bush is a mile-and-a-half from the sugarhouse, so they have installed 6,500 feet of plastic tubing and a vacuum system, which draws the sap to the sugarhouse.

It's a near 'round the clock operation, requiring Jeff to be in the sugarhouse 16 to 19 hours every day while the sap runs. He has this huge operation set up so that he is just a step away from any of the equipment he needs to touch. The only 'old-fashioned' element Jeff employs is a squirt bottle filled with canola oil, which he uses to spray on the sap if the boil gets going too high and fast.

Jeff shared some of the economics of his operation. He invested $33,000 in the plastic conductor system. His evaporator, which is 3' by 8' and oil-fired, sells for $22,000 new, but he bought it at a bargain price from a farmer whose son installed it in their barn, and then only used it for a few hours. The Reverse Osmosis machine cost $14,000.

Jeff explained the beauty of the Reverse Osmosis process. Before he started using it, he had to boil 43 gallons of sap to evaporate 42 gallons of water, resulting in just one gallon of syrup. But the 'RO', as producers call it, evaporates 75% of the water out of the sap before it goes to the evaporator. And perhaps most importantly, with the RO, Jeff can process 600 gallons of sap per hour!

RO not only saves time, but also saves fuel that would otherwise be burned by the evaporator. The RO saves Jeff 75% of his pre-RO fuel cost for the evaporator. He notes that because he burns oil, not wood, he is a 'green producer'.

Jeff also explained one of the other innovations he uses - the vacuum system. The centuries-old method of collecting sap through the 'drip' system - one tap dripping into a bucket - has been replaced by the vacuum system. With this system, a mainline is connected to drop lines that are attached to the taps in the trees. By using the vacuum system, Jeff collects sap three times faster and can triple his syrup production. The vacuum system also includes an Ultra Violet component for the collection tanks to kill bacteria.

I was amazed at all the buttons, dials, and complicated processing procedures that Jeff seemed to handle with such ease and explain so authoritatively. As it turns out, he is a former engineer, so figuring out this maze of mechanics was right up his alley!

After the indoor viewing, visitors were taken on a mini tour outdoors to see the actual tubing system and the 'vacuum house'. Kylea, a little girl about nine years old, led us. She first demonstrated with a hammer and a metal tap how they formerly pounded the tap into a tree, hung a metal bucket on it, and placed a tented metal cover over it to protect the collected sap from snow, rain, and debris. Then she took us to a nearby tree, unhooked the plastic tubing from the tap and let us put our finger on it to feel the vacuum's draw pressure. We then went into the vacuum house to see the huge vats of sap.

I wrapped up my visit with a look at the retail offerings. The generous folks at The Orebed Sugar Shack let me try a sample of all the edibles - a little paper cup of maple syrup to drink, a piece of the maple candy (which reminded me of the pralines I'd had in New Orleans), and a little wooden spoonful of maple cream - the first time I've ever tried this butter-like confection and it is out of this world!

They also had lots of take-away educational materials, including recipes for using maple syrup in baking, beverages, and to flavor foods like apples, grapefruit and ham.

The Orebed Sugar Shack is a very efficient producer with well-maintained, modern equipment. They expect to produce 700 to 800 gallons of syrup during the 2009 season.

At approximately $40 per gallon, the syrup earns its nickname of 'liquid gold'!