Thoughts on sugar house size...

[sugaringman85]

Considering building a bigger sugarhouse. Expansion would make our old one way to small and the retail traffic during the season bursts us at the seams at times. Also thinking of food safety measures moving into the future and want to be able to adapt to them as they come about.

That being said ultimate expansion size would be 4000 taps, retail space to hold a good crowd, we'd burn wood, cold storage for syrup, bathroom, and enough room to give tours in the evaporator area.

Any thoughts would be great. Sugarhouse pictures would be awesome.

Thanks in advance

[dw341969]

So being a quality supervisor at a small/medium sized cheese plant gives me some insight into this. If you want to plan into the future, you might check out SQF, Safe Quality Food standards. It's a little over the top, but you could gain some good insight into what bigger companies do to not only insure safe, quality food. Many things can be incorporated into our passion of producing awesome products. Check it out. If you want more specifics, pm me and I can point you in the right direction. I am not suggesting you become SQF Certified (expensive, and VERY involved), just offering ideas to maybe prepare for future endeavors.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[VT_K9]

We are in the process of building a new sugarhouse now. We are looking at 1000-1200 taps then take a year or few to enjoy that scale.

We moved to a 3x10 sized evaporator. The sugarhouse is going to sound large, but we house all tanks inside and have garage space for our equipment (tractor and excavator). We are getting ready to dig for forms for a 28X60 building. In order to accommodate a retail area we would have to go bigger (maybe 12x12-12x20 additional section). The area for the evaporator is just big enough to expand to a 4x12, but that is not in the current plans and not in the foreseeable future (just don't want to add on again if that happens). There is a good amount of room for the kitchen/packing area to the right (draw off side) of the evaporator. The plans include a 12'x12' RO room to handle a 600 gph RO and 1200 gallon tank.

We have changed plans from using frost walls to a monolithic slab using foam forms to act as the form and provide insulation. Several buildings have been built in the area with success using the monolithic slab. The forms are new to the area (the main company is in CT), but it looks like it should be a good choice.

Finally we are frequently reviewing the "score sheet" to be certified by the VMSMA as our goal. I believe this will give us a good foundation to move forward.

Check out their website and your State's association. See what others are doing to make the evaporator area visitor friendly. Again to handle crowds on the beaten path of tourism we would have to expand another 4-6' in width just to handle that aspect.

Good luck,

Mike

[Bucket Head]

My day job is at a bread factory, so I can attest to the SQF standards that are mentioned above. Hopefully sugarhouses are never subject to that. But good ideas can be had from reviewing what they require.

As for a suggestion on sugarhouses and visitors, I would consider a railing, or picket fence-like apparatus, or a half wall- something to physically keep people from touching the evaporator. Since it's all hot enough to burn someone significantly, nobody should be able to touch it. Also, as far as safe-foods go, the day will be coming when no one directly involved with the food making will be able to be in contact with it. If sugarhouse size and money was not a factor, an evaporator room with lots of large glass viewing windows would be the way to go. (No, I don't like that idea either. I'm a fan of the traditional sugarhouse and I have no barrier in my sugarhouse currently. But change is coming to us, like it or not...)

And at the bread factory, everyone, including visitors, get to put on a lab coat, hairnet and beardnet if it's aplicable when entering the production area. So maybe the big glass window idea isn't a bad idea afterall? Who wants to ask their visitors to put all of that on?

I'm certain that, eventually, everyone's sugarhouse visitors will have be separated somehow from the production and the equipment- for both physical safety and food safety.

[Moser's Maple]

Our original sugarhouse is 24x64 with a 24x24 camp/ro area. 24x24 boiling room 16x24 wood shed. This doesn’t seem to fill our needs anymore. We are hoping to build a new building 40x72. Eventually getting to 5000 taps at the most.

[upsmapleman]

You might want to check building codes for your area. In Pa I've heard stories where if a sugar house is over a certain size it has to be built to commerical standards. I think at least in some areas over a 1000 sq ft. the standards for building change.

[Galena]

The frame of mine is done, more like a lean-to in terms of design than the traditional sugar shack. It's made of pallets and measures approx 8x8.