The inside of the sugar shack at Burke’s Maple Farm smells like pancakes doused with maple syrup next to a campfire.
Sap turns into syrup as Dennis Burke feeds a wood stove.
Outside, plastic lines run the clear liquid from 1,800 tapped maple trees into large collection tanks.
"I do the tapping, the collecting, boiling off, getting into the containers and she does all the selling," said Dennis.
Syrup production is a labor of love for many local maple farmers — including Dennis and Lisa Burke. Their maple farm in Greenfield Twp. is one of 12 maple producers featured in the Northeastern PA Maple Producers annual Self-Guided Maple Tour this weekend.
Dennis grew up on farms. When the couple moved to the 200-acre property, he contemplated raising livestock.
Lisa said no.
“I'm like, Oh, you're nuts. You're crazy. No, thank you," she said.
Dennis said instead of arguing, he went to pout. Then he started looking around.
“And I said 'well, there's a maple, there's a maple, there's a maple there," said Dennis. "And I come running right down the hill. I gave her a big kiss and a hug. I said 'Honey, you're right, we're not doing livestock. We're gonna make syrup."
Twenty-two years later, steam and smoke vented from the top of the sugar shack on a late winter day.
“I just wanted to make it good. And it's snowballed from there," Dennis said. "Almost every year, we've increased taps or increased production."
Dennis said sap is the life or the blood of the tree. It carries nutrients throughout the tree for bud and leaf development.
The best conditions for syrup are cold nights and warm days. The trees cool down at night. That creates a vacuum. The sap is pulled up from the roots and into the trunk. Then it warms during the day.
"We're just getting in the middle of that process,” Dennis said.
Tapping wounds the trees and takes away nutrients, he said. But killing the trees would be bad for maple farmers.
Dennis uses best practices to tap. He drills shallow inch-and-a-half deep holes in a spiral pattern up trees.
Plastic lines run through the sugar bush — the term used to describe maple farms — through the property to three collection tanks. When the conditions are right, Dennis gets about 1,300 to 3,000 gallons of sap a day. When WVIA News visited the farm, he collected about 900 gallons.
Inside the sugar shack, Dennis gets a fire going in a wood burning stove. He feeds the flames every 6 minutes. There’s a digital clock in the shack. He likes to start right on the hour.
"You'll see me, I'll be running from the fire to the defoamer ... to getting wood washing, watching my temperature, stuff like that," he said.
The fire heats a large rectangular stainless steel vat over 6-feet tall with many layers. The sap is eventually boiled down to syrup, filtered and put in barrels before it's bottled.
The Burkes sell the syrup from their house. It’s on display in Dennis’ grandfather’s old gun cabinet near their front door. Lisa takes the syrup to craft fairs. They also sell at small markets.
There’s bourbon and maple-infused syrup, maple sugar, cream, candies and maple puffs.
“No white sugar in our house," said Lisa.
When you’re served maple syrup made from a local farm, Lisa said it’s made out of love.
"They're not doing it for profit. We hope so," she laughed. "We love to work the land. We are so blessed with beautiful land. And Dennis just likes to make a good product and I like to talk to people about it. And you know, it's just something nice. Something good for you and tastes great."
The Northeastern PA Maple Producers Self-Guided Maple Touris Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 pm. There are also three pancake breakfasts. For more details, visit https://waynecountypa.gov/645/Maple-Tour.
The Potter-Tioga Pennsylvania 20th annual Maple Weekendis also on Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Click here to view a list of participating maple farms.
