hello welcome to Kate's Ag today I'm here in Ontario Canada
at Windlee farms maple syrup with Peter Lorman that's awesome and we've done this for 30 years
this is very exciting because i'm going to get to see the full process of maple syrup harvest and
all the work that goes into it yeah and we will take you from the beginning of the sap
in the sugar shack to the to the final project that's incredible thank you so much no problem
so what would be the first step in the process well like most farms our bush is in the back
so we're all on tubes and vacuum so it all gets to one location and then we take this tank
and we'll haul up and then we'll pump into this tank and we have a reverse osmosis
and when sap comes up from the bush it's at two percent and when we'll put it through our ro our
reverse osmosis and it will take it up to eight percent sugar content and once it reaches eight
percent sugar content we'll take it over to our evaporating room that's very cool the sap comes in
in this large tank and how many gallons does this whole this tank is a 600 gallon wow so we have
two tanks the tank on the left is the concentrate at eight percent and it goes into our evaporator
on the other side is permeate which is pure water and we need to keep that to wash our ro
at the end of the day so when the concentrate goes into the back pan the back pan is called
the flue pan and the reason it's called the flue plan it goes up and down like this
and if you were to put this on stretch it out this would be six feet wide it just increases the
surface area of the boiling area just boiling the water off of the sap it's evaporation very cool
just by density it works its way forward into the finishing pan or the front pans and we draw off
at seven degrees above the boiling temperature of water and then this is the maple syrup yeah
almost ready to come off awesome
and we've never seen the boiling temperature of water at 212 here so we have to calibrate
this the start of every boil really so we calibrate it then we set the draw
seven degrees above that wow and so this is pretty much maple syrup the only process left is the
refining process that's right this comes off at 66 percent we'll take it up to 67 on a propane stove
and then we'll filter it very cool so we can go into our bottling room so we'll bring it
into this pan which is on propane so we can get the bricks right and we use a refractor
to test our bricks rather than temperature and then it goes through our filter press
and then into our bottler that's very cool the bottler keeps this syrup at 185 degrees
and that's what we need to bottle at and to seal the bottles show you what the filter press does
these are both same day same batch if you look at that you can see the settlement on the bottom
yes quite a bit and this is after the filter press perfectly clear yeah and it's a little lighter
yes so this is you tapping the tree yeah and we usually have only put one tap in for tree
because you have to be over about two and a half inches and about four inches up from the
last year's tap and you don't want so you don't want to tap in last year's top and you got to
make sure it's clean wood so we we keep going around the tree that's really interesting and
how long would one tree last you a friend of mine has a tree that's over 150 years old so they can
produce a very long time yeah yeah i like the younger trees like that tree is probably 80
to 100 years old and it's a fast growing tree so it will protect it or grow and cover up the tap
hole like some years you can't find it after a couple years you won't be able to find the tap
hole oh really because the tree is growing so much bigger trees don't grow that much anymore and how
much production would you expect out of each tree we try for at least two liters per tap and that's
two liters of finished maple syrup not sap yeah so you'd you'd be getting probably 80 liters of sap
oh wow out of a tree if it's 40 to 1. this tree is about 80 years old and you can see the different
top marks very interesting and then these are the different taps yeah i got some more to add
to this but you know these are from the probably the 1800s and these are the ones that we use now
and this would be what your line looks like yeah like the line would go on to this part
here and then how far does the line go well we probably got over five miles of line in our bush
really yeah from 5 /16 which this and then it goes into three quarters and we have some
lines that are an inch in diameter and then where do all the lines feed into
into a big tank at the bottom okay and that's where we go and pick up the sap kind of like that
tank yeah but just a lot bigger like these tanks here are 250 the one down the bush is 900 gallons
oh okay so much bigger yeah i've seen ones that are a couple thousand gallons they're like small
swimming pools yes and how many trees do you have in production we do about 600 taps so we're
not we're not a huge producer we're a nice craft size and you also won a really incredible award
recently could you tell me a little bit more about that 2019 we won at the Royal Winter Fair which
is a fair in Toronto every fall and we won first prize for amber maple syrup congratulations thanks
and could you talk a little bit more about the different types of maple syrup because i had no
idea you look here there's or four grades now this is golden amber dark and very dark we produced
more amber last boil that we took was golden okay and we'll get probably about three or four runs
of golden and then it will turn into amber and last year was the first time we produced dark
probably in about 10 years wow so people say what causes that well it's usually
at the first of the season the tree is just waking up and the metabolism of the tree hasn't woken up
and as the season gets older and the trees woken up and the metabolism and the bacteria that's when
you get the darker syrup and does it also have variables to do with the type of soil you have in
trees yes it's very much like that it's like the wine industry every vineyard's a different wine
every maple syrup producer has a probably a bit different taste of the syrup because if somebody's
like we have a friend over in Collingwood that's on top of the escarpment they produce dark and a
very different taste than what we produce we're in a sandy loam here okay fascinating how many
variables there are when you're farming yeah oh you probably know that with grain right yes i do
so very different things we're producing but we find similarities in the agriculture industry yeah
yeah and you know there's things that we have learned from other industries
for the maple syrup we're always looking at other industries to see how they do things
you know in marketing and in production for sure like our reverse osmosis machine was originally
created for kidney dialisis oh really yeah to purify blood and now you're using it for maple
syrup yeah and it's incredible the advancements in technology that you're implementing here to become
more efficient in your operation yeah you have to become more efficient like our automatic draw
we don't have to watch a thermometer anymore it will do it automatically that's great so
you know everybody's got to become more efficient doesn't mean that your product changes
but you just become more efficient the technology can help create a more consistent product
right the other things a lot of big producers are using is monitoring systems in their bush
so they can like i have a friend up in Sunridge that has 19 000 taps he can't walk his lines so
