The hilly forests around Morgantown are still covered in snow and ice. Trees are bare, and the weather is still too cold for even the earliest of green spring shoots.
But the first harvest of the year is underway.
Blue plastic bags hang on sugar, black and red maples dotting an eastern-facing hillside, slowly filling with sap. Lora Lewis-Rudd and her family walked from tree to tree, checking the bags. When they have enough sap, or sugar water, the process of turning it into syrup begins.
“It’s a good way to break up the stir-crazy of the winter,” Lewis-Rudd said. “It’s nice sitting out here on a nice day, when the water’s dripping and sun’s shining.”
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Vermont may be known as the country’s maple syrup spigot, but Hoosier producers have forged their own reputation. Small producers and hobbyists trudge out into the forest during the last gasps of winter, harvesting the sugary sap that runs out and processing it into the culinary exclamation point for pancakes, oatmeal and desserts.
The nation’s producers will gather today through Sunday in Nashville for the annual National Maple Syrup Festival. Local syrup makers are taking the opportunity to show off what Indiana can do.
“People are becoming to be aware that we do make maple syrup in Indiana. Everybody thought it was made out East, so educating the public has been one thing that’s contributed to the success,” said David Hamilton, president of the Indiana Maple Syrup Association.
Last year, Indiana maple farmers produced 12,990 gallons of syrup, according to the Indiana Maple Syrup Association. Compared to the 3.17 mil-lion gallons of maple syrup harvested across the country, Hoosier production is literally a drop in the bucket: 0.4 percent.
But that production still had an economic impact. Indiana producers sold more than $533,000 worth of product last year. During the record-breaking season of 2013, the state produced more than $1 million worth of syrup.
Part of that stems from the fact that large maple operations aren’t established here, Hamilton said. The Indiana Maple Syrup Association boasts just 112 members, and just 60 operations reported producing in 2014.
In Indiana, about 44,000 trees were tapped last year. By comparison, syrup behemoth Vermont tapped more than 4 million trees.
Many of the people taking part are hobbyists — collecting and cooking their syrup on the weekends.
That’s how Lewis-Rudd’s family has been doing it for the past 50 years. They started operating in 1966, three years after her mother, Dorothy Lewis, purchased a tract of land just south of Morgantown. The property came with a small wooden shed equipped with syrup-making stove and evaporator.
The Lewises tap 35 to 40 trees on a small portion of the property. They don’t necessarily tap the trees every year, depending on the weather and if they have time.
The taps are 2-inch-long metal that are pounded into a hole drilled in the maple trunk. The Lewises hang plastic bags off the taps, allowing the sugar water to drip down.
The bags are emptied into a specially crafted pan that fits directly on top of their wood-fired furnace. Constant heat is applied to the pan, boiling the sap as it changes in color from a watery tan to a deep, thick reddish-brown.
“The whole process is nothing more than evaporation. The sugar is in the water that’s in the tree, and you just have to get rid of the water until you get syrup,” Lora Lewis-Rudd said.
The work is labor intensive — drilling 5/16-inch holes in the trees, pounding in taps, hanging buckets or bags and collecting the sugar water. That’s before you even start boiling the sap and producing what will become syrup.
“We do it strictly for our own pleasure and for gifts,” Dorothy Lewis said. “If it wasn’t something you were doing just to get out of the house in the late winter, it’s not something you’d do for profit because I don’t see any operations that can make a lot of money from it.”
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Indiana Maple Syrup production
Gallons produced
2014: 12,990
2013: 22,405
2012: 13,161
2011: 17,088
2010: 11,317
Total taps
2014: 44,355
2013: 62,002
2012: 54,858
2011: 69,866
2010: 73,207
Economic impact
2014: $640,000
2013: $1,089,000
2012: $640,000
2011: $798,000
2010: $504,000
SOURCE: Indiana Maple Syrup Association
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National Maple Syrup Festival
When: Today through Sunday
Where: Brown County
Information: nationalmaplesyrupfestival.com
Schedule:
Dinner series
What: Maple-based dinner and drinks served during a special presentation
Where: Brown County History Center, 90 E. Gould St., Nashville
When: 6 p.m. today and Friday
Who:
- Today — Leslie Taylor, a former full-time trial lawyer who gave it all up to live “off the grid” in a solar-powered cabin in Brown County, Ohio.
- Friday — Mike Farrell, author and director of Cornell University’s Sugar Maple Research and Education Center
Cost: $35; beer pairings are an additional $7.50.
Tickets: nationalmaplesyrupfestival.com/dinner-series-speakers
Weekend activities
Where: Brown County State Park lower shelter house, 1810
When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday
What:
- Interpretive hikes with tapped trees along the way
- Native American and French colonial encampments
- Dutch oven diva cooking demonstrations
- 240 Sweets gourmet marshmallows
- Brooke’s Candies gourmet hot chocolate
Moonshine exhibit
When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Brown County History Center
Native American storytelling
When: 10 a.m. to noon, 1 to 2 p.m. and 3 to 5 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m. to noon and 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday
Where: Brown County History Center
Pioneer Village
Where: Downtown Nashville
When: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday
Activities
- Pioneer sugaring
- Spinning and weaving demonstrations
- Salt boiling
- Hide and fur preparation
- Bluegrass music
Brown County Music Celebration
What: A live concert with rare performances by local musicians including Max 5 Watt featuring Chuck Wills, Hamilton Creek Bluegrass Band, Amanda Webb and Dave Bartlett
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday
Where: Brown County Playhouse
Cost: $12 for adults, $11 for students, seniors and military
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