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Maple Open House Weekend

by Paul Fixx on

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The Fradette Maple Syrup sugarhouse in East Hardwick, Saturday, March 22, during Maple Open House weekend, holds state-of-the-art equipment to process the sap from almost 12,000 trees that Mario Fradette and other members of the family own.
photo by Paul Fixx
The crew in the Fradette sugarhouse clean the equipment, which they do about every two hours, during which time they make roughly 40 gallons of sap. Robert Cloutier, center in orange hat and his wife, Marie are next in line to take over the business when Mario (left of Robert, in green) and his wife, Mary Jane retire.
photo by Paul Fixx
Denise Fradette (sitting), who has celebrated her 97th birthday, is joined by her daughters (from left) Micheline Fradette, Elise Hamel and daughter-in-law Mary Jane Fradette in the product sales area of Mary Jane and her husband, Mario’s sugarhouse, Saturday, March 22, during 2025 Maple Open House Weekend.
photo by Paul Fixx
Maple sap is first filtered to remove large debris like twigs, then processed through a reverse osmosis system at 400 psi in the Fradette sugarhouse. It’s an expensive step, with equipment costing many tens of thousands of dollars, said Mario Fradette. His son-in-law Robert said reverse osmosis removes about 12% of the water, saving a lot of the oil used to boil sap and creating less greenhouse gases in making their maple syrup.
photo by Paul Fixx
Mario Fradette holds fine food-grade glass, Saturday, that sap is filtered through during the final stages of maple syrup production, after the sap has been boiled down and concentrated, but before the final filtering and bottling. Fradette said he’s working with The UVM Proctor Maple Research Center to study the effectiveness of the process.
photo by Paul Fixx
Editor

Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.

Paul Fixx

Paul Fixx is editor of The Hardwick Gazette and lives in Hardwick.

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