2011 Spring Harvest

[Amber Gold]

Again, the season's early...sure wish I had another weekend to get ready. I could use it to get everything tested before I tap in. I made some changes to the evap. over the weekend and would like to test fire it before it's full of concentrate. The RO's not even had a test run, and it won't before I tap in, so hopefully that goes without a hitch....cross my fingers.

This season, there's been some significant improvements. I opened up a high production (I hope) new woods of 600 taps. This is all done by the book so we'll see if I can get 0.5gpt (my goal). I'll also be able to salvage about 60 taps of my old woods, but those will all be on gravity.

Looking at the extended forecast and it looks like I'll be making syrup this weekend if everything goes well.

[Dill]

So you ended up tapping? What happened to "This is way too early I'm not going to jump until the presidents weekend?"

[Russell Lampron]

Good luck with your new woods and all of the improvements. It always seems like you could use one more week to get ready.

[Sugarmaker]

Josh,
You have put a lot of work in to the new woods and I am sure you will get the 1/2 gallon of syrup per tap.
Hope your season is good!
Chris

[red maples]

Hey there it is!!! was waitin' for the spring harvest thread!!!

That would be great if you hit that .5 gpt!!! Not knowing what was going to happen next, a few months ago...and all the work you did this year!!! and for the rotten season last year.( with the exception of russ). you deserve it (well we all do for that matter!!)

Good luck on the 2011 season!!!

[Amber Gold]

I went out tonight after dinner and got 220'ish taps in. In my travels I found one tree I missed a drop on and another which needs another drop...shame on me...this will be fixed tomorrow. It was actually pretty nice out. About 12F w/ minimal wind, beautiful clear sky, and a 3/4 moon.

Skipping work tomorrow and heading out early to hopefully get the rest in by noon so I can spend the afternoon checking for vac. leaks. Hopefully get the membranes flushed tomorrow night if all goes well.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh like you I took today off from work. Going to hook up the releaser and fix the known vacuum leaks. Hopefully things will thaw out enough to get a run tomorrow and Friday. I would like to boil Saturday if I get enough sap.

[Amber Gold]

Busy two days, but it paid off. After tapping Tuesday night, I got up early and got back at it Wednesday morning. I got two more mainlines tapped out by 12 pm for ~530 taps total. One last mainline to do either tonight or Saturday morning and that couple with misc. taps I need to put drops in for and such should yield about 600. After getting the taps in, I got the vac. pump running and the cooling line from the sucking water. Got down to the releaser and pulling 27" w/ everything closed. Went into the woods and went down each mainline to fix leaks and got one line to 26.5", another to 25", and another to 24"...pretty psyched because I was shooting for 15" or better. I went up to the vac. pump to check on it before I left and the bucket with the cooling line stuck into it in the pond froze up or something because it was no longer sucking water...pulled it out and stuck the line straight into the pond. Checked on things this morning and the cooling line froze up and the storage tank was like bath water and only pulling 22". Hopefully things thawed out and I got cooling water today.

Tonight, I'm flushing the membranes and hauling sap to leave enough room for tomorrow's 5gpd run...

It's looking like the sap should run through Friday night then shut down through the end of next week. Like Russ, I'm glad to get tapped in time for this run to get the bugs worked out before the season really starts.

[Dill]

Can you make that cooling line circulate faster to prevent freeze ups? Or insulate it some how?

[red maples]

Josh 5gpd....Gallon per day????

How much sap did you get today???

Yes this is a perfect time to work out bugs. I am just counting this as a test run ....run!!!


I am just trying to fine toon the sap lift. I ended up rebuilding the top and the bottom with PVC. Why? Ah just trying to get it to be as effective as possible. 23" at the releaser and 18.5" out at the end of 1 line so pretty good vac transfer. but its still favoring 1 side lots of power on that 1 side shoots it straight through to the other side!!! I don't think the trees are running that good yet. So it was working better with 1 side shut down.

I'll get there!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Josh my phone battery died. What did you find with your tank leak? Be sure and test your permeate when you start concentrating. I am thinking that you will be passing sugar without those O rings at the bottom of the membranes. I know that mine has one because I always have a hard time getting the U cup over it.

Brad that is the way that my 2 pipe ladder worked. One leg would fill part way with sap while the other side would shoot right up. The side that wasn't shooting up would fill about 1/3 of the way then shoot up to the top. The heavier the sap flow the faster it would fill and shoot up. I don't know if you have a cfm issue or what is going on but I only lost an inch of vacuum through mine even with introducing a small vacuum leak.

