Maple syrup magic at Hayes Haven Farms

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Mild spring-like daytime temperatures combined with overnight freezing means it’s maple syrup season.

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But the 2022 season has been hit and miss this year, say maple syrup producers in the Tillsonburg area.

“It all depends on Mother Nature,” said Dave Hayes, who produces Hayes Maple Syrup with his wife Joanne at Hayes Haven Farms, north of Tillsonburg on Airport Road in South-West Oxford Township.

“Sunshine helps. When it’s 1C, it’s substantially less,” said Dave. “When it’s 13-15C it will essentially be flooding in here. When it freezes at night, it resets. When you get days, like the last weekend (freezing daytime temperatures), the sap didn’t run at all.

“In February I made a bit of syrup, but it just wasn’t favourable temperatures.”

They start the process in late winter, but it’s not as simple as running colour-coded rubber hoses from the trees directly to their state-of-the-art boiling tank (evaporator).

“There’s a whole process before you get to that point,” said Dave.

It starts with a spile tapped into a tree, connected to a thin hose. The line, under vacuum pressure, flows to a larger lateral line (collecting sap from 5-7 trees), then to main lines.

“The main lines are each about 100 feet apart. The goal is to make everything run on gravity, but we also have a vacuum pump.”

The main lines flow into a small tank, which is then pumped into a large 2,000 gallon tank.

“We didn’t start like that,” Dave noted. “In 2013 we boiled over a fire pit in the backyard with a friend of my dad’s.”

In 2015 they turned it into a business, building a ‘sugar shack’ with a modern boiling tank. He visited with John Danbrook and others in the area to learn the art of making maple syrup.

“We started with about 200 trees and thought that was big. Then as we sold more syrup, we added another main line. When we sold that syrup, it just kept going.”

The Hayes family owns a 12-acre sugar maple bush and they currently tap about 1,000 trees. They bought more equipment over the years as they expanded including a reverse osmosis machine that takes out up to 75-80% of the water, significantly reducing time needed to boil down the sap and saving fuel.

“This morning I pulled out probably 700 gallons of water out of the (1,000 gallons) sap, so that’s 700 gallons I don’t have to boil off. Without that, you’d be literally boiling 20 hours a day. The 300 gallons I have left to boil will take about five hours.

“There’s temperatures, a lot of science that goes into it. We enjoy it.”

The syrup is stored in containers until the final filtering process. They have bottling and labelling machines that pass all regulations, adding bar codes, nutrition facts and traceability.

“We don’t like our product sitting in bottles for a year,” said Joanne, noting the only filter the finished product when there is demand. “And we don’t know what people are going to order.

This summer/fall they plan to consolidate their equipment into one building.

“We’ve kind of outgrown our facilities,” said Dave. “We want everything under one roof.”

The final maple syrup product is sold wholesale to stores, including Sobeys, Poultry Specialties and Bre’s Fresh Market in the Tillsonburg area. The maple syrup is available for fundraisers, and they supply corporate functions.

It also retails through their Hayes Haven Farms website (hayeshavenfarms.com).

Going forward, Joanne said they plan to expand on tourism opportunities.

“In 2023 we’re going to start hosting some pancake breakfasts and some maple syrup experiences – learning about maple syrup, having a meal in the sugar shack with your friends, a social experience.”

Shorter term, they are looking forward to another week or two making maple syrup. It’s been mild this week without the freezing, but that changes this weekend.

cabbott@postmedia.com