The Woodstock KOA just opened last weekend and I can see why because today the temperature was a high of 43 degrees . . . burr!!! We are definitely in the north, but Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont are sooooo beautiful. My type of country . . . rolling mountains, beautiful colored trees, rivers & streams everywhere, adorable covered bridges and yummy maple syrup.
We left this morning to go to our fun family run farm called Sugarbush Farm, which is the name given to and area of a large group of maple trees used for the production of maple syrup. Obviously, due to the name, they specialize in making maple sugar as well as many varieties of cheese. On this farm they have about 6,000 maple trees to tap into As we drove to the farm, there were creeks everywhere with trees of amazing colors. If the trees are colorful now, I can imagine what they look like in the fall. . . . can’t wait to come back someday and see them!! We drove on the hilly, back country dirt road to come to our little Ma and Pa Farm, rugged as can be and not commercialized at all. We drove in the driveway and was greeted by their sweet new baby calf, and their 2 big sleigh horses.
We walked into the tasting building and one of the ladies was right there ready to show us how to taste cheese. They were all numbered and she had oyster crackers to clean our palate in between each one. She started with the mellow jack cheese . . .yummy! Down the list of tasting was:
· Vermont Lite · Mountain Jack (yummy) · Mellow Cheddar · Sharp cheddar - 18 months aged · Extra sharp cheddar –aged 3 year · Extra extra sharp cheddar – aged 4 years (this was our favorite sharp cheese) · Super extra sharp cheddar – aged 6 years (this was way too sharp for our family) · Sage cheddar (yummy) · Hickory & maple Smoked with Salami · Hickory & Maple Smoked with onion · Blue Cheese · Horseradish Sharp Cheddar · Jalapeño & Cayenne Pepper - too spicy.for me but Dave loved it)
Then we moved on to the syrups . . . Their syrup is pure maple syrup right from the sap of the tree without any additives . . . . yummy!!!!
When they collect the sap out of the tree the temperature makes a big difference in the flavor. The temperature has to be freezing at night (under 32 degrees) and warmer during the day (at least 45-50) so the end of February and beginning of March is the best time. The warmer it is during the day, the darker and syrup and more robust flavor. The Fancy is the lightest in color and flavor, Grade A medium amber and Grade A dark amber, and extra dark amber is the most Robust in flavor and the yummiest!! J Let’s just say that we bought a lot of syrup and cheese!!! Not to mention the yummy preserves that they sell too . . . blueberry, strawberry – rhubarb, pumpkin maple, maple mustard . . . . yum, yum!! Brandon even spent $20 of his own money to buy his own jam and his own syrup. That should tell you how wonderfully delicious they are!!
The tasting and wrapping room, the office, and the gift shop was the owners original house that she grew up in. The barns were full of aging cheese and animals, and one of the old barns had a video about the syrup making process, and some of the equipment with information attached. Then they had a walking path all set up to view the actual equipment used to gather the sap from the trees. Here is the details of the maple syrup process:
A tree must be 40 years old in order to be tapped. Wood roads are made in the forest to the areas where there is the heaviest concentration of sugar maple. The maple sugar season is about 6 weeks long and usually starts in late February of early March. When the days begin to get warmer the trees are drilled with tap holes. A hole is about 2 inches deep and a quarter inch in diameter. The snow can be several feet deep at this time and snow shoes are used to get around the woods. Once the hole is drilled, and the shavings brushed out, a metal spout is hammered in. Next, a 16-quart sap bucket is hung and a cover attached to keep out the rain & snow. Plastic tubing is connected together to collect the sap to run down the hill and collected in a large tub at the bottom. Maple say is the combination of water that is stored in the tree’s roots and natural maple sugar which was produced during the previous summer in the tree. On a warm day the water flow up from the roots, mixes with the natural sugar and produces say. Sap is between 2 and 5 percent natural sugar . . . and is thin and clear. The weather needs to freeze at night and warm the next day to get a good rush of sapp through the spout hole. The amount of sap that drips out into one bucket on any given day can vary from non to over 16 quarts, depending on the temperature during the day, the wind, and the barometric pressure. A tree can be tapped each year without harm, but a new hole must be drilled 6 inches from the previous year’s hole. The sugaring process only takes 7% of the sap so it’s not harmful to the tree. Each day the sap drips, it must be collected because it is perishable until it is boiled. The sugar maker will use a sled or wagon pulled by a team of horses or tractor and goes to each bucket, dumps the sap into a collection pail and carries it back to the sled where it is dumped into a gathering tank. A typical sap collection day is a crew of 4 people taking 8 hours to collect about 1200 buckets, sometimes trudging through the snow 2 or 3 feet deep. On the maple trail walk they had an activity where the kids got to try their hand at carrying the buckets full of sap through the snow – they had rocks in 2 buckets to equal about 20 pounds each and they had to walk through the tires which represented the snow. It was challenging.
