Backwoods Maple Syrup
Arriving at Backwoods Maple Syrup gives the impression of approaching a traditional sugarhouse. The lines of tubing wind through the forest, steam rises from the stacks, and a large “OPEN” flag greets visitors at the entrance. Upon stepping inside, the initial reaction is one of amazement. The sight of the shiny evaporator and the inviting seating area overlooking it immediately captivates. The air is filled with the delightful aroma of maple syrup, adding to enchanting atmosphere. Interview with Paul Partridge, co-owner.
Inside the 4000 square foot sugar shack, meticulous attention to detail is evident, with dedicated rooms for each stage of the maple syrup making process. The sap room features a CDL Fendeuse RO and stainless steel saddle tank, alongside essential holding, and cooler tanks. On the opposite end of the building, the bottling rooms boats a CDL water jacketed bottling unit, in floor heating and ample space for labelling bottles. The cash desk is adorned with bottles of maple syrup, as well as selection of branded clothing and hats. Adjacent to the cash desk, a cozy seating area invites customers to relax and savour a cup of coffee or a sample of some maple syrup.
Tell me how you got into making maple syrup?
When I was a kid, my dad back in the 70’s tapped trees on our family farm. Once my dad stopped making syrup, I started to make it myself. We boiled on a barrel over an open fire. Back then we filtered with tea towels. The syrup was for our own family. I stopped when I got married.
How did Backwood’s Maple Syrup come to be?
My son Tyler and Corey Vandergeest the other co-owner of Backwoods Maple Syrup back in 2006, hung 40 buckets. The wood they were using was not getting hot enough, so the kids called me for help with some firewood, so I went up and cut some firewood and spent the whole weekend there and we never slept that whole time. The sap ran like crazy. The buckets were filling up several times a day. We made around 15 gallons of syrup that weekend. We boiled on an open fire with 2 cement walls and a pan. The following season, we moved into a shack, and we have blossomed from there. We put in 150 buckets and every year since then, we got a little bigger. Little known to them in 2006, the second day making maple syrup, Backwoods’ Maple Syrup was born. The pipe dream soon began of having all the sap come to us.
How many taps do you have?
We are just over 6000 taps, with 1000 taps on CDL 3/16’’ line and the rest on high vacuum. Always a dream of ours and to have a nice shack with the sap coming to us without having to go out and collect it. We recently bought this 126 acres we are on now across the road from our old shack where the 3/16’’ line is.
What was the deciding factor to deal with CDL?
CDL is close by, and this is one of the biggest things as it is very handy for us, and Bill Hubbert was obviously a big portion of this too. Any dealings we had with CDL prior to our growth, they always helped us with our hobby issues. CDL couriered a pressure pump to us the next day when ours went down. There was no reason not to deal with CDL. They always looked after us in the past. Today, the people that work there are awesome. I really enjoy going in there.
How do you monitor your maple operation with regards to vacuum, tanks and leaks etc.?
We have monitoring on every mainline, so we can see where the leaks are. We have 34 sensors in the bush. The CDL Monitoring is on our phones. We have the app, which is amazing, so we know where there is a leak. We have red squirrels that like to chew the lines, so we always know where there is an issue right away. The monitoring shows a yellow mark on the app, this shows us that the vacuum is low. We know exactly where to walk. We have everything we need from the app. We have height sensors on the tanks and that is part of the app too. We turn our vacuum pumps on and off with the app. The only thing that is not on our monitoring is the transfer pump. We can add a sensor to the transfer pump. We are talking about adding a camera to our pump house. We pump sap 1 km so having the monitoring is very important as it alerts us right away of any issues.
Can you tell me a little bit about your evaporator?
We have a propane CDL Deluxe 3.5’ x 13’ that we run 14% concentrate and in an 8 hour day we can pull 3 barrels off. If the sap is running hard, we can do everything we want from a Friday to Sunday. We also boil through the week when we have enough sap. We had the jump on everybody this season as we were ready for an early run. We did not miss a drop of sap. We will not go away from our current set up on propane. It is too easy and economical for us. With the use of our RO, we would not change a thing. We used to spend time cutting wood, hauling it in and spent many extra hours in labour. If we decide we are done boiling for the night, we hit a button, and everything shuts down in 12 to 15 minutes. We shut off the valves, an alarm sounds and everything shuts off.
Are you happy with your evaporator purchase?
Absolutely. After the initial start up we had a few hiccups that we had to have an expert resolve for us. There was never a question in my mind that CDL would not fix the issue. When the technicians arrived, they were able to fix the problem quickly. While the technicians were fixing the issue, I got Neil Cruise your Sales Manager on the phone and he was able to talk with the technicians and do some translation for me. It just worked perfect. Neil is a great asset for you, and he has lots of experience. He was able to show me a few pointers when he visited us.
What does your future look like in terms of expanding or growing? What would be your CDL dream add on to your maple operation?
We want to get a calibration tank. Right now, we are dealing with filling barrels and then we fill the bottler with syrup and bring it to temperature and maybe touch the syrup up a bit right in the bottler. A calibration tank will be one of our next big purchases. We are dealing in larger volumes and in the summertime, it takes several hours to heat a barrel of syrup. With the calibration tank, it holds 2 barrels, we can actually do three barrels in a very quick time. It is already calibrated so we can bottle 6 barrels a day. We also would look one day at a bottling line. We would have to see if this is feasible to do. We have not looked into what CDL has available in automation. This would be a future dream add on. We also are wanting maple cream and candy machines. Candy is proving to be a big seller. Every time we make a batch of candy or suckers, almost everyone walks out with a bag of candy or suckers. If they have kids with them, guaranteed the suckers are going out the door. We aim to expand our range with additional value-added products. Collaboration with neighboring businesses is a key aspect of our future plan.
Are you happy with CDL Service and is there anything we could do better on our service?
Using the 1-800 number I get lost in translation. That is the only downfall. The people at CDL are very nice and helpful but getting through the 800 number after hours to get help in English is trying. I do not hold any language barrier against CDL at all. I am happy that I have Bill Hubbert and Neil Cruise I can call if there is a problem. We have never spoke over the phone with a technician, we call Bill. In fact, Bill took my call one Saturday night at midnight as we had a transfer pump go down. This meant a lot to us that he took the call as he has his own sugaring operation and is tired like us. Within minutes Bill had a call into the CDL experts and had ordered a replacement transfer pump on Monday and it arrived the next day at the CDL Store.
What has been your biggest surprise, if any, with regards to your equipment purchases?
Well, when we got everything set up looking back, it was overwhelming with all these new fancy things and controls without ever trying one before and it was kind of scary, but after about a day of running the evaporator, it was a very pleasant surprise and easy to use. I can run this evaporator all by myself. Other than the retail side of our business, I can be here at the sugar house by myself to run the evaporator.
Paul and Corey maintain a 50-50 partnership in Backwoods Maple Syrup, but with the full involvement of their families, it becomes 100-100 collaboration. Corey, Paul, along with Paul’s sons, Tyler and Trevor, possess the skills to operate the evaporator efficiently. From tapping trees to troubleshooting, boiling sap, bottling, and attending trade shows, they all, including Paul’s wife Karen, share the workload and responsibilities involved in running their maple business. Abby, Corey’s wife, takes charge of the managing the social media presence, website and online orders. The presence of Corey and Abby’s children along with Tyler’s children, at the sugar shack is integral to the completeness of the operation.