he's got monitors all through his a bush that will indicate leaks so he'll just look up on his tablet
and say oh there's a leak in this oh wow and how do you look for leaks we look for leaks
we've got a little thing we call the whisper and we just walk around and it will pick up
the sound you can't do it on a windy day you have to do it on a nice cam day and it will pick up
but we've also set up a lot of valves so we can close off certain systems in our bush
and if we see the vacuum go up and then we open it up and the vacuum goes down we know
it's in that part of the bush and do you leave the lines up all year or do you put them up each
year no we leave them up all year now after about three years we start replacing some
just to keep them updated and keep them clean and they start getting brittle because of the sun yes
the uv's the other thing that my friend does is he has five pumping stations in his bush it used
to take him about two hours to get them all opened start he's got them all automatic now that he can
start them from the sugar shack that's very nice then yeah it saves him about two or three hours
a day and what is your favorite part of being a maple syrup producer we just enjoy it and we
enjoy meeting the customers in the last two years we haven't been able to talk to our customers
and that's the part i miss why do you think Canada is known for its maple syrup because we're a sweet
nation oh that's fantastic so a lot of people don't understand when we say 40 to 1 so i made
this display so you need 40 buckets of sap to make one bucket of syrup i had no concept of that until
i saw this amazing visual yeah it's it's gives somebody something to look at so it's not as
as easy as you think it would be no and like the last two years people have done backyard
maple syrup and i think that's probably helped us because people realize how much work there is in
it and people said they've burnt like four propane tanks to produce one bottle of syrup so they said
it's cheaper to come down and buy it from us yes and support your favorite maple syrup farmers
right that's incredible and where would you say most of your product goes to well it goes to it's
mostly farm store we do have a few retailers okay do you often sell to restaurants we have a few
restaurants and we have just mostly retailers but a few bakers use our syrup and in their products
and you can also order online and then do you have a farm store yeah we have a farm store up in the
corner there oh very cool so we have visitors in the summer time from all over the world
and we they buy it and they'll take it back home with them like the last somebody came i think two
weeks ago and picked up some syrup and they're taking it to Kenya oh my goodness that's amazing
it's just that incredible yeah and people in Kenya have never tasted it before yes and maple syrup is
so i mean it's what Canada is really known for right and people even come just from Toronto to
come and buy your maple syrup yeah people have driven up from Mississauga especially if they
want a nice drive on a sunny day they'll come up buy some maple syrup from them that's really cool
we have two events the next uh April 2nd and 3rd we have an open house here where we'll take people
down to the bush and we'll have maple syrup on the snow and we'll have different events here i've had
maple syrup taffy on the snow that is delicious it's also a great way to pull teeth out too yeah
very true but then also we have an event in the fall which is the last weekend of September and
the first weekend of October where people can come and walk our bush and see the colors of the
maple leaves and just to show people that maple syrup is not just a six week window
we have to work all year round because we got to maintain our bush we got to take out trees
and the bush is the most important part if you don't have a good bush it doesn't matter how good
your equipment up is up in the sugar shack you got to have a healthy bush definitely and that's so
important for people to know about agriculture and what's similar along all the different sectors is
you spend all year preparing your equipment your soil your whatever kind of crops or trees you have
just for this one month harvest period to make sure everything runs smoothly and you have a
crop to then pay all your bills yeah as somebody said maple syrup producers plan for 11 months just
to work one month yes and that's very i think all farmers do that yes except for dairy farmers maybe
they got to work all the time oh yes good point we just maintain the bush by taking out dead branches
and trees that aren't healthy so good trees can grow and is Ontario one of the biggest maple
syrup producing provinces in Canada no Quebec is Quebec okay come back is i think it's about 85% oh
wow of the world's production where Ontario's like three or four percent and would Canada
export most of their maple syrup or keep it here Quebec would export most of it Ontario doesn't
export very much mostly local yeah that's amazing this has been awesome to learn about the whole
process it's fascinating and i had no idea about how labor-intensive maple syrup is because i just
love it i like it too but after maple syrup season it takes me about three or four months
before i'll eat it again i have to taste every batch we make just to make sure that it's good
well i think that sounds like a dream job well you can have my job
well i might just take you up on that no problem because that's our bush in the back
we've set up for our maple weekend so people can practice tapping oh really yeah that is very cool
and how do you tap just with we'll have a drill and then they'll have a we'll just use an old
metal tap that they can tap in and hang a bucket that is awesome you won't get any sap out of
those trees but well yes but it gets gives them something to do a good experience and i love that
you're doing that because it helps connect the consumer with the maple syrup and kind of where it
all comes from yeah to really show people it all starts on a farm and and all the people involved
in that process right so and people enjoy doing it yes very fun experience we tapped this year
on in the middle of February and hopefully we'll make it to the middle of April but when i first
started this back 30 years ago we used to tap on St Patrick's day oh okay so maybe this is a
regular season this year but who knows interesting what is very exciting is i am going to be taking
some of your spectacular maple syrup back to Montana with me so i get to put the first pin for
Montana in the map which is an honor so thank you oh very exciting okay you gotta find Montana yes
right about here north central Montana the first pin in the map all right congratulations
thank you and this is your beautiful packaging so we have two litres that
will i'll i will be taking one back to Montana so that's why i got to put the pin in the map
and you have your 30-year sticker but what would this be called this is a spill or a
spigot and this is what you they used to use and hang buckets from that is amazing
you have incredible logo thank you so much for watching make sure to like and subscribe and i
hope you learned a little bit more about how your maple syrup gets to your table and thank you for
the incredible tour of your awesome operation no problem and if people would like to find a
little bit more about your maple syrup where can they go our website is www.windleefarms.ca
that's awesome we'll all definitely be checking it out thank you so much for watching bye