maple school

[morningstarfarm]

anyone know where the nh maple school is tomorrow? times? the site is down for the program...coming from southern nh...up 93...but where is it exactly? and what time does it start? thanks, chris...

[tuckermtn]

School is at Winnisquam High School GPS address is 435 West Main Street Tilton NH registration opens at 8am.

[madmapler]

My wife and I attended the classes today. Being that we are both pretty new to this we really got alot out of it. Glenn Goodrich's classes on running tubing were awesome. I also got some good info from Dan LaLane from CDL on evaporators and operating costs. There were several other classes I'd liked to have gone to but they ran at the same times and choices had to be made. All in all, I thought it was a pretty good show though.

[red maples]

yes excellent turnout, Great classes especially liked The RO class with Brad Gillian from leader. and the making 500 taps work for you. I think that could fit even some of the larger (by larger I mean 1500-2000 taps) it was a lot of good cheap marketing tips which I used alot of them and got a few idea as well. The sugarbush managment was good as well. and hopefully I can get an RO next year through the ....what ever that was called chris went to it and explained it to me. need to look into that one!!!

anyway overall nice Job guys. excellent start to build on for both the larger and smaller producer and the home hobbyist. all of them were there.


I didn't get a yellow sheet to fill out. they ran out but.

Ideas for next time...
*Demo tubing set-ups outside maybe? to see how things are setup.
*maybe lappierre could be running a huricane or something and maybe some of the others could be running other types of rigs, maybe one of the new pellet run ones.
*Confection making, with demos for the smaller guys or with machine for the bigger guys and so the smaller guys can be jelous
*grading with samples of bad tasting vs good tasting syrup as much as it is subjective as chris pfeil mentioned. it would be nice to know whats expected for flavors and how to pick out bad flavors even the faint ones. and what to do with marginal grading and reddish colored darker syrups.

Thats all I can think of for now. hope that helps.

[PATheron]

Brad- What was the making 500 taps work for you thing about? Theron

[tuckermtn]

Theron- Josh and I put together a workshop that involved a hypothetical 500 tap operation. we then plugged in current pricing if you bulked vs retailed all your syrup. Then we looked at costs of selling at farmers markets and holiday markets, cost of containers, etc. Then we talked strategies to boost retail sales-custom labels, online, facebook, etc. Also a lot of question and answer time in which folks asked about insurance and product liability, etc. I have a powerpoint if anyone wants me to send it to them...
Josh (Amber Gold) can also chime in...

[Amber Gold]

I put some info on wholesale sales...restaurants and local shops. It's helped us to expand our sales quickly.

I like the topic about grading and off-flavors...maybe a grading school short course. Samples of off-flavored syrups would be great.

Also, more topics on marketing. NH has huge market potential, but I think a lot of syrup made in NH is sold in bulk when it could be retailed.

[tuckermtn]

I put some info on wholesale sales...restaurants and local shops. It's helped us to expand our sales quickly.

I like the topic about grading and off-flavors...maybe a grading school short course. Samples of off-flavored syrups would be great.

Also, more topics on marketing. NH has huge market potential, but I think a lot of syrup made in NH is sold in bulk when it could be retailed.

Josh and Brad- we had asked Herny Markles (sp) from Vermont to come over and do his off flavor presentation but he was already booked at the Maple Grading School that took place after IMSI. Hope to have him lined up for next year.

Keep the suggestions for new topics coming...makes planning for next year that much easier.

Cheers-

-Eric

[TRAILGUY]

I bet over 50% of producers at the school are gravity on at less part of their taps and between 150 and 750 taps. Then I bet many of them have sugar bushes with rolling hills that make groups of 25 to 50 taps. So there are two class or group discussion I would love to see

1. Best practices for gravity tubing.
2. Discussion with produces that made vac work on hard to tube lots