The process of getting the sweet stuff to you begins with the spile.  A small hole 2 1/2 inches in depth is drilled into the tree with a specialized bit.  Then the spile is tapped in with a hammer until you hear the sound deaden.  Next the one end of the tubing is placed on the spile and the other is inserted into a hole on the lid of the collection bucket. Now we wait.

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Sap is clear and mostly water.  It can be enjoyed right from the tree.  It has many beneficial nutrients and a slightly sweet taste.  The sap is collected and transported to the sap tote.  This is also the first stage of filtering.  When it is time to boil the sap into syrup the valves are opened and the sap flows from the tote into the warming pan.  The float box regulates the rate the sap enters the boiling pan from the warming pan. As the sap flows through the deep flue sections in the boiling pan and through the three channels in the finishing pan it slowly becomes syrup by evaporating the water out of the sap.  This takes several hours of feeding the fire to create enough heat to boil the water out of the sap until it reaches 66.9 Brix.  Brix is a measurement of sugar in a liquid.  Now that the sap is maple syrup and can be drawn off the pan for bottling.  While the syrup is between 180 and 190 it is strained through 7 layers of filters for clarity and smoothness before getting sealed into bottles.

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 At Pine View Lakes we tap a combination of hard and soft maple trees.  The 80-100 trees we collect sap from will produce anywhere from a trickle to a couple gallons of sap each day depending on the weather conditions. The ideal temperature to cause the sap to flow is near freezing at night and during the day.  This creates On average it takes 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of maple syrup.