ADAMS — Maple syrup came in full force this year for Kevin Sathre and Josh Loecher, who recently put up a pipeline in a grove of maples north of Adams to expand their maple syrup collections.

With their seven miles of pipeline and 825 bags in about 18 acres of maple trees, Sathre and Loecher’s maple-tapping operation is growing fast and shows no signs of slowing. Sathre started by collecting 2,500 gallons of sap in 2014. He and Loecher collected 8,000 gallons over six weeks in 2015. This year, they surpassed 8,000 gallons in just over three days and have already taken in 21,650 gallons.

With roughly 2,300 taps on the pipeline they set up this February operations have boosted, as the sap simply goes from the trees to a pump house into a large tank.

“Basically, we ended up buying this wood mainly because of all the maple trees that were on the property, I guess, and the last few years we started doing more of a hobby, collecting the sap, making syrup,” Sathre, 35, said. “Then we kind of started growing, bought the property with all the trees on it, put a pipeline in it, and this is basically what it is.”

After collecting the syrup, they then bring the tank back to Sathre’s farm with a grain truck and put it through a cooking system. Even with the pipeline, the duo still put the 825 bags out on the trees this year to keep up with the sap flow.

Sathre started about three years ago when a friend came over and asked to tap some maple trees on his farm property.

“We started off on basically just a little bucket, and then we took an old incinerator, cut the top off and we made our own pan we could boil down about 30 gallons at a shot,” Sathre said.

Last year, Sathre bought more equipment to expand their operation. Now they have even more equipment, including a Reverse Osmosis machine, which takes more than half of the water out of the sap before it cooks and takes much of the work out of cooking the sap down, according to Sathre.

Sathre, along with the help of his family, started with about 100 buckets the first year, expanded to about 250 buckets the second year, and expanded to about 1,500 bags last year. With Sathre’s recent expansion, he asked Loecher, 24, to join him last year.

“He just asked me one day, like, ‘You want to go out and [collect sap]?’ and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that,’” Loecher said.

Loecher works in St. Ansgar, Iowa, at Spaceage Tool, and Sathre works as a farmer in Adams.

“It is [a lot of work] but it’s fun,” Loecher said. “There’s never a dull moment, there’s always something to do.”

The sap collected and cooked by Sathre and Loecher is then sold by the pound to Hering’s to be bottled and sold, either on shelves or to other places around the United STates or around the globe.

Despite the work and time that goes into making maple syrup, Sathre said it’s worth it.

“I’m a wildlife guy, I like being outdoors, and it’s just another reason to be out in the woods,” Sathre said.

He’s learned a lot, including the dedication needed to make maple syrup. He said the work has a way of running their lives during sap time, which goes on about five weeks depending on the weather that season.

“It is a lot of work, but it’s also rewarding what you get out of it,” he said.

Sathre and his wife, Jill — who helps during the season — also hope their two children, Addy and Beau, take away a lot from growing up with making maple syrup, including a strong work ethic.

“If they can do this, they’ll be able to do anything,” he said. “… You’ve got to be very dedicated, and if they can be dedicated to this, they can be dedicated to anything in the future.”

Sathre plans to continue the syrup operation in the future, and he hopes to eventually get certified to bottle and sell his own maple syrup instead of selling it to a larger company.

Kevin Sathre and Josh Loecher’s sap collections

•2,500 gallons in 2014

•8,000 gallons in 2015

•21,650 gallons so far in 2016