Monday, April 18th, 2022
A Sweet Walk in the Woods
Maple syrup time is a Menchhofer family tradition
By Erin Gardner
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
Eric Menchhofer hammers a tap into a maple tree in a woods off Schroeder Road in Coldwater.
COLDWATER-On Valentine's Day afternoon, John Menchhofer and his sons made their way into their grandmother's woods on Schroeder Road.
The men were no strangers to cold temperatures - the layers of sweatshirts, caps, hats, gloves and hunting boots proved it.
Son Curt Menchhofer drilled half-inch holes three-quarters of an inch deep into mature maple trees. Another son, Eric, hammered a tap into a hole and attached a sap bag. Within 20 minutes, they tapped 30 maple trees.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
A 3-gallon sap bag hangs from a maple tree.
It was an ordinary Monday for the Menchhofers, who have been making pure maple syrup for over 20 years.
This is the first year the Menchhofers have used reverse osmosis, which reduces the water content in the sap through a membrane filtration system, John Menchofer said. In turn, less sap is needed to make syrup.
Before using reverse osmosis, the Menchhofers used 70 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Now, they've reduced the gallons of sap needed by 30.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
A wood burner boiling maple sap fills the shed with hot steam.
The family boils the sap down in their "sugar shack," a detached shed that has wood-fired burners. Once the sap is boiled down, the Menchhofers pour it through cheesecloths to filter out any burnt sugar, dirt, minerals or sticks that fell into the mixture.
The syrup is brought inside, heated to 185 degrees and filtered one more time. They transfer it back to the stove pot, which Eric Menchhofer engineered to have a valve for easy filling.
After the containers are sanitized with hot water, the Menchhofers fill them with syrup, screw the cap on and lay them on their side to seal with wax.
When sap flows from trees, it has a clear, runny consistency and is almost flavorless, John Menchhofer said. It takes 24 hours for the bags to fill and 40 gallons of sap produces one gallon of maple syrup. Boiling the sap also makes it stickier and darker.
The finished product is less sweet but more rich and buttery than store-bought syrup, John Menchhofer said. It has a slightly smoky flavor and with hints of brown sugar, he said.
The color of the syrup can vary, he said, noting syrup gets darker later in the season as the weather starts to warm.
His two sons, John Menchhofer's sister Laura Muhlenkamp, his significant other Sandy Marker and his six grandchildren make up the family business.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
John Menchhofer watches over the wood burner inside the shed to make sure the maple sap doesn't boil over.
"That's been the neat part of all this," John Menchhofer said. "My kids were in school whenever this all started. Now, they've got kids of their own and these younger kids are still enthused to jump in and help. You find stuff that they can do to keep them interested. It's been a family enterprise all the way along. We're basically working with a third generation."
John Menchhofer started tapping trees in February 2001. Since then, he said it's grown drastically.
"I started out tapping six trees," he said. "I went almost a week and nothing ran. I didn't know what I was doing. My dad was born in '14 and he said when he was 18 years old, the woods were my grandmother's farm. We found trees down there that had scars from them tapping them in the 1930s. Once we got started back here, the kids wanted to go bigger … and it just has snowballed from there. It's kind of to the point where I could back away from it now and turn it over to them just as easy."
He said when he first started, there was almost no information or resources he could learn from. He went to a maple festival at Indian Lake when he was first interested and learned more there. Even now, there aren't many maple syrup farms in the area, he said.
"I couldn't find anybody to talk to learn what I was doing," John Menchhofer said. "We learned this mostly through extension bulletins. From there, we learned by the school of hard knocks."
As of March 11, the family had tapped 4,086 gallons of sap this year, which makes about 100 gallons of syrup, according to Curt Menchhofer.
John Menchhofer said this year's final tally is 119 gallons of syrup. They had 500 taps this year, which they've done consistently for about three or four years, John Menchhofer said. The woods on Schroeder Road had 200 taps, which amounts to 1,655 gallons of sap, he said.
Curt Menchhofer estimated the family has made 1,500 gallons of syrup in their 20 years in business.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
John Menchhofer explains how his family bottles syrup after extracting, filtering, and boiling maple sap.
The amount of sap the family gets varies year to year because the art of maple tapping is weather dependent.
According to USDA U.S. Forest Service, maple trees store starch in their sapwood during the growing season. When the temperature reaches 40 degrees, the starches convert into sugars, which pass into the sap. When maple producers drill a hole, sap-carrying vessels are severed, allowing for the sap to flow out.
"Among maple producers, it is well-known that spring temperatures must fall below freezing (usually at night) and rise above freezing (usually during the day), for sap to flow," according to USDA U.S. Forest Service. "After a freeze-thaw event, sap can continue to flow for 30-72 hours. The season typically lasts 4-6 weeks and ends when temperatures remain above freezing and buds begin to break dormancy."
The Menchhofer family agrees the tapping season can be finicky.
"Some of it is moisture in the ground," John Menchhofer said of the factors affecting sap production. "If you have a drought year, the trees are starving for moisture and they don't move the sap. This year, water was abundant so there was plenty of moisture to move the sap, which kind of makes it surprising that it's such a good cook down. You would think it would be moving more water with those sugars that it would be a lower concentrated sap we were getting. There's really no rhyme or reason to it."
John Menchhofer said experience helps him identify maple trees compared to oak or walnut.
"It's a tighter textured bark, for the most part," he said. "A lot of our identification on trees goes to the branch work. There's a lot more fine branches at the top of the tree in a maple compared to an oak or other hardwood trees."
In their 20 years, the family has had only one complaint.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
A shelf of half gallon Menchhofer Farms Maple Syrup.
The family has gotten praise for their product, with many regular customers who substitute syrup for regular white sugar.
Curt Menchhofer said some diabetics can eat syrup because it has natural sugars. His brother's grandfather-in-law is grateful he can have something sweet as a diabetic, he said.
The family agrees their product knocks name brand syrups out of the park.
Name brand maple syrups are primarily made of high fructose corn syrup and a little maple flavoring, Curt Menchhofer said.
"It sells itself. We've never really advertised," John Menchhofer said.
The family sells the syrup at Menchhofer Farms, Cassie's Country Cupboard and the Celina Farmers' Market.
The family's favorite ways to use the syrup are in baked beans, on bacon, in oatmeal, on sweet potato fries and with ham. And on pancakes, of course.
"Whenever I started it all, it was because I was looking for something to do," John Menchhofer said. "Now, I'm getting older, I could care less whether I had something to do. With the kids coming around wanting to do it, it's pretty hard to back away from it."
Those interested in buying syrup can call the Menchhofer house phone at 419-942-1605.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
A series of tubes mounted onto a wooden board allows sap to go through reverse osmosis.
Photo by Paige Sutter/The Daily Standard
A wood burner boils maple sap at Menchhofer Farms, Coldwater.
