pending on weather

pending on weather. As long as it’s above freezing at night and not too hot during the day, maple sap starts running and so do the ones who make it.

“The weather’s totally different than what it used to be,” said Wyatt. “Once it gets too warm, the sap’s actually starting to shut down. I think a lot of it has to do with the air pressures, too, during the days and nights.”

This year, Wyatt has about 1,200 taps, using plastic lines, strung through the woods. The family used to hang buckets, then bags, but had a problem with squirrels getting into the sap, so they went with the lines, despite reservations about the cost to do so.

“But, I knew right away, that it doubled the production of sap on it,” said Wyatt.

Once the lines are up, a generator supplies power to the pump, which creates a high-vacuum, essentially sucking the sap out of the tree into the lines. Wyatt is OK with using bags and buckets, you just have to wait longer, for the sap to really start running.

It takes about 30 gallons of sap, to make 1 gallon of the amber-colored liquid goodness, otherwise known as maple syrup. Once there’s enough sap to begin cooking, Wyatt, or his dad or grandpa, takes the sap from a tank and load it on a trailer, hauling it to their cook shack west of Boyd, owned by Wyatt’s grandma, Carolyn Wanish. The sap is then pumped out of the tanks into the reverse osmosis tank, where it goes to a third bulk tank and is pumped into the cooker.

The reverse osmosis cuts cooking time down significantly and by using a wood evaporator, as opposed to a gas one, it lends a smoky flavor to the syrup. After the sap cooks down, leaving syrup, all that’s left to do is bottle the amber liquid, with a label designed by Wyatt’s mom, Amy Wellner. However, Wyatt has to reheat the syrup when bottling, so it seals itself.

He also makes maple sugar candy, just not in as great a quantity as the 500 gallons or so of syrup each year.

“Candy’s kind of hard to make, it’s kind of tedious,” said Wyatt.

When it comes to marketing, people reach out to Wyatt, as word spreads, to sell the product in a few local stores, but he also ships some to Montana. He’d like to expand the business more, with more taps, but for now, is just enjoying the work.

“Maple syrup is one of my favorite ingredients, it’s on pretty much everything,” said Wyatt.