By STEVEN JUPITER
PITTSFORD—There are scant few things as Vermont as maple syrup. Everyone here has a friend or relative who sugars, if they don’t do it themselves. And everyone here has happily gotten a jug of the stuff from a home sugar maker as a holiday gift. And we pour it on everything from pancakes to pork chops. Maple syrup practically flows in a Vermonter’s veins.
And Longhill Maple Equipment in Pittsford is now open to make the sugaring process accessible to everyone.
Owned and operated by Reg Charbonneau, a Pittsford native, Longhill has all the supplies you need to convert sap to syrup. Whether you’re a complete newbie or a commercial producer, Longhill has the equipment to get you started or keep you in business.
Charbonneau started making syrup with his friends while he was in high school, even fabricating some of his equipment in the metal shop at Otter Valley. What started out as a hobby eventually grew into a sizable supplement to his landscaping and masonry business. He turned his hobby into a viable commercial enterprise in 1999.
“It was something to do during the downtime for landscaping,” Charbonneau said surrounded by gleaming tanks and evaporators in the new store, which occupies the building at Route 7 that locals still refer to as “Tuffy Toys” and which Charbonneau bought 13 years ago as an “eyesore.” He now taps roughly 11,000 trees and produces 5,000-6,000 gallons of syrup per year. When you consider that the ratio of raw sap to finished syrup is about 50 to 1, you realize just how much goes into producing that quart of syrup sitting on your pantry shelf.
Josh Drake and Barbara Thornton of Richmond, Rhode Island are loyal customers of Charbonneau’s and drove up for Longhill’s open house last week. Like many other sugar makers with commercial aspirations, they got started as hobbyists. Now, 10 years in, they’ve got 2,000 taps and produce about 500 gallons of syrup. They graduated from an 18” x 48” evaporator to one that measures 2.5’ by 10’.
When asked for the smartest decision they’d made as budding sugar makers, they were quick to respond, “Building our own sugarhouse.” You often see these small shacks as you drive around Vermont, usually with a steady stream of vapor coming out of the stovepipe.
“Everything gets sticky if you try to boil syrup in the house,” laughed Thornton.
And the biggest challenge for newcomers to the process, they said, is getting the viscosity right. Too watery and the syrup will grow mold. Too thick and it will turn to crystals. Mr. Drake added that it’s also important to filter the syrup to remove impurities.
Jenna Baird of Baird Farm in Chittenden was at the open house to support Charbonneau’s new venture. A family-run operation in business since 1918, Baird Farms currently taps about 14,000 trees and produces approximately 7,000 gallons of syrup per year, often infused with artisanal flavors like sumac, spruce, and mint.
Baird Farm runs maple contests and Ms. Baird says she’s on the lookout for “off flavors” in a syrup that can result from using too much defoaming agent (used to keep the syrup from boiling over) or from scorching the sap in the evaporator. And maple syrup is generally graded in four categories:
Golden delicate: very subtle and sweet
Amber rich: “typical” breakfast syrup
Dark robust: a deeper maple flavor good for cooking (“nice oomph,” said Baird)
Very dark strong: similar to molasses
The specific species of maple can also affect the final taste of the syrup: the sap of a Norway maple apparently has a more vanilla-like quality than that of the sugar maples predominant in Vermont.
And the changes in Vermont’s climate are affecting maple production as well, with warmer winters spurring earlier sap production.
“The saying used to be that you start tapping at Town Meeting in March,” said Charbonneau, “but these days the season can start in December and go into May.”
Charbonneau hopes that Longhill Maple Equipment will reach a new generation of sugar makers and encourage younger folks to learn the ropes.
“It only costs a couple hundred bucks to get started in your backyard,” he said. Longhill sells kits for beginners alongside the imposing professional equipment. And the Vermont Sugar Makers Association is a great resource for anyone interested in learning more about sugaring, either as a hobby or a profession: vermontmaple.org.
“The Association offers classes,” said Baird. “It’s not geared just toward the big boys.”
Baird also noted the importance of equipment in modern sugaring. On a professional level, the days of buckets hanging from metal taps is pretty much over. Now, sap travels through plastic tubing from the trees to the collection vats, creating complex zigzag patterns of blue lines in heavily tapped woods.
“Get the tubing tight. No leaks,” advised Mark Stewart, who runs Stewart Maple in Cuttingsville. One of the larger producers at the Longhill open house, Stewart has been in business since 2010 and collects from 45,000 taps and buys from another 20,000 to produce roughly 34,000 gallons of syrup per year, which the company sells wholesale rather than bottling it itself.
But even a large producer like Stewart often starts small(ish).
“Our first year we had 2,000 taps,” said Stewart. What started as a family hobby is now a family-run business overseen by Stewart and his sons.
Charbonneau loves helping these local operations stay viable.
“Local people keep you afloat,” he said. And judging by the turnout at the open house, he’s going to get plenty of support from local sugar makers, many of whom seemed to come as much for the camaraderie among likeminded souls as for the equipment.
“My wife says the only reason I do this is because I like to talk sugar,” joked Charbonneau.
So, if you’ve ever just wondered whether you could coax a few gallons of homemade syrup out of your backyard maples, or have professional aspirations, come by Longhill Maple Equipment at 1867 Route 7 in Pittsford.
