by David Flint
The first maple season at the new Hammersmith’s Sugar House was a short one. Billy and Lisa Hammersmith, with assistance from their son Tony, designed and built their new sugar house in recent months nearby their home on Watson Road in Cherry Plain. [private]
They installed brand new equipment that features a gleaming 2’ x 8’ Dominion & Grimm evaporator with hood and pre-heater, and a wood-fired forced air arch. Billy also rigged up an ingenious system that recycles steam from the evaporator to provide hot water in a utility sink for cleaning instruments and filters. The family has been tapping maple trees for many years, making maybe up to 20 gallons of syrup in a year, but they were preparing to go about it now in a more substantial way and earn a bit of income on the side.
They started collecting sap on February 18, a bit later than some other local producers.The only problem, Lisa said, “There was no winter!” Except for a brief extremely cold snap in mid-February, it’s been astonishingly mild. That cold snap, Lisa said, “was the saving grace. It was fortunate. I didn’t think we would get anything.” So on March 11, just about four weeks later, with the trees above the sugar house beginning to bud out, Lisa was in the process of completing her final batch of syrup.
It wasn’t a total loss by any means, Boiling 4,335 gallons of sap, they did produce 90 gallons of very clear, excellent quality maple syrup. It’s a bit darker this year, Lisa said, most of it being classified as “Rich Amber” and edging toward “Dark Robust” at the end. Color, of course, is no indicator of quality, and Lisa actually prefers the darker syrup.
The Hammersmiths collect the sap with an ATV from holding tanks fed by lines tapping about 400 trees and transfer it into two 330 gallon tanks at the sugar house. From these tanks it is gravity fed into the evaporator’s pre-heater. Next year they plan to simplify things and install a main line that will feed all the sap right into the tanks at the sugar house.
Sugaring depends on the weather and it will never pay all the bills but, in any case, “It’s a labor of love,” Lisa says. [/unprivate]