You don’t have to be a professional maple syrup maker to enjoy sugar on snow. You don’t even have to be an amateur! Neither do you have to live in Vermont, New England or sugar country generally! All you need is a candy thermometer or maple syrup thermometer, some fresh snow or shaved ice, and some maple syrup. To make sugar on snow, first fill a baking pan or large bowl with clean, fresh snow or shaved ice and store in the freezer. (Either that or find a nice, fresh, clean snowbank nearby!) Then pour some maple syrup into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil the syrup until it reaches 235 deg ..read more

Here at Sugar House No. 2 in Montpelier, Vermont, it was our first season sugaring with lines. We mapped our sugar woods for the first time, ran lines for the first time, and didn’t have to collect sap from buckets for the first time! Oh, glory. On our new Mini-Sportman Evaporator, we made 20 gallons of 100% pure maple syrup from exactly 100 sugar maple trees over the course of about a 6 week season! Before we moved on to eating it and giving it all away, it was time for pulling taps and flushing lines. But how? Here’s what we discovered our first time around. (And by “we,” I mean Justin McCab ..read more

Making maple syrup was the hard part. Here’s how to turn your homemade maple syrup into maple cream!   Search the internet for how to make maple cream, candy and sugar and you will get plenty of hits. But many of these recipes call for starting with a light grade of syrup. If your hobby maple syrup operation is anything like ours, you mix the sap of your red or silver maples with your sugar maple sap. When doing this, you aren’t ever going to make a light syrup. That’s because the sap of these other maple trees doesn’t contain as much sugar as the sap of ..read more

Making maple syrup was the hard part. Here’s how to turn your homemade maple syrup into maple sugar!   Search the internet for how to make maple cream, candy and sugar and you will get plenty of hits. But many of these recipes call for starting with a light grade of syrup. If your hobby maple syrup operation is anything like ours, you mix the sap of your red or silver maples with your sugar maple sap. When doing this, you aren’t ever going to make a light syrup. That’s because the sap of these other maple trees doesn’t contain as much sugar as the sap of ..read more

Here at Vermont Evaporator Company, we pride ourselves on selling pans that are made to last, are good quality, and are reasonably priced for the backyard sugarmaker. Although buying evaporator pans from Amazon might seem like a cheaper and/or easier option, looking more closely at reviews reveals a plethora of complaints about the quality and functionality of the pans themselves and the experience of buying them. By buying one of these pans, you might actually be costing yourself extra time and money.  Here are 10 reasons why our sugaring pans are better than Amazon’s. 1) Our Pans are Ac ..read more

  Making maple syrup was the hard part. Here’s how to turn your homemade maple syrup into maple candy!   Search the internet for how to make maple cream, candy and sugar and you will get plenty of hits. But many of these recipes call for starting with a light grade of syrup. If your hobby maple syrup operation is anything like ours, you mix the sap of your red or silver maples with your sugar maple sap. When doing this, you aren’t ever going to make a light syrup. That’s because the sap of these other maple trees doesn’t contain as much sugar as the ..read more

You’ve tapped your trees, collected your sap, boiled it off, and now it’s time to finish your homemade maple syrup. Here’s how!   Making Maple Syrup is Simple   Making maple syrup is a simple process that involves removing most of the water from maple sap. This can happens in many different ways, but usually includes boiling your sap in a pan over a wood fire outside.   Finishing Your Maple Syrup Inside the House   When boiling your sap over a wood fire, temperature can be tricky to regulate. While we don’t recommend making your maple syrup entirely indoors, we do re ..read more

You’ve decided to make your own maple syrup this year. You’re either researching if you should filter your final product, or you are boiling as we speak! Either way, you’re figuring out if you should filter your finished syrup. Here is the lowdown on filtering your homemade maple syrup. Making Maple Syrup is Simple Making maple syrup is a simple process that involves removing most of the water from maple sap. First, you need to collect maple sap from any type of maple tree. Learn more about how to identify your maple trees and how to tap your maple trees here. The maple sap you’ll collect is ..read more

Hello everyone! It’s Elka McCabe, daughter of Kate McCabe, owner and operator of Vermont Evaporator Company! I have grown up sugaring, and the memories I have make the late winters in Vermont so much better. Sugaring provides an opportunity to get outside, socialize, and have fun. As a kid, all of those things are very important. Elka and her brother Seamus, and cousin Fergus getting ready to make maple syrup. Sugaring is a great activity for kids of all ages and provides them with an opportunity to learn and grow. I am extremely grateful for all of the time that I got to spend with friends ..read more

At Vermont Evaporator Company, all our DIY maple syrup equipment features “baffled” or “continuous flow” pans because it makes sugaring more efficient, even in the backyard. But why? The Seedling Evaporator Pan is a continuous-flow pan with three baffles / four chambers. The sap goes in bottom-left, and syrup will be poured off bottom-right. You know what a continuous-boil (or continuous-flow) pan is, but do you know why it’s better for sugaring than a flat pan? ​To address this question, I asked Expert-of-Sorts, Andy Boutin, General Manager of Pellergy, and, conveniently, co-lessor of 15 ..read more