LANESBORO — Dave and Marlene Carlin want to change the perception of maple syrup as only a breakfast topping and expand customers’ horizons to understand it as a cooking and pantry staple.
“I am all about whole foods, getting back to the root of where things come from,” Marlene said. “It’s fun teaching people. Because, especially out here in Minnesota, … we haven’t grown up (making) it with generation after generation like Vermont and places out in the Northeast. … It’s not as ingrained in our culture.”
Dave and Marlene produce 120-250 gallons of maple syrup per year — depending on sap flow and sugar content — in rural Lanesboro. The couple is assisted by Dave’s dad, John, as well as Dave’s childhood friend, Eric Gunderson. The Carlins’ sugar bush is located on 9 acres of a neighbor’s property close to their own 5-acre property.
The Carlins make and sell pure maple syrup, bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, cinnamon-infused maple syrup and vanilla-infused maple syrup. They also make maple sugar, maple cream, maple candy, maple marshmallows, maple nuts and maple cotton candy.
Their syrup and products, which currently are sold under the brand Carlin’s Sugar Shack, will soon be sold under their new LLC, Duschee Valley Farm. They sell at the Lanesboro Farmers Market and do holiday events. The pure maple syrup is on shelves in stores in Lanesboro and Preston. The Carlins also have honeybees and produce 180-200 gallons of honey.
In their own home, the Carlins use maple syrup to glaze meat and vegetables, add to milk, top ice cream, add to granola, use as a sugar substitute, and more.
“It doesn’t take much,” Marlene said. “Just as you’re cooking with spices and stuff and other sauces, it adds something to the food that you’re making.
Dave got started tapping maple trees about 21 years ago for the first time since high school, joining John’s basic set up in 2005.
“All he had was a big cast-iron pot,” Dave said.
This year, Dave tapped 466 trees Feb. 13. The Carlins’ current set up utilizes five-sixteenths-inch tubing and a high-vacuum system to gather sap. Sap is transported from the central collection site at the bottom of the sugar bush to the processing site on the Carlins’ acreage by John.
There, some of the water is reduced out of the sap using a reverse osmosis system. Then, the sap is put in the commercial evaporator heated with wood. Gunderson is in charge of adding wood every five minutes to keep the fire’s temperature at 800-900 degrees.
“This is a roaring inferno,” Marlene said.
Marlene is in charge of tending the sap as it cooks down. After the syrup is done cooking, it is put through a filter press to remove the gritty minerals that naturally occur in the sap.
How much syrup is made per gallon of sap depends on the sugar content of the sap. The sap, which is measured with a Brix scale, can vary from 0.5% sugar to 3% sugar. At 2% sugar, it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.
Sap, if not kept cool or cooked down, can spoil. Dave has a refrigerated bulk tank to store extra sap, so they do not have to boil every day. Dave takes paid time off during maple syrup season, cutting down his regular work schedule to two days a week.
To make quality syrup, the Carlins said they are constantly tasting and checking.
“One spoiled batch of sap, and you boil it, you put in with all your syrup, and the whole batch is junk,” Dave said.
On boil down days, the Carlins will host home school groups as well as friends to watch.
“Once you get boiling and you start telling people, a lot of people show up,” Dave said.
Marlene agreed.
“They’re just like, ‘Oh my goodness, this is so cool to see the process, and then be drinking it right off the cooker,’” Marlene said.
The Carlins keep sample cups at the boiling station, and visitors can try the raw sap, the sap after going through reverse osmosis and the finished syrup.
“It’s a good time … hanging out by the fire in a way in the spring and having people over and showing them,” Marlene said.
The Carlins’ maple syrup set up has gone through a variety of upgrades since Dave started. Originally, they were using buckets. The most trees they tapped using buckets was about 88 in 2010. In 2016, they switched from buckets to a three-sixteenths-inch tubing system. By 2018, they had 177 taps and bought their commercial evaporator.
Their first year using the reverse osmosis system was 2020. In 2021, they put in their current larger tubing with the high-pressure vacuum system. This system fakes the freeze-thaw cycle to help harvest the sap.
Maple sap harvest occurs during warm days and cool nights in the very early spring. With warmer temperatures, maple trees begin to come out of dormancy, and their sap, which contains sugars stored in the roots from photosynthesis, rises up into the tree to prepare it for foliage. Then, cool evenings cause the sap to sink back down into the roots.
“You get this push and pull cycling through the tree,” Marlene said.
How late in the season the sap is harvested and how long it is cooked will cause the sap to become darker in color and stronger in flavor. Lighter syrup is generally from sap harvested early in the season.
“The longer you cook your syrup, the more caramelized and the darker it’ll get,” Marlene said.
As they look to the future, the Carlins would like to get a commercial kitchen so they can sell their aged and infused syrups and maple products in stores and not just at farmers markets.
They are also looking to expand. This summer, Dave plans to fence a second sugar bush close by that has another 800-1,000 trees. These trees will all drain down to a central sap collection spot, and this will increase the amount of syrup they can make.
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