Sunrise has developed into a full line supplier of high quality wood fired maple syrup evaporators and stainless maple syrup products.
In the Northern Indiana Amish country Sunrise Metal Shop a family operated Amish shop has been developing and manufacturing some of the best stainless steel maple syrup evaporators available.
Since 1972 when their first maple syrup evaporator was manufactured for the local maple syrup production, Sunrise has developed into a full line supplier of high quality wood fired maple syrup evaporators and stainless maple syrup products.
Many in the maple Syrup industry have seen or know of Sunrise evaporators, or actually own them, but because they are mainly marketed to other Amish communities, the general public has not had the Internet or commercial exposure of other manufacturers in the maple syrup industry.
The Sunrise Maple Syrup Evaporators are now available online at Cottage Craft Works .com
We visited one of the Sunrise demonstrations in February of 2012 as the Amish gathered into a barn bringing in their fresh maple sap for cooking down into the wonderful maple syrup.
From the road it looked like any other Amish gathering but as we entered we found a giant Sunrise cooker being stoked with firewood and manned by several Amish in an assembly line process.
What makes Sunrise evaporators so intriguing is they are all made in an Amish shop by skilled Amish workers. Just about everything made in the shop uses heaver gauge steel and stainless. Stainless Joints and seams are welded with a tig welder. Sunrise uses 20 ga Stainless while others use 22 ga.
These evaporators are being built with long life spans in mind, as the Amish build things that they will use hard and last for a very long time.
Fire boxes are larger and built using heaver grates and thicker sidewalls than other factory built units. Fire boxes also come lined with fire brick for a longer firebox life span.
We expected to find a dark shop, with antiquated equipment. To our surprise we found a modern factory with the most modern equipment that was built just in 2009.
While the evaporators featured on the Cottage Craft Works website are geared more to the hobby farm and small commercial producer, larger commercial sized evaporators like the one we saw in operation are also available.
Hobby sized evaporators range in size from a 2 X 3- 35 tap 10 Gallon per Hour model, to a 2 X 6- 250 tap 35 Gallons per hour. Prices range from $1495 to $3600. Fairly competitive to others on the market.
Probably the best buy for the large hobby/small commercial producer is the Sunrise 2 X 6 Spitfire model. It is designed to handle up to 250 taps. It’s a wood fired cooker with a 2 x 2 flat finishing pan and a 4 x 4 flue pan.
Overall cooking surface is 9088 sq inches. The 2 x 6 Spitfire will process approximately 35 gal of syrup per hour.
The flue pans built by Sunrise are also of exceptional quality. The 2 X 6 Spitfire flue pan is built with 8” deep flues. This provides additional cooking surface, which means the Sunrise Evaporators are very efficient. The 2 X 6 Spitfire has an overall cooking surface of 9088 sq inches.
Building this type of flue pan using heavy gauge Stainless Steel is probably one of the key attributes of the Sunrise Evaporators. It’s very expensive and labor intensive to build a flue pan this way, but again the Amish don’t build things to just sell they build things to use and last.
Gas fired hobby finishers are also available in both a two and three burner models. Sunrise also makes Stainless filtering tanks, finishing pans, scoops and skimmers.
Sunrise makes their own unique heavy stainless sap bag holder. They are easy to use and keeps the top closed for less rainwater and debris to enter during the sap collection process.
Working closely with the Amish cottage based industries, for the past 30 years Cottage Craft Works has developed an online general store filled with hard to find Amish products.
No Boil Maple Syrup Finishing Cooker
One of the most difficult processes in making quality maple syrup comes down to the finishing process. Maintaining maple syrup just below the boiling point throughout the finishing process is part skill and part the right equipment.
Maintaining even heat without hot spots in large cooking pans is the most difficult. Most cookers using single pans will concentrate the heat right over the top of the burners leaving a high potential for that area to succeed the boiling point while the rest of the batch doesn't.
Even the most experienced maple syrup processors fear the dreaded sugar sand. Sugar sand occurs when the maple syrup is allowed to boil during the finishing process. Sugar sand is like honey that has sat on the pantry shelf too long and turned to sugar.
The creative Amish at Sunrise has developed a no boil maple syrup finishing cooker in two models to fit on top of a two or three burner LP Gas stove.
The cooker uses a double wall water jacket stainless cooking pan that can be filled with water. Much like a double stove top boiler used to make candy or melt wax for canning the water may reach boiling the point but the contents inside will never boil.
These cookers can be used on a camp style LP gas cooker or Sunrise makes a complete portable stainless steel cooking stand that is easy to knock down and assemble.
These professional LP cookers can also be used for other outdoor cooking and the double wall pan can be used for other cooking applications.
These cookers will also process small batches of maple syrup for the small hobby and individual family. The process just takes longer than firing over a wood fired cooker and then using a finish cooker to finalize the process.
No boil finishing pans are also available through Cottage Craft Works .com
Cottage Craft works is a unique back to basics store featuring many Amish made products from across the many Amish communities. Many of these products are difficult to find.
