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By Sarah Novak, [email protected]
MIO– The days are getting longer and it’s warming up in Northern Michigan, awakening the maple trees and getting the sap flowing. This means it’s a busy time of year for maple syrup producers Abe and Ruth Schmucker, owners of Sweet Success Sugarbush in Mio.
The Schmuckers’ maple syrup season begins the first week of March where they hand tap around 6,500 maple trees across 80 acres of their land. With the help from their 5 children and 6 grandchildren they run about 7,000 spouts in total.
“Ruth’s side of the family has tapped maple trees for 4 generations. When we married in 1994, we began with 15 taps and boiled the sap in a copper syrup pan on cinder blocks out in the woods- it was a lot of fun,” said Schmucker.
Each tap spout is connected to tubing that gravity and vacuum feeds a large tank for holding the unprocessed sap. The sap is then put through a reverse osmosis system that eliminates about 85% of the water. Next, the remaining syrup is processed again in a 4×14 evaporator to create a golden, naturally sweet maple syrup. From there the syrup goes through a final filtration, poured into jars, and canned in a 30-gallon canner in their sugar house kitchen.
Between March and April, the Schmuckers produce around 3-4,000 gallons of maple syrup every year. When the sap slows down and the season comes to a close, every one of the 7,000 taps spouts are pulled from the maple trees.
Sweet Success Sugarbush is located at 1442 N Galbraith in Mio where they sell maple syrup equipment, their maple syrup, and other maple products they produce including maple sugar, cream, candy, and mustard. You can contact them at 989-826-3160.
