Sirop de Liège: a very, very fruity Belgian specialty!

It is neither jelly, nor jam, nor marmalade…No, the Vrai Sirop de Liège^® is a unique recipe full of fruit that was developed in 1937 with apples, pears, dates,… .

4 kilos of fresh fruit for 1 kilo of syrup!

We need about 4 kilos of fresh fruit (apples, pears, apricots, prunes, dates) to produce 1 kilo of Vrai Sirop de Liège® and no less than 7 kilos of fresh fruit to create its sugarless sister.

How to enjoy the Vrai Sirop de Liège^®?

• Deliciously simple on a slice of bread at any time of the day
• Accompanying a cheese platter, in line with the tradition that associates it to Herve cheese and fromage frais
• In your culinary creations: marinades, sauces, dressing, saladsand, last but not least, desserts.
• On pancakes and crêpes.

Explore the other fruit specialities that Siroperie Meurens has to offer.

Producing the Vrai Sirop de Liège®. Mixing fruit and tradition.

During high season, from mid September to early December, we use 150 to 200 tons of fruit a day.

The production of the Vrai Sirop de Liège^® consists of two phases:

• Producing the juice concentrate (during fruit season):
a. Cooking fruit
b. Extracting juice by pressing
c. Concentrating juice through evaporation
• Producing the finished goods (all year round)

Producing the juice concentrate

The production of the juice concentrate consists of 3 steps. During each step, every single fruit variety (apples, pears, dates, apricots, prunes) is processed separately.

Cooking fruit
The selected fruit is washed, crushed and stored in a kettle where it is cooked during an hour and a half. The exact cooking time depends on the variety and the ripeness of the fruit. We then obtain stewed fruit.
Extracting fruit by pressing
The stewed fruit is then pumped into fruit presses in order to extract its juice.
The obtained juice is stored in reservoirs, waiting to be poured into filters.
And what about the fruit pulp? Recycled of course! As a matter of fact, it is used as cattle food. All in all, we get around 12 kilo of pulp out of 100 kilo of fruit!

Concentrating juice through evaporation

•Through non-stop evaporation, we concentrate 15.000 liters of juice into more or less 2000 kilos of juice concentrate in only one hour.
•This juice concentrate is then cooled down to 15°C and pumped into stock tanks, that serve as a storehouse for the production of the finished goods all year round. The juice concentrate is stored at low temperatures (5 to 8°C).

Producing the finished goods

Pectin, one of apples’ main components, has important jellifying properties.

- The exact quantities of each component, determined by computer, are pumped into stock tanks and sent to the mixers.
- There we start the refining process : we send the obtained mix into refiners to bring to a boil. Any excessive water evaporates and leaves us with the right amount of concentrate needed for jellification.
- The syrup, cooled down to 65° C and still liquid, is then pumped into the filling machine that fill the 250 g, 300 g, 450 g and 900 g containers at the speed of 2.000 to 5.000 jars per hour, that is an average of 35.000 jars per day.
- These jars are put away onto a cooling tunnel immediately. The latter is 10m long, 5m wide and 3m high, and has 6 levels of vented conveyor belts. The tunnel progresses at very low speed: only 10m for every 3 hours, which allows slow-paced cooling down and perfect jellification of the syrup.
- At the end of the tunnel, the filled jars are sent to packaging where they are put into parcels, which are wrapped in plastic film and stored onto pallets, ready for dispatch.

Quality control
Every single operation is computer-controlled to guarantee constant quality.
Production details are saved and printed for the internal quality control department.