VICTOR, N.Y. — Maple Weekend, a series of two weekends to celebrate New York State’s maple syrup industry, kicks off on Saturday. Schoff’s Sugar Shack in Victor is gearing up to sell maple products, hold tastings, and show guests how maple syrup is made.

Schoff’s Sugar Shack makes and bottles 200 gallons of maple syrup every year, just a fraction of the 846,000 gallons of maple syrup produced in the state last year. Chris Schoff, the owner of the farm, showed News10NBC the process of making maple syrup, from filtration to bottling the syrup at over 180 °F. He explains that the evaporator boils out the water from the sap they collect from trees.

“As it gets thick enough and dark enough to the right density, it ends up being produced into pure maple syrup for your table,” Schoff said.

He says a good-sized maple tree can produce anywhere from a quart of syrup to a gallon of syrup in a year. For large that have been around for 100 years, they can produce over a gallon. The farm has 1,100 taps to get at their 200 gallons a year.

Schoff also explains how maple candy is made, which is created by boiling even more water out to maple syrup and pouring it into a mold so it solidifies. He said every maple syrup producer has unique products that they’ll showcase during Maple Weekend.

“Here the primary focus is on the syrup, the candy, and we make just a little bit of cream. You will find maple-flavored products, teas, coffees, peanuts, and popcorn at some of the other producers. You’ll find a little bit of something different everywhere,” Schoff said.

Maple Weekend takes place during the weekend of March 22 to 23 and March 29 to 30. More than 50 farms are participating. You can see a list of farms in the Finger Lakes region that are taking part here.

Schoff’s Sugar Shack on 1064 Willis Hill Road will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.