Modern Maple Syrup Production North Of 7

Apr 16, 2014

Joyce and Mel Conboy have been making maple syrup for decades. At one time their operation involved 30,000 spigots and 2000 buckets and was a much more labor-intensive operation than it is today. Now, just six buckets hang from the trees closest to their home, and Joyce says they are there “more for aesthetic reasons than anything else”.

Mel was raised on the couple’s scenic 470 acre farm just north of Sharbot Lake and as a 10-year-old boy he assisted his father with syrup making back when beef cattle was the farm's main focus. At that time they still managed to produce between 500 and 600 gallons of maple syrup per season. When they stopped beef farming, maple syrup became the Conboys’ main focus and in the last two decades Mel and his son Clayton have brought the operation up to modern day standards.

In the late 1990s plastic lines replaced the buckets and at first these lines relied on gravity to bring the sap to a number of storage sites, where it was collected via tractor. In 2009 that system was updated to a vacuum pump system, which took two years to complete. Nowadays the sap is vacuum pumped through the thousands of feet of plastic lines directly to the sap house located near the farm house, where an extractor dumps the sap into a large holding tank. The vacuum pump is computerized; it turns on when the temperature outside reaches 2 degrees Celsius and shuts off at 0 degrees Celsius. In the sap house we watched as two 25-gallon containers took turns dumping their sweet loads into one huge tank, which when full holds 1300 gallons of sap. From there the sap is pumped to the evaporator house, a wooden-sided building built by Mel’s dad from the reclaimed lumber of an old Methodist church that once stood at the end of their driveway.

The building houses another major upgrade to the operation that was purchased in 2009/2010: a stainless steel $40,000 gasification arch evaporator that is wood fueled. The unit consists of a huge multi-chambered stainless steel evaporator that burns wood and its gases so that the flame never actually touches the sap pans. The unit can hold 600-700 gallons of sap and boils 225 gallons of sap per hour. It takes roughly one cord of wood to produce 20 gallons of syrup and the evaporator runs for three hours before the first batch of syrup is produced.

Mel and his son Clayton continue to modernize the operation. This year they replaced the gas pump at the sap house with an electric pump that can be activated by remote control. They also buried certain sections of the plastic lines, those that had a tendency to freeze, underground.

The syrup season usually runs from three to four weeks but has been as short as nine days. This year it began on March 31 and Mel is hoping to see a few more runs this week. Joyce said that the quality of the sap this year is very good.

Maple syrup making, of course, is always dependent on nature. “You can do everything right and then have bad weather,” Joyce said “and then you just have to relax and know that there is absolutely nothing that you can do about it.” The season wraps up once temperatures rise permanently above freezing, at which point the trees begin to bud and the sap is no longer good for syrup but is left to produce the tree’s new spring growth.

In the last two years Mel has been forced to slow down after being diagnosed with cancer, at which time Clayton, who works as a firefighter in Ottawa, stepped up, in Joyce words “to do the lion’s share of the work” She continued, “Clayton has the energy and the enthusiasm and is the trail blazer in this little family operation and Mel is the steadfast one who has the decades of experience. Together they make the perfect team and they are what makes this operation successful.”

Mel says that the upgrades to their operation have made it easier for him to produce on average 300-400 gallons per season. Joyce, who works full time as the office administrator at Granite Ridge Education Centre in Sharbot Lake, helps out as much as she can when the season starts up.

The Conboys sell their syrup at their farm gate at 2379 Bell Line Road and customers can call 613-279-2240 in advance or just stop in. They serve a number of regular customers, many from generations of the same family, which Joyce said makes for fun, annual visits with people they have come to know quite well.

Their syrup comes in a number of container sizes and grades, from extra light, light, medium and amber, with the darker colors having a more pronounced maple flavor. Though it is hard work and the hours are long when the sap starts flowing, the Conboys continue to enjoy the entire process. “We love making a product the best that we can make it and we love visiting with our customers and giving them a product that we really believe in”, Mel said just before offering up a few samples of one of Mother Nature’s sweetest and most delicious treats.