A labor of love at the Maple Festival

PLYMOUTH, CT (WFSB) - You need that change in temperature to create a change of pressure inside the tree to force the sap up.

With the mild winter conditions this year, a maple sugar producer explained how the recent snowfall saved them.

On Saturday at 10am in Plymouth, there was a celebration of the northeast’s liquid gold.

The Plymouth Maple Festival featured syrup, food, and sap demonstrations after the supply was almost put in jeopardy by the weather.

Even though the supply was almost put in jeopardy the organizer of Plymouth Maple Fest, Jerry Milne, was prepared to collect the sap.

“We have all the supplies you need here,” Milne said. “You need the changing temperatures where it’s cold during the night and warm during the day.”

According to Milne, the changing of temperatures was needed to create a change of pressure inside the tree to force the sap up.

“We’ve had kind of an unusual winter; it was very warm and there wasn’t a lot of snow,” Milne said. “If you didn’t tap a tree early, you may have thought the opportunities for getting sap in 2023 were running dry.”

The concern for those at the Plymouth Maple Fest was if it stayed warm the trees will just start to bud out and there won’t be the change in temperature for the sap to run.

The lack of temperature change made it more difficult to collect a large quantity of sap as well as increased the possibility of the sap spoiling.

Milne explained how to differentiate between the syrups made throughout the season.

“We have a lighter colored syrup, and you see there’s a darker colored one next to it; this would have a very mild vanilla like flavor,” Milne said. “Later in the season You tend to make the darker stuff.”

Kelly Evans, a big fan of maple syrup, put it on everything including pancakes and waffles.

Evans said, “It would be terrible without maple syrup in the world, my goodness it’s a natural flavor.”

For most people, it’s a side business or a money losing proposition to produce maple syrup.

For everyone at the Plymouth Maple Festival, it was a labor of love.

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