Making the most of Maple Open House Weekend

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. (WCAX) - “I haven’t seen a maple sugar house like this in a long time,” said Vermonter Ciria Moreno.

Moreno started off her maple weekend by visiting Morse Farm Maple Sugarworks to get a taste of what they had to offer as thousands of Vermonters and out of state visitors come to experience the season.

She says she’d never been to Morse Farm before. But wanted to show her son the craft at a place that was well known in Vermont.

“Well showing my son exactly what Vermont is known for. Not just only maple sugar, like what their products are. It’s really exciting especially for this little guy,” said Moreno

The sugaring season is one of the farm’s most profitable times of the year bringing hundreds of tourists to the sugarhouse.

Morse farm has been a part of vermonts history for two hundred years now.

They have four hundred trees tapped throughout their land.

The tree taps are all connected by a string of tubes that lead to their big evaporator that makes the syrup.

They cook the sap with a wood fire that sits underneath the evaporator and owners say it gets pretty steamy.

“Collecting sap from the trees, it’s got a two percent sugar content right in there. Looks just like water, it’s clear. What we are looking to do is bring that two percent up to sixty seven percent. That’s what the evaporation portion of this boiling part,” said Morse Farms Jake Shattuck

Bragg Farm Sugar House is also greeting visitors this weekend. As they are boiling away over two hundred and eighty gallons of sap every hour.

They make about seven hundred gallons of syrup in a good year. Instead of a tubing system they still tap their trees with buckets and fill everything manually.

Bragg farm says the process is different for everyone.

“Well it’s what we have always done, and it’s really nice for marketing. People want to see it the old fashioned way. However, tubing and all that is very good. it’s what fits your lifestyle,” said Bragg Farm Barbra Bragg.

Both farms say that they are expecting to see more people into the week and throughout next weekend. Bragg Farm is also looking into using solar panels to help them make maple syrup. But that’s something they are just looking into.

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