In the winter of 2010, we wondered if we could make maple syrup on our steep Kentucky hillside property. We had the maple trees and a lot of freeze-thaw cycles during the winter months. We began with gallon water jugs and water pipe parts for taps to collect maple sap. It worked! After we tasted our first half-cup of maple syrup, we knew we had something very special. We were limited by how much sap we could carry down to the house each day. In 2017 we were introduced to an affordable tubing system which not only helped us to gather maple sap to evaporate the small 3/16” tubing produces natural vacuum when there is forty feet of fall in the lines...we have nearly four hundred feet of fall. The natural vacuum increases production. This tubing system was the tool we needed to collect maple sap and produce maple syrup to sell.
In 2019 we had 270 taps connected to tubing that brings sap down the steep mountain side - some of it traveling nearly three thousand feet to the “sugar shack,” where we boil the sap in our evaporator and produce Kentucky maple syrup each year.
When it is available you can get our syrup directly through our Farm Store!
Below is a great video from the University of Kentucky Extension Office about how we make maple syrup.
