Maple Syrup vs. White Sugar

          If you’re looking for a delicious way to use South Hill Forest Products syrup,  try using it to replace processed white sugar in things like coffee, tea, or baked goods. In recent studies it has been found that maple syrup is a healthy alternative to processed white sugar. A report in the January 2009 issue of the “Journal of the American Dietetic Association stated that maple syrup has a higher antioxidant content than processed pure sugar. It has also been shown that pure maple syrup contains healthy minerals such as calcium, sodium, copper and potassium while processed white sugar tends to lack them. To replace white sugar with South Hill Forest Product Syrup try the recipe below!

Maple Latte Recipe

 Ingredients:

• 1 serving of coffee
• 1-2 teaspoons of pure maple syrup (Grade A light or medium)
• Milk

Directions:

Pour the cup of freshly brewed espresso into a mug, stirring in the maple syrup. Then, lightly spoon in steamed milk.

Sweet Tip: If you have a regular coffee maker at home without a milk steamer, we recommend lightly scalding ¼ of milk in a small pot. When ready, remove the pot from the stove and lightly froth the milk with a milk frother. 

Our 3rd Annual Open House!

This Saturday we have a very special event for everyone. From 10am-2pm we will be opening up our sugar bush for a special look into our operations!

Our free open house will feature

•  Sampling of South Hill Forest Products
•  Syrup production, tree tapping, beekeeping, primitive skills, and wood splitting demonstrations
•  Music
•  Maple syrup and mushrooms sales by cash or check

The Sugar Bush located at the end of Rich Road, off of Coddington Rd. on Ithaca’s South Hill!

Shuttles will be available for transportation from Ithaca College campus to the Sugar Bush every hour at the top of the hour from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. from the bus stop at the Roy H. Park School of Communications.

We look forward to seeing you all at the bush!

 

Measurin’ Those Brix

Here’s an interesting fact for you!

You could probably guess that one of the major parts of the second phase of syrup boiling is measuring the sugar content of the syrup. But did you know that it’s measured in a unit called brix, or that it’s measured using a machine called a refractometer?

This little blue machine pictured above is one of them, and we put a few drops in there every so often as we boil in order to keep an eye on it. In order to be sold, maple syrup must have a sugar content of 66-69 brix.

The batch we just finished yesterday is at 68.1 brix, which means it’s just slightly sweeter than our last batch. If you’re on the Ithaca College campus, come buy some in the Center for Natural Sciences room 282!

Why South Hill Forest Products is Good for your Health!

All products made and sold through South Hill Forest Products contain immense amount of medicinal and nutritional properties. While your taste buds are soaking our scrumptious merchandise your body is also reaping all their benefits.

Maple Syrup

Professor Navindra Seeram of University of Rhode Island has recently discovered that maple syrup contains 20 compounds that are beneficial to human health. These anti oxidant compounds are reported to have anti-cancer, anti-bacterial and anti-diabetic properties. Anti oxidant compounds found in maple sap is a result of the maple tree’s bark constant exposure to sun. It is believed that syrup has a has a higher concentration of these compounds since it is boiled down to a highly concentrated liquid.

Oyster Mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms are highly nutritious and contain elements essential for heightened immune function. This high protein food contain B vitamins such as riboflavin and pantothenic acid, and essential minerals including copper, selenium and potassium. Medicinal compounds of mushrooms include glycoproteins, natural antibiotics, enzymes, and enzyme inhibitors.

Honey

Honey contains a plethora of medicinal qualities, and has been a common affective folk remedy for many ailments. Honey is an excellent source of carbohydrates and is consumed by athletes to boost energy and reduce muscle fatigue. Honey contains anti-cancer, anti-bacterial, and antimicrobial properties. Honey has can also be used in first aid situations. When applied to burns and wounds it helps prevent against affections, reduces the appearance of scars and expedites the healing process. Honey is probably most commonly used to heal sore throats since its antimicrobial properties work to kill infection causing agents. After a long night of drinking honey should be consumed the morning after to abate nasty hangover symptoms since it is believed to speed up the oxidation processes of the liver.

Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100321182924.htm

http://www.benefits-of-honey.com/health-benefits-of-honey.html

Mycelium Running

Herbs, meet our liquid gold.

This semester the medicinal plant team has begun experimenting with infusing different local products — herbs, cayenne pepper, as well as red and black currents — into maple syrup. The medicinal plant team put together their innovative brains to create some interesting and delicious infused syrups, and the class taste tested the final products. The overall consensus was in favor of the lemon balm/lemon verbena blend, rosemary/sage blen, and cayenne pepper infused syrups. The medicinal plant folks are working through some legality “hiccups” at the moment, to enable the selling of these delicious infusions. The plant ladies are currently focusing on writing a grant that will include purchasing a legal license to sell different herbal South Hill Forest Products, so stay tuned for some local, herbal goodness.

Splitting them logs!

South Hill Forest Products employee, Emily, split plenty of wood for our outdoor boil this past Saturday. Emily uses proper log-splitting technique so she can split wood for hours with ease! Her hard work kept the team stocked with firewood and the sap boiling!

Second Batch of Maple Syrup!!!

That’s Right! We just finished boiling down our second batch of Maple Syrup! If you like Grade A Light Amber or just want some hand crafted Upstate Syrup, come by the Center for Natural Sciences at Ithaca College. The 8.5 ounce bottles are $15, and the 3.4 ounce bottles are $8.

We spent all of Sunday straight through to Monday morning out at our Sugarbush boiling down over 200 gallons of Maple Sap! Splitting wood and feeding the fires kept us warm through the chilly night.

Today we boiled indoors in our lab to control the process and ensure the highest quality of syrup. With a few students working on the sap at any give time throughout the day due to our college course-load, the lab was alive and well with activity. Requiring constant vigilance with whisking off the foam that rises during the boil, some of us enjoyed sugar rushes throughout the day. After a few hours of boiling, whisking, and filtering, we bottled and labeled the Grade A Goodness.

As always, thanks go to the trees for their delicious sap!

Contact us if you want to know more about our process!

southhillforestproducts@gmail.com

Check out these cool night time boil pictures!

           

The firsts of the season!

We are already about 5 weeks into the semester and we already have mushrooms and maple syrup ready to sell! Come by the lab at CNS 282 to grab some, or be on the look out for it in the bookstore!

Sappy Poem

The end of syrup season’s here,

for all, it’s a sad time of year.
We had so much fun,
but alas, sap is done,
so now the Sugarbush is clear.

We loved all of your support,
whether you bought one bottle or a quart.
And from your kind money,
we’ll make tasty shrooms and honey,
of which you can make into a nice torte?

We also thank the maple trees,
for they give us products with such ease.
And if it weren’t for their sap,
that they allowed us to tap,
we’d be poorer than a homeless dog’s fleas.

So as we continue to move on,
to bees and other mushroom spawn,
we’ll keep in our brains
the syrup and its remains,
and how we no longer have to stay up till dawn!

 

Raisin’ the Roof at the Open House

Yesterday, March 31, 2012 – a date which will live in infamy – the South Hill Forest Products class hosted the best maple syrup open house this world has ever seen!!

Maybe it’s the maple syrup talking, but never has there been such a great mix a people enjoying some of nature’s sweetest product. There was sap, there were pancakes, there were fires (that were safely contained in our fire pits)…we had it all! So this post goes out to everybody who made this event such a big success! We truly appreciate all of the support we’ve received from the Ithaca community. It was such a pleasure meeting/seeing you all and we hope you had as much fun as we did!

Check out some of the pictures from the event:

Two of our wonderful tour guides–guiding our guests through the Sugarbush

Another tour group checkin some buckets for sap

…but not as much as our syrup!

Our pancakes were a big hit

Please sir, can I have some more?

Friends and family came from all over…

just to have some syrupsiously sweet liquid gold.

So, as sad as we are to see the end of the syrup season, some would call it a bittersweet time–because now we have more time to focus on mushrooms and bee products!

(bee on the look out for more updates)