Greene Maple Farm unveils new sugar house, boosting maple syrup production

SEBAGO, Maine (WGME) -- Maine’s maple syrup season is underway!

Greene Maple Farm in Sebago had an exciting grand opening this year: a new sugar house.

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And the sap doesn’t have far to travel.

“We just moved in, in the last few weeks doing our first boils in here. We were originally in a sugar house my father built in 1965,” said Alan Greene, the owner of Greene Maple Farm.

This shack is five times bigger than before and right now is the perfect time to produce maple syrup.

“We’re using a flue pan here that the fire can actually go up through the flues, so it’s almost like a corrugated bottom, it’s six-inch corrugation. That allows the fire to go up through and to get a more rapid boil, so you get more steam away. The faster you can get rid of that water, the quicker you can make the syrup,” Greene said.

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Greene says they’re taking the sap which is about 2% sugar, and boiling it to 66%.

“The difference here is we also are using reverse osmosis. So instead of starting at 2% coming in here, we’re at 10 or 12 percent. So now our ratio went from roughly 40 to 1, down to about 8 or 10 to 1. So, we can move a lot more syrup through the evaporator,” Greene said.

Later in season, the syrup is typically on the darker side compared to the first few boils.