CORFU, NY. (WIVB) — When you walk through the barn doors at Sweet Dream Maple Farm in Corfu, N.Y., all five of your senses will be met by their homemade syrup.
You will be met with the smell of the warm sugary mixture being cooked and dripped into maple molds, the sounds of the bubbling of the evaporator turning sap into syrup, feel the warm syrup as you try a sample and taste the sweet sense of sugar when you try any of their products. Finally, you can see Al and Amy Stein — the couple who started the farm more than a decade ago — who can give you a tour and an educational lesson on how syrup is made.
“It’s important to educate people on farm like for one thing, maple syrup for another,” Amy Stein said.
“It’s a very important weekend for us,” Al Stein added. “We want to make sure that people who come here learn about maple and have a great experience and understand that maple is a great product to have in their homes.”
The couple prepares for Maple Weekend all year round, while continuing to work other jobs as well.
According to the Steins, it takes roughly 45 gallons of sap from a maple tree to create just on gallon of syrup and walked us through some of the steps of making maple syrup and products on Wake Up!.
The Steins said this weekend is the biggest in sales all year round, and that this year’s winter has been ideal for syrup making.
“This long, drawn out winter has been just right for us,” Al Stein said. “I’m well ahead of schedule on making syrup and everybody I have talked to out there has been making a lot of syrup.”
There are dozens of farms throughout NYS who are participating in this year’s Maple Weekend. To see a full list, click here.
Maple Weekend is this weekend, March 18 and 19, as well as next weekend, March 25 and 26. Maple Weekend is completely free to attend, and you can purchase syrup and maple treats while you visit. To learn more about Sweet Dream Maple Farm, visit their website here.