[Amber Gold]

That's funny because mine died too. I'm going to post a question to see what size those o-rings are. I definitely don't remember seeing them. Are they top and bottom or just bottom? I'm going to look inside the tank now and see why it's leaking. The only thing I've done with it since last season was jacked it up and put some blocks under it, but I didn't hear the tank straining when I did it...don't know but hopefully it's an easy fix. Can I still run it without the o-rings and just live with passing sugar? Depending on my woods tank volume, I'm planning on boiling tomorrow night. Unless the tank leak is an easy fix, I'm just going to put sap in there as the RO needs it and send it through the RO in a single pass

[red maples]

See that more good reason why this early little bit of warm is good to work out the bugs!!!

I don't know russ I will check more today. It might be a cfm issue. its only a bb2 maybe might looking to an sp22 for next year(thats what you have right?). but it will have to do for this year. I think I might have fixed the problem a little the release valve back at the pump was open too much. but I haven't been out to the end, but will be back out there today to see if that made a difference.

[Amber Gold]

Brad, when I had it the lift always favored one side vs. the other. I thought I was able to get better vac. transfer to the bottom though. How tall is your lift.

Went to the woods this morning and got about 400 gal of sap in the tank...~0.75gpt. Things froze up last night, which is weird because I'm pretty sure it was 40F at my house and the property owner said his was 30F and we're only about 3 miles apart. I got the cooling line figured out. The issue was the feed coming from the tank is a 1" valve and it was taking all of the water from that line and not the cooling line. I closed valve about halfway and it started sucking cooling water immediately...cool.

After the RO drained the bulk tank, I went in there to look for leaks and couldn't find anything...no cracks in the stainless, all the seams look good. The odd thing is it's coming out of the cooling inlet/outlet lines, and I watched the liquid level over time and it was definitely dropping. Don't know, but hopefully I can figure it out this weekend because it's my only sap storage at the SH.

I spoke the previous owner of the RO this morning and he thought the o-rings went with it, but I couldn't find them. He's going to look in his SH tonight.

To date, the woods are working good and the SH end of things needs work. Fortunately I have a long weekend to figure it out.

[Russell Lampron]

The O rings are special ones with a tapered edge. Raw sap will go right past the U cup if they aren't there.

With the tank empty try blocking one cooling line and forcing water through the other one with a hose to see where the water leaks into the tank.

[red maples]

Its about 6 feet now. But its working much better as the trees are flowing better too. Vac transfer is better now 23" @ the releaser and 21.25" att he end of the longest branch. I'll take that its only 1.75" loss.

Sap was moving much better today!!! was actually running not too bad for about 2 hours this afternoon. before the wind kicked up!!! good old seacoast!!!

[SSFLLC]

Brad what did you get for sap.

[Amber Gold]

What a busy few days. Saps been running good...even today. I picked up 375 gal last night which was used to get the RO going. We picked up another 450 gal mid-day, then finished the day with the last 150 gal...all told 975 gal or almost 2gpt since Wednesday...pretty cool first run.

Russ came over and got my RO straightened out and water just disappearing...it was amazing watching the permeate tank fill up with water I didn't have to boil off...like magic.

Also, thanks to Russ, the leak in my storage tank is located and temporarily fixed with duct tape. The bottom of the tank has a perforated section (don't ask me why) and some of them had pin hole leaks. I'll be getting some kind of food grade caulking/sealant to permanently fix them.

So the RO spent all day removing water while I hung out in the house, collected sap, checked for vac. leaks...everything but boiling. Finally got around to that around 7:30 and filled the evap. and 30 gal in the feed tank w/ 9% then switched it back to recirc'ing while we got the evap going. By the time the feed tank ran out, the concentrate was up to 11% and I was dumping ~80 gph into the feed tank and it wasn't filling up...but my evap's only supposed to do 60-65 gph so how does this happen?? Made some changes to the arch which seemed to have worked and the preheater's not hooked up so I may hit 90 gph?? I'm boiling tomorrow to finish off the sap, so these unexpectedly high numbers will be verified.

Oh and I almost forgot. Two years running, I have burned the syrup pan on the first boil. Now that it's out of my system, I should be all set for the season. Basically, the season's two weeks early and not everything was ready, so while boiling I was running around doing other things and checking on the RO, feed tank, and etc. Oh well. Fortunately it was caught in time and the burn spot should clean up pretty easy. Also the syrup tastes fine and may be salvageble. I'm going to boil it down in a turkey fryer and see how it comes out.

Also, sap content is 2.2%...I've never seen more than 1.8%...doesn't SSC get higher as the season warms up a bit??

[red maples]

Awe-some Josh...things can only get better from here!!! But sounds like your really on your way. Once you get a system I am sure you will be fine!!! Seems like those nice big trees make a a heck of a difference from te younger trees in your old bush. OH nice website by the way... REALLY NICE!!! I am jelous!

