Maplewood Farm

What to do with all these trees? Kevin and Lisa Hart of Brownsville, Indiana, asked themselves this question in 2000 when they purchased the family farm from Lisa’s mother. “I had run a body shop for 40 years and was looking for something new to do,” Kevin says. They consulted a forester who looked at the 100+ acres of classified forest and told them he would not recommend selling timber, but what about maple syrup production?

Lisa’s father had sold timber in the 1960s, selling the mature trees like hickory and oak, but didn’t take the maple which allowed the maple trees to thrive over the years. “By accident, this sugar bush was created,” Kevin says, noting at that time in his life he likely had never even had real maple syrup before. They dug into learning more, joining the Indiana Maple Syrup Association, and started tapping the maple trees in 2013.

There is a science to successfully tapping the maple trees. Kevin explains, “A tree needs to be 10 inches in diameter before you tap it, and it takes 40 years to reach that size.” The freezing and thawing action of an Indiana spring is what changes the temperature in the trees and creates the pressure to release the sap to flow. It takes 45 gallons of sap to create one gallon of pure maple syrup, so a good process is essential.

“You can hurt the tree if you don’t do it right,” Kevin points out. Tree size determines how many taps can be put on a tree, and never more than two or three. The tap, called a spile, is made of plastic and is inserted only about ½ an inch, drawing sap out of the sap wood near the surface, not deep in the tree.

“All our trees are connected with tubing that that runs downhill, moving into bigger lines that go to the lowest point of the farm, there are no bags or buckets to haul,” Kevin says, explaining this process allows one person to collect all the sap during the day. This closed system is flushed with water and food grade sanitizer to ensure a pure product. The sap starts running by midday, and by late afternoon is collected and goes through reverse osmosis to remove water before boiling. The boiling process over a wood fire, using the farm’s wood as fuel, takes place later in the day and the pure product is run through a filter press to become clear, with the process done for the day around 8:00 p.m.

“The syrup is put in stainless steel barrels, and we leave it there until mid-April when we start preparing for summer farmers markets, it is in a suspended state of animation, Kevin says. “It is 200 degrees when it goes into the barrel and seals so it stays fresh for months.”

This pure syrup turns into several delicious products. “We initially sold the maple syrup and after a while decided to try our hand at other things like maple cream,” Kevin says. They played with the temperature to get the pure maple syrup into spreadable form, heating it up and cooling it down almost like taffy is made.The machine they have produces the cream that is the texture of peanut butter, enjoyed by people on bread or even in their coffee and tea.

The syrup is also turned into granulated sugar, going through a process that makes it the consistency of cookie dough that can be put into molds for maple sugar candy or formed into bricks for chefs who like to grate it over pastry. Yet another use for the syrup came from a conversation with a fellow vendor at the Carmel farmer’s market. “I asked where his craft sodas came from and I got connected with a bottle company in Irvington who collaborated with me to come up with a formula for maple cream soda,” Kevin says. “It’s a really good seller.”

Maplewood Farms products can be found at several Central Indiana farmer’s markets, and a conversation at one of those markets led to their online presence. “A customer who was starting a tech business asked if she could build our website as an example, and now web sales are a nice part of the business and lets tourists who are in town continue to buy our products once they are back home,” Kevin says. The products are also sold to commercial accounts and are used in restaurants as well as unique bed and breakfasts like the Whitaker Inn in Lafayette.

As consumers look to move away from white, refined sugar, pure maple sugar is a good choice. “In fact, if a recipe calls for a cup of sugar, you only need half a cup of pure maple sugar,” Kevin says. It might surprise people to know that pure maple sugar contains antioxidants and has a lower glycemic index than refined sugars, meaning it causes slower blood sugar spikes

Kevin has worked to promote pure maple syrup through the Indiana Maple Syrup Association, serving as president and in leadership roles, even helping Indiana secure a large grant to promote maple syrup in Indiana. This industry leadership was a source of comfort and purpose after Lisa died in 2020. The Hart’s grown children, twins Harrison and Samantha, have helped over the years and Samantha now lives nearby and with a remote scientific job is able to help during the busy sugaring season.

While Hoosiers might take maple trees and syrup for granted, it is significant that the only place in the world where the climate is appropriate for tapping trees is a 500 mile ring around the Great Lakes. “There are so many benefits to maple sugar,” Kevin shares, “It has health benefits, and remember it comes from a classified forest that is helping to sequester carbon, keeping soil from eroding, plus cleaning the air and water and being a habitat for wildlife.”

“We’ve got trees on the farm that are a few hundred years old, and there is one tree that I believe was here when first settlers walked in,” Kevin says. “These trees are making the earth a better place.”