LEXINGTON, Ky. – People interested in maple syrup-making in Kentucky can use their rolling hills for drawing sap at a major cost savings.

That was one of the still relatively new tricks of the trade revealed during a Zoom workshop Oct. 14 hosted by the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Kentucky.

It was the second in a series of workshops designed to spark interest in maple syrup-making to expand what’s now a very small industry in the state.

One of the speakers was Mike Rechlin, a maple syrup producer in West Virginia and retired instructor on forestry and the environment at several colleges, including Yale University.

Rechlin said using buckets to collect sap is perfectly fine to start but maple syrup-making is “highly addictive” and beginners often want to increase production.

That can lead to hundreds of buckets placed underneath taps to collect sap, leaving producers overwhelmed from walking to and from their sugarhouse every day to empty the pails.

He said a better alternative is running lines to taps to carry the sap to tanks even if syrup makers don’t like to break from tradition and view having lines in their woods not as aesthetically pleasing. “It’s really a lot easier,” he said.

Traditionally, Rechlin said lines at 5/16 of an inch in diameter hooked to a vacuum pump to draw more sap out of trees have been used primarily by makers in all regions.

However, that’s beginning to change as producers learn they can take advantage of their mountains and steep inclines to increase their bottom lines. 

Rechlin said lines measuring 3/16 of an inch across don’t carry nearly as much sap by volume. However, Rechlin said an experiment several years ago discovered the narrower lines used in hilly areas create their own vacuum to draw out sap when hooked to taps in the trees. “All you need is a slope,” he said.

Rechlin said just under one inch of pull is created for every foot of elevation change. He said the amount of pull can equal what a vacuum pump creates depending on the difference in elevation and distance between the sugarhouse at the bottom and taps up the hill.

“The more vacuum, the more sap flow and it’s free,” he said.

Using strictly gravity eliminates the need for costly vacuum pumps and the fuel to keep them running. “It changed the industry in West Virginia. Kentucky is also well endowed with slope,” he said.

Rechlin also talked about the time-saving need for a reverse osmosis machine for people interested and just beginning to make syrup.

He said reverse osmosis machines to remove water from sap cost anywhere from $70,000 to $300 and even less if homemade. RO’s at the lowest end of the cost scale don’t remove as much water as more expensive models, he said.

However, they are very effective, especially for syrup makers wanting a good night’s sleep during the season.

Rechlin said 14 gallons of sap with 6 percent sugar is left when 43 gallons of sap containing 2 percent sugar is put twice into a less expensive RO. That reduces boiling time in an evaporator from 8.6 to 2.8 hours.

“Is it worth that $300 for that RO?  You betcha,” he said.

Seth Long, president of the Kentucky Maple Syrup Association, informed viewers there are various ways of increasing profit margins than just bottling and offering liquid gold.

He said maple syrup is used to make candy, donuts and other baked goods along with glazed nuts and other foods.

Long, who’s also a maple syrup producer, said he has a commercial kitchen on his farm and a license to sell baked goods he makes with his syrup across state lines.

“If you turned it into something else or added it into another product, often times you can increase the value of the maple syrup,” he said.

Long said other product options include aging maple syrup in used bourbon barrels to add a whiskey flavor to the syrup.

“You see a lot of this up north. Some of the producers in Kentucky are getting this bug, too,” he said.

Maple syrup is also flavored with habanero, cayenne and other hot peppers.

Long said he allows his peppers to dry before placing them into bottles of syrup popular for flavoring meat while it’s smoked or cooked on a grill. “The sweetness and the heat come together. A lot of people really enjoy this,” he said.

He said producers are also infusing syrup with other products like vanilla beans, coffee, cinnamon and blueberries.

Long said producers can also open their farms to the public for events like showcasing the making of syrup. “People will travel for miles to come to a farm and learn how somebody is taking a product from the land and producing it into something like maple syrup,” he said.

Financial assistance and help in areas like creating a business plan are being offered by the Kentucky Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (KCARD) to help maple syrup makers get started and succeed.

Maryssa Kristie, of KCARD, said the amount of grants and loans is determined by the number of taps. Business plans are also developed individually because options and goals can vary at each location. “It’s not a one size fits all and we do work through one by one,” she said.