Thanks very much Marty. We both had a great time and were introduced to a bunch of local Lanark producers. Perfect weather, lots of food, live music, and a great event made for a lot of smiling faces that day. For our first attempt at judging and having no clue what we were doing I'm very pleased with our results and thrilled to score a perfect 30/30 for flavour in the Maple Capital of Ontario.

Our density was a little over at 67.3 which lost 3 points and it's taken a day of thinking about it to figure out how we ended up over density given how much time we put into getting it right. We hot packed a very small batch specifically for the contest in a 5 gallon filter/canner which left too much surface area for condensation and that would have made a 0.3 Brix difference for such a small amount of syrup. Lesson #1 learned for next time.

Not knowing what to expect we selected a sample mid-grade for each class thinking they would be good representatives of the grade. We learned in this discussion after shipping but before the contest that we want to be as light as possible within each grade for best scores. Won't make that mistake twice - lesson #2.

Clarity was both surprising and disappointing because we thought our syrup showed really well. I was told that it will always be difficult to compete against producers using a filter press versus our decanting & gravity filter process but I will need to see a side by side comparison to really understand the difference I think... lesson #3 still in progress. I would also like to know if clarity is judged in the cheap glass bottles or do the judges pour off into better quality glass for judging?

One question I do have after the weekend is the fill levels for competition entries. I noticed everyone's entry was filled to the bottom or even into the plastic cap where as mine was at a typical retail level part way up the neck. Is there a reason for such high fill levels or is that just the way it's done locally?