maple syrup – Jay's Real Estate Blog

The Sap Says It's Spring!

The Steyer Brothers maple syrup company is abuzz with activity this week, as the sap is running in the maples, and that can only mean that winter is truly on its way out. Jessica Steyer, daughter of company owners Randall and Kay Steyer, knows exactly what she’s doing in the photo above, as her family has operated the farm for many years, and she grew up witnessing the process – and helping with it – every spring. She is on the staff now, along with her sister, Andrea Uphold. The family also operates Ryan’s Glade Dairy Farm. Staff from Maryland Public Television were on the property this week, Kay said, filming the sap-to-syrup process and interviewing the family. The TV station is doing a story about the Steyers for its Maryland Farm & Harvest program, which is to air sometime between November of this year and February 2015. The farm is located along Rt. 560. Photo courtesy of Kay Steyer.

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>Naturalists at Oregon Ridge demonstrate how maple syrup is made

>Joe Warfield, 77, a long time volunteer from Reisterstown, watches over the evaporator and checks the sap/syrup’s point in the evaporation process making sure not to over boil the sap. (Brendan Cavanaugh/P3 Imaging, BALTIMORE SUN / February 26, 2011)

By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun

8:31 p.m. EST, February 26, 2011
E-mail Print Share Text Size bs-md-co-maple-sugar-20110226
At first, the clear liquid doesn’t quite resemble the thick, gooey brown substance dribbled across pancakes and French toast, but naturalists assured the crowds gathered Saturday at Oregon Ridge Park that the sap tapped from maple trees, with a little elbow grease, would make maple syrup.

Several hundred came for tours led by the Baltimore County park employees over the weekend for the annual Maple Sugar Weekend held each February, when weather conditions help the flow of sap with cold nights and warmer days.

“It was really informational,” said Lawrence Almengor of Harford County, who came with his wife, three young children and his parents. He said he and his wife, Briana Almengor, home-school their 6-year-old twin sons Tucker and Judah and daughter Bella, 4.

“Anything they can experience hands-on like that is great,” said Briana Almengor.

Lawrence Almengor said his kids weren’t the only ones learning. “I didn’t know you could make sap using different trees,” he said.

“I didn’t realize it wasn’t sticky, I learned a lot,” his wife said, adding that she didn’t realize that Maryland had its own maple syrup producers.

The state is not among the top 10 maple producers, but several farms continue to tap sap, mostly in Western Maryland, where Garrett County was the maple capital of the U.S. in 1928, according to a 2009 Frederick News-Post article.

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

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>U.S. maple sugaring season gets running early

>msnbc.com news services

updated 2/18/2011 10:22:37 PM ET 2011-02-19T03:22:37

ASHFIELD, Mass. — The sugar maple trees are tapped and their rich sap is starting to drain into buckets across New England and elsewhere, as a midwinter thaw heralds the start of the fleeting syrup production season.

But challenges loom for harvesters, racing against time and the elements to gather enough sap to boil into the sweet delicacy, first cultivated centuries ago by Native American communities.

Despite the thaw, snow piles of three feet in the northern woods and high snowbanks along back roads after the stormy January have complicated the start of sugaring season…

Maryland: About 30 syrup makers are clustered around the mountains and valleys of Deep Creek lake in the western part of the state, The Washington Post reported. Steyer Brothers Farm, the oldest and largest producer in western Maryland, makes about 1,000 gallons of syrup in a good year. The farm has 8,500 taps for maple sap on 100 acres and uses 35 miles of tubing in the process of making maple syrup, the Cumberland Times-News says.

Read the full article here.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Maple Syrup & buckwheat cakes at Herrington Manor

We just finished up an all you can eat buckwheat (and pancake) breakfast at Herrington Manor State Park. We got to see exactly how to harvest fresh Garrett County maple syrup from start to finish. There were maple trees, sap buckets, a boiling vat on a wood stove and then the finished product – warm, sticky and sweet (amazingly sweet) Garrett County maple syrup. I didn’t realize this until reading the article in the Washington Post about our maple syrup, but the everyday table syrup we use is about 2% maple syrup and then watered down. What we had today was 100% maple syrup – and you could tell the difference. Local Boy Scout Troop 1 was there volunteering, cooking the food and serving It was surprisingly crowded, too, so I am sure they were pleased with the turnout. I have a photo gallery below of some of the photos.

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Maryland maple farms offer syrup, pure and simple – Washington Post – Deep Creek Lake & Garrett County

Garrett County’s & Deep Creek Lake getting some love from the Washington Post today.
An excerpt from the story:
_____________________

In a few days to weeks, the trees in Western Maryland will start blooming . . . buckets.

As maple syrup season nears, producers in Garrett County are readying their tapping equipment for harvesting time, which runs from the end of this month through April. The sap starts to flow during the spring thaw, when the combination of mineral-rich soil and temperate weather yields exceptionally rich and sweet syrup. (Quick dendrology lesson: Sap is the sugary water that circulates in a tree after it wakes up from a cold winter.)

Roughly 30 syrup makers cluster in the mountains and valley around Deep Creek Lake, which is thick with indigenous groves of sugar and red maples. They farm the sap the old-fashioned way, by tapping holes into the sides of trees and arranging a system of rubber tubes or steel buckets to move and amass the sap. Many of them collect the liquid gold by hand, hauling heavy buckets to the evaporation room. To produce a gallon of syrup, they must boil down 40 gallons of sap. Consider that the next time you smother your pancakes in syrup.

Steyer Brothers Farm is the largest producer in Western Maryland as well as the oldest: Last year, it celebrated its 100th anniversary. In a good year, the family-run operation (Grandma still lends a hand) squeezes out about 1,000 gallons of syrup. They sell the sticky amber substance for $7 a pint or $30 a gallon. The price tag is higher than such mass-produced syrups as Aunt Jemima, but compare labels before you go cheap: Major brands may contain less than 2 percent maple syrup; the local liquid is 100 percent pure.

“The syrup here is special because of the soil and the weather,” said Randall Steyer, who runs the 100-acre farm with his wife, teenage daughters and other relatives. “You’d be surprised at how much of this stuff we sell to Vermont.”

— Ben Chapman

If you are thinking of buying or selling real estate in Garrett County or Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, call Jay Ferguson of Railey Realty for all of your real estate needs! 877-563-5350

Category: maple syrup

The Sap Says It's Spring!

>Naturalists at Oregon Ridge demonstrate how maple syrup is made

>U.S. maple sugaring season gets running early

Maple Syrup & buckwheat cakes at Herrington Manor

Maryland maple farms offer syrup, pure and simple – Washington Post – Deep Creek Lake & Garrett County

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