The next step is the sugarhouse where the evaporator with a large pan and a fire box is used to boil the sap down into syrup. Sap is brought from the woods and dumped into a storage tank until there is 1500 gallons of sap. Wood is used to start the fire for boiling the sap and once the fire is started the sugarhouse becomes the gathering place because the boiler can’t leave his job. The process boils away the water so it is reduced to liquid that is 7% sugar. Then it flows through sections of the front pan where it gets thicker and thicker with the sugarmaker testing it constantly knowing the correct thickness set for the state of Vermont standard. He uses a thermometer where the syrup is 219 degrees F, and a hydrometer to measure the exact density. When the batch is right he draws out 1-3 gallons of syrup while more sap continues to flow into the pans and the process is repeated. At no time during the boiling process may the sugarmaker leave his job or allow the syrup to get too low causing it to burn. The syrup to poured hot into plastic jugs for sale or 30 gallons jugs for future canning. The syrup will keep unopened in the jugs for 2 years. What an amazing process and to think that all of this takes place in less than a month!
The cheese making process is obviously very different. The dairy cow starts producing milk at about 2 years old after she has her first calf and is carefully fad and nursed to train the cow to produce large amounts of milk. They are milked 2 times a day, 12 hours apart for about 10 months a year. It is necessary for the cow to have a new baby calf every 12 months, and she will rest for the last 2 months before the baby is born, allowing her to “dry off” so that her mild producing system will again produce large amounts of milk. All of the milking is done by machines which carry the milk straight into a refrigerated storage system. A refrigerated truck comes every 2 days to take the milk to a cheese plant. Most Vermont farmers belong to a co-op cheese plant where the milk is put into a stainless steel vat for pasteurization. A starter and microrganizisms are added to firm up the curds and develop different characteristics for each type of cheese. Eventually a milk clotting enzyme is added the separate the curds and whey. The curds and whey are cooked until they reach a certain temperature and the curds are firm enough to cut into slabs. They are then piled in a cheese vat and stacked to be turned constantly, which is called “cheddaring”. The curd is cut into small blocks, salted, and pressed & wrapped into blocks. The aging process allows the different enzymes in the cheese to give it the specific flavor. A mild cheese is aged only a few months and the sharper cheese is aged for more than 2 years. The longer the aging process the sharper the cheese – one is aged for 7 years. The blocks are then packaged by hand dipping them into a wax sealing, each color representing the type of cheese. What a process and incredible diligence from all the dairy farmers.
It was so exciting to learn about each process and to shop in their store with many other yummy items, like jams, mustards, and candies. Since it was 43 degrees today and we were freezing, we found some amazing wool knit mittens that I just had to have. What a great place!!
Next we drove down road along the river to the small town of Woodstock to see a famous Vermont covered bridge. I have always wanted to see a covered bridge and my dream just came true. And it was better then I imagined. So incredibly beautiful!!
We had a blast playing on the bridge - I didn't want to leave!! Our next stop is Corning New York, about 5 hours away
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