Pennsylvania has a small but mighty network of maple syrup producers

When winter loosens its grip and the days grow a little bit longer, the maple syrup starts to flow all over Pennsylvania.

The sweet condiment isn’t as well-known as dairy when it comes to the Commonwealth’s agricultural offerings, but in the mountainous, southwestern corner of the state, there’s a concentration of producers tapping into maple trees during the first real thaw.

“It’s all based on the weather,” said Sherry Hess, of Duck’s Maple Farm. “You need freezing nights and above-freezing during the days to make the sap run up and down the trees.”

Duck’s Maple Farm sits high atop a mountainous, rocky road in Normalville, Fayette County, just over the border from Pennsylvania’s maple syrup capital, Somerset County, also known as the land of “milk and syrup.” On a Saturday morning in March, Hess and her husband were busy preparing their small syrup camp for an open house and to buy products.

All trees make sap, but Hess said most syrup comes from “hard maples” with rough-looking bark, namely sugar, red, and black maples. They have 45 acres of woods on their mountaintop property, and Hess said 95% of it consists of maples.

The Hesses, like most producers, make syrup with an enormous, stainless steel “evaporator” in a shed, and they use a vacuum system, not gravity, to funnel the sap into the machine. It takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.

Their evaporator, like most others, comes from Vermont, the nation’s top syrup producer, by far, with an average of 3 million gallons a year. That’s more than 50% of the total production in the United States.

Pennsylvania ranks fairly high, too, producing approximately 200,000 gallons per year.

Duck’s Maple Farm is now in its 14th year of syrup production. D.J. Hess took to maple syrup production full-time after retiring from heavy highway construction.

D.J. Hess said the evaporator uses a lot of firewood and acts almost as a reverse-radiator, boiling off the water in the sap until the syrup remains. The Hesses make gallons and also sell cookies, maple-coated nuts, and maple ice cream.

The Hesses said this season was a down year. They produced 180 gallons of syrup compared to 520 the previous season. The bitterly cold winter and late-season snows weren’t the problem this year.

Winter, they said, left too quickly.

“It got too warm, too quick, and stayed warm,” D.J. Hess said.

Once the trees begin to bud, the season is over.

“When the temperature goes up, the sap goes up and stays up,” D.J. said.

Even though they’re based out of Fayette County, the Hesses are part of the Somerset County Maple Producers Association, which has dozens of syrup-producing members. The association hosts tree-tapping events in February and maple-tasting weekends through March.

Maple syrup producers are predominantly located in the southwest corner of the state, though. Other mountainous regions produce it, too. Sherry said Tioga County has some camps and, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the Poconos Mountain Maple farm sells flavored syrups and offers yoga on the property.

At Duck’s, the Hesses supply local stores and restaurants, and said there’s a difference between their products and commercial brands.

“You just have to taste it and judge for yourself, but it’s not the same,” Sherry said.