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Boston Globe

What it boils down to

Jeff, 64 and Paula, 62 met in 1981, married in 1985 and have a son and daughter. He still works part-time delivering propane and she is a first-grade teacher in Nashua. They started making maple syrup just in small batches, a couple of gallons at a time for personal use, and then worked their way up to the current sugar house which Jeff built in 2013. Their centerpiece is a gleaming stainless steel evaporator built by the Amish in Topeka, Indiana. Advertisement The short maple sugar season consumes all their time now and often finds them working late into the night if the sap is flowing well. As Paula placed another heavy white container of sap on the floor to be boiled, Jeff wore heavy leather fire gloves, leaning over to fill firewood into the roaring wood stove. His timer goes off at regular intervals to remind him to add more wood which keeps the temperature constant while the sap boils. He admits they got off to a slow start this year because of the constant cold days in February, but he hopes to make syrup for the next few weeks. Sap flows the best with nighttime temperatures from 20-30 degrees and daytime temperatures in the 40s. Advertisement 'Mother Nature, she's in control,' Paula said. The aroma of smoke from the burning maple and oak logs permeates the air inside the pristine sugar shack. Jeff's glasses are fogged as he swirls a wooden stick inside the violently bubbling sap. Ninety-eight percent of maple sap is water. The next step is the most satisfying for the couple as the spigot is opened to let the amber-colored syrup flow out slowly and steadily. 'We love it. How could you not love it?' Jeff said. Together they poured small shots of the syrup into sample cups, said 'cheers' and tasted what they think is the best maple syrup around. 'I don't envy anyone else's syrup,' Jeff says. A steady flow of sap dripped from a spike on an old silver maple tree to a bucket below. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff He's so passionate about his product that he only wants blue ribbon quality syrup. Award ribbons hang in their shop as proof, winning three blue ribbons at the Hillsborough County Fair in 2024, and before that First Prize and Best of Show at that fair in 2022. The Babel's are looking forward to the New Hampshire Maple Weekend when they expect hundreds of visitors to their sugar house. A sample bar will be set up in the shop with their bottled maple syrup for sale. They will be open March 15 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and Sunday, March 16 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The Babels have over 600 taps, hoping to produce into late March, depending on the weather. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Paula Babel checked the amount of sap collected in a bucket attached to a sugar maple tree in their backyard. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Jeff Babel loaded firewood into the wood stove below the evaporator, a constant process to keep the temperature consistent when the sap is boiling. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff After it was boiled down in the evaporator, maple syrup dripped into a metal bucket. Ninety eight percent of maple sap is water, the rest sugar. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Jeff and Paula Babel boiled down maple sap into syrup in their backyard sugar house, using an Amish built evaporator and wood burning stove to boil the sap into amber-colored maple syrup. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Paula Babel opened the doors to the sugar house shop where customers can purchase their maple syrup. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Ribbons fill the wall inside the sugar house shop, including a 1st Prize and Best in Show for their amber and dark syrup at the Hillsborough County Fair in 2022. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Paula and Jeff Babel sampled a new batch of maple syrup inside their sugar house. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff