Noah Johnson Daily Press Forest Technician Tyler Tankersley and Operations Forester Kile Zuidema pour syrup into a drum.

HYDE — Warmer temperatures during the day and freezing temperatures at night means it’s time for local producers to start tapping trees to make maple syrup.

It’s been a great start to the season at the Michigan State University (MSU) AgBioResearch Forestry Innovation Center in Hyde.

“It’s more of a traditional start for us in terms of the calendar. The weather is cooperating,” said MSU Center Director Jesse Randall.

He said the sap runs when days are consistently above freezing and night temperatures are down in the 20s.

The research center is located in prime maple country, and it uses high-tech equipment not only to make syrup but also to study every aspect of its production.

The trees known as sugar maples or rock maples are native to North America, so there are limited options to find maple syrup outside of the United States and Canada, where the climate and soil allows the trees to thrive.

Randall explained the process and the necessary weather conditions to tap and source sap from the trees.

The team at MSU first inspects the tubing systems connected to hundreds of trees, ensuring there are no fallen limbs, squirrel damage, or other wear and tear issues that must be addressed.

The team then waits for the appropriate weather – four to five days of warm (during the day) and cold (during the evening).

Once the weather is where it needs to be, MSU workers go out to the field and begin tapping it, using a 5/16th drill bit, a bit made for maple. Randall said the MSU team can complete the tapping process in about a day and a half to two days.

MSU uses the 5/16th, but other producers may use a 7/16th.

The maple is then drilled slowly, about one inch and three-quarters to two inches.

“You’re severing the vascular structure of that tree in those inch and a half inch and three quarters, and that allows the wood then to seep out of those cells that you have cut through with that drill bit,” Randall explained.

A spile is placed into the tree, and the sap will flow out of the wood into the chamber where the spile was placed, down the tubing, and into large tanks.

The tubing is connected to technology that monitors critical needs of a sugarbush. The center uses Sap Spy, a sensory hub that monitors vacuum readings, tank levels and temperatures. Employees can view the status of the sugarbush through the app on a smartphone or PC.

“Then we bring it back to the sugar house, and then we put it into different tanks, or depending on which tanks are open, through a series of pipes, then we run it into what’s called a Reverse Osmosis (RO) machine,” he explained.

Pure sap brought straight from the lines to the sugar house in tanks is first reduced in the RO machine, which removes a lot of the water from the solution.

It can bring the sugar content from two percent to about 15 percent.

A benefit of using the RO machine is that it can shave about 90 percent of the time off the boiling process.

“We can run that machine for about an hour and a half to two hours on that full tank of sap,

and we’ve saved ourselves 13 hours of boiling, 12 hours of boiling. And so it allows you to handle your sap so much faster,” Randall explained.

The machine needs to be the proper size for the operation to save time. Time savings vary depending on the type of RO.

The RO machine saves boiling time and preserves the sap, which is a perishable commodity.

“It comes out of the tree, and the clock is ticking at that point.” He said.

Another benefit of the RO is that it does not cause a noticeable difference in the flavor or color profile.

“It just saves us time, energy, and fuel,” Randall said.

From there, the sap goes into another tank hooked up to a dairy chiller.

The sap is then pumped into a crib tank and boiled at the appropriate degrees for the day’s barometric pressure. On Friday, the center was boiling at 218 degrees.

“If we were in the mountains, it would boil at a different temperature because the boiling point of water would be different because the barometric pressure is different,” he said.

The center tests the barometric pressure throughout the day as it may change due to cold or warm fronts, changing the boiling point.

He said the syrup is pulled at about 66.5 percent sugar; anything more than 68 percent could cause the syrup to crystallize, and anything below 66 percent could lead to fermentation and spoiling.

The syrup is packed hot, at roughly 185 to 193 degrees, in drums, typically 40-gallon drums, before distributing into ‘consumer packs’ or bottles for retail sale.

Randall said his team tries to get the entire 40 gallons into consumer packs, as MSU tries not to hold onto finished syrup or reheat it.

“The more times you reheat the syrup, the darker it gets,” he explained.

Even though the center just began sourcing and boiling this month, it produced roughly 275 gallons of finished syrup by Friday. It is expected to finish another 120 gallons over the past weekend.

Last year, the center had roughly 2,600 operating taps and processed approximately 1,500 gallons of syrup. This year, the center is above 3,000 taps and aims to hit 1,500 gallons again this year.

“I think we can do it, but we’re going to have to really watch the weather…. We really are at the mercy of the weather,” Randall said.

Randall said the progress and work done at the center is due to his small but passionate staff.

When staffers aren’t pouring, bottling, or monitoring the syrup, they spend an abundance of time cleaning and sanitizing.

“We clean nonstop. We’ll boil for four hours; we’ll clean for two. You know, we boil for one, and we’ll clean for two. It just cleaning never stops in a sugar house,” he said.

All the tanks and other pieces of equipment are stainless steel, or High-Density Polyethylene, a versatile thermoplastic known for durability and chemical resistance commonly used in packaging and pipes.

Randall reminds the public how unique maple syrup is to the area, saying it is uniquely North American and Canadian.

“The U.P. is that sleeping giant. We have more tappable trees in the U.P. that are sitting there, waiting to be tapped than all of Vermont, all of New Hampshire and half of Maine combined. And that’s just the U.P.,” he said.

The Forestry Innovation Center is hosting a “Maple Weekend” event April 5 and 6. They will provide tours of the facility at 6005 J Rd., discuss their work, and demonstrate how some confections equipment can help producers in Michigan turn their syrup into more valuable products.

“We guarantee we’ll be open, (and) we guarantee we’re going to be boiling,” Randall said.