Tosanak’s own maple syrup helps feed the folks at Maple Syrup Fest

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A steady and hungry crowd gathered on a sunny Saturday morning to eat pancake-and-sausage breakfasts and learn a little bit about the star of the meal – Tosanak Maple Syrup.

The Marble Syrup Fest took place at Tosanak Recreation Area, where for the past six years the park’s 100 or so maple trees have given up some of their sap each spring to make the sweet dark syrup that has been produced by a group of volunteers.

Craig Pogemiller was one of those on hand Saturday to explain the process to the people who wandered over from two different park buildings after finishing up their freewill donation breakfasts of pancakes with butter and Tosanak syrup, sausage patties, coffee and orange juice.

When the group purchased the syrup-making equipment from Loran Recker in the fall of 2019 it started an educational adventure – educational for those involved in drilling, tapping and collecting the sap each spring and figuring out the best ways to turn it into syrup, and educational for the many children and adults who have either helped with or watched the operation.

Bruce Bergland, one of the founders of the maple-syrup making group, explained that the typical ratio is about 40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup.

The trick is how you get rid of that water.

In the beginning it was done entirely by evaporation, boiling the sap for hours as people kept the wood fires stoked.

Now, Pogemiller said, much of the work is done through a reverse osmosis machine that uses filtering and membranes to mechanically separate out much of the pure water from the concentrate and run it out a hose a short distance into the park.

Pointing to large plastic containers of sap, he said, “Oh man, we’ll reduce that by about 50%. It saves us wood, saves us time – a good process.”

Pogemiller, who is one of those who has been involved from the beginning, said each season since they started tapping sap in 2020 has been different.

“Every year we think we’ve got it all figured out and then next year there’s something new happens and we haven’t learned it all yet. It changes a lot,” he said.

There are about 20 people on their mailing list that help out. Not everybody can help every day, but the group is big enough that they can usually get the six to eight people for a day of driving four-wheelers around, emptying the buckets and taking the sap back to the tanks.

“The weather is what dictates how good a season you have. We’ve ended up on a great year, up to 150 gallons of actual syrup. And last year was one of our worst ones, only about 70. It’s just what Mother Nature gives us,” he said.

Asked how this year has been, Pogemiller replied, “Not the best.”

“It’s been a late start. And some of our nights have not been quite cool enough. We’ve had some too-warm nights. It needs to be below freezing at night, above freezing in the day, and then we have usually a pretty good day.

“Yesterday (Friday) was our biggest day. We got 225 gallons of sap. That’ll turn into about five gallons of syrup,” Pogemiller said.

They’ll keep collecting sap until they start getting consistent nights when it doesn’t get below freezing.

Bergland said, “Or the sap starts turning a little tinge that’s yellow.”

Pogemiller added, “And usually the trees are starting to bud then. That’s usually another sign. If the trees are shooting the new buds, it’s usually the end of the season.”

The syrup is available at a variety of locations around the area, including Floyd County Conservation Headquarters near Rockford, the Floyd County Auditor’s office at the courthouse, Countryside Construction in rural Orchard, Schueth Ace Hardware in Charles City, Reiff’s Farmstand in Floyd and SkyView Market near Nora Springs.

Pogemiller said they usually sell out every year. Syrup is also sometimes used by nonprofit groups such as firefighters or community clubs that are holding their own pancake breakfasts.

He said the effort is more than just something fun and interesting to do.

“It’s a moneymaker, too,” Pogemiller said. “Probably one of our better years we had enough profits to donate about $5,000 back” to the Fossil & Prairie Conservation Foundation.

“And it’s all volunteer work, so other than maintaining our expenses here, everything else goes back to the foundation,” he said.