Our Sugar Bush 

Since 2007, students have been running Ithaca College’s very own maple syrup production business; turning semi-sweet sap into rich, golden, delicious maple syrup. Every step in the process is run by students, from tapping about 100 trees at our on-campus sugarbush, to bottling and finally marketing the finished product.

How Maple Syrup is Made:

Step 1: In January, students drill and hammer taps into trees. Mainly sugar maples are used, but other species of maple can be tapped as well.

Step 2: Students run plastic tubing from the tree taps into 5 gallon buckets and wait for the flowing sap to collect. Day by day, the sap collects in the buckets. Buckets are emptied daily into storage containers that hold 30-40 gallons of sap.

Step 3: Once 8-10 storage containers are full the sap is filtered and the evaporator is fired up.

Step 4: Boiling begins! The wood-fired evaporator is fueled by logs that are chopped throughout the boil. As the fire burns, the sap begins to transform from a pale, golden color to a thick, deep amber. When the boil is nearly done, the contents of the evaporator are emptied into buckets and brought back to our food-safe lab.

Step 5: The boil is continued indoors using big metal pots, hotplates, thermometers, and refractometers – all to ensure perfect tasting syrup. When the syrup reaches the right sugar content (determined by our refractometer), the boiling is complete and the bottling can begin.

Step 6: Each bottle is filled, capped, tagged, and labeled. Once students set a fair price for the syrup, bottles start selling off the shelf! Due to COVID-19, in-person sales of our products are limited. The best way to get your local syrup fix is ordering through our website.