Keith I got a total of 150 gallons of sap. Sugar content pretty low for me I didn't measure but I am guessing 1.5-1.75 some where in there. Trees really started going good friday afternoon. That Ice ring around the trunk was really starting to let go.FINALLY!! for about 2-3 hours then really shut down from the cold and wind but I still managed a few more gallons of sap on the over night and sat even though the temps were hovering around freezing...sun was warm!!! Was happy to be boiling with the kids again!!!

[Amber Gold]

Everything came together on Sunday. I had 300 gal of sap delivered to the SH and dumped it in my bulk tank with the leftover concentrate from Sat.'s fiasco. Started the RO up at 3pm and was boiling by 7pm and had about 140 gal of 7%. Re-sweetened the syrup pan and still made 5-6 gal of syrup...will know once it's bottled. It's currently hung up in the flat filters. I forgot to moisten them before I dumped syrup in and the syrup wouldn't go through the filters. Once I get the press running, I'll re-heat it and filter it all at once.

Boiling concentrate is something else. I got a 2 gal pull, 5 min. later another 2 gal pull and shortly after another gal or so...it just wouldn't stop and because the filters weren't working, I was running out of places to put it. Unfortunately, after that I ran out of sap and had to shut it down. Now I've got another problem...I need more sap. Having 600 gal of raw sap is just enough for me to get the evap. warmed up before I shut down...time to find another woods.

Yesterday, I walked the woods again tightening up vac. leaks and tapped in the last mainline. All told, I have 586 taps I think. While walking the woods, I did find 3-4 laterals I missed which will get me over 600. Those will be going in this weekend.

It looks like the sap will start to flow on Thursday with good weather through the extended forecast.

[Amber Gold]

Now why did I rush to get all my trees tapped last week only to sit around waiting for the weather to break...

[red maples]

peer pressure. :rolleyes: All your friends were doing it!!! :D Naahhhh... I was thinking the same thing yesterday!!!! I thought it was gonna start early like last year and wanted to be ready!!!!

I hope that the check valves claim to run good late in the season pays off.

I have another 20 gallons of sap I got yesterday I think I am just gonna do a quick fire bring to a boil and shut it down just to keep things fresh and kill any bacteria that might be hanging around in the evap.

and the good things that came out of it....

Found the pin holes in the tank, got the burning of the syrup pan out of the way, got a chance to play around with the new RO, and once you get the hood/preheater up unless you already did that then hey it was worth it!!!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Josh - Sounds to me you got it about right. A week early is far better than a week late. Now it all depends on our very local temps in March. Bruce

[Amber Gold]

Bruce, as you know that was the problem with last season. The season came early and stayed early whereas this year we got an early thaw then it froze back up to normal Feb. temps. I'm happy though because I've made some syrup and it's giving me a chance to get the bugs worked out.

Peer pressure's a bad thing...makes you do things you really don't want to.

Well, the end of last week I was able to collect 180 of 2.3% sap...wish I had this stuff last season when I didn't have the RO. My old woods was ~1.5%. On Friday, a friend brought over 300 gal of sap and we concentrated it to 6% and made 18.5 gal of DA syrup. Things went more smoothly this time. The first draw was very large and hard to manage because I was making syrup in three compartments at once. I added water to the middle channels as I was drawing off trying to keep the temp's from spiking like last time and it worked well. If this is going to happen every time, I wonder if there's a better way to handle the first draw?? After the first big slug, a gradient was established and things worked well...started drawing off a touch light and modulated the drawoff stream to keep it from spiking. I didn't have the filter press working yet and the flat filters were doing all they could to handle the amount of syrup per hour. The niter content seems high. We put ~15 gal through the filters and used 12 prefilters...can't wait to boil with the press...into a dumping station, through the press, and into a drum or canner

It looks like things might break for this week. Crossing my fingers.

[Hop Kiln Road]

1st run start dates for the past 5 years:

3/9/2006
3/3/2007
3/4/2008
3/6/2009
2/27/2010 (Well, that was when I got it figured out and mobilized.)

So the weather looks normal to me. Great Snow pack!

[Amber Gold]

Bruce, your dates are pretty consistent. In those years, could you have tapped earlier if you wanted to?

Here are my dates:
2009 tapped 2/24, first boil on 2/28, boiled consistently starting 3/8
2010 tapped 2/19, first boil on 2/21, boiled consisntely from the start
2011 tapped 2/16, first boil on 2/19, boil consistently ??

Unfortunately, I don't have the number of years you do, but maybe things aren't starting up late if they'll get going this weekend.

Over the weekend I forgot to mention I added some more laterals in on trees I missed, so my tap count is now 597. I think there's a few more out there, just need to