warren farm

This morning we headed to a maple syrup farm in North Brookfield, MA.  In our search for a maple syrup farm nearby we learned that MA has a lot of maple syrup farms.  Most of them tend to be very small.  In fact the smallest one we found is in our town, where the family makes maple syrup from the trees in their own and their neighbor's back yards.  We picked Warren Farm because they offer demonstrations of maple sap boilings.  The farm was much smaller than we expected having seen pictures of the place online.  They had a nice green house set up with a tasting room which talked about the history of maple syrup making and how to make your own maple syrup.

I tried all four of their maple syrups and they were all very unique but all delicious.  My favorite was Grade A Dark Amber.  

The labeling system for maple syrup is changing.  

At Warren Farm they make more than just maple syrup.  They make infused maple syrup, marinating sauces, maple spread and maple sugar.  

We learned that maple syrup was only available in solid form before the invention of refrigeration.  There was no way of keeping it preserved before that.  

Before modern times they used to boil sap using two pots which would take days to do.

The entire family got involved when making maple syrup.  Bennett did not like the child's yoke.  They were made in all different sizes for people and animals.

We ended our tour by sampling some fresh sap.  It takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 cup of maple syrup!

It did not taste much different from water.  It was a littler sweeter I thought.

We headed up to the sugar house next.  They were not boiling the sap yet (they are doing that at 2 PM today) so we were safe to go up and poke around.

The sugar house was filled with firewood.

This is where the magic happens.

Bennett was more interested in playing outside on the tractor than checking out the giant maple tree sap evaporator.

It was not very warm out so we didn't last long out there.  We bought some maple syrup and maple mustard before heading home.  I was pleasantly surprised how educational and entertaining this visit to Warren Farm turned out.  I definitely foresee another trip here or to another maple farm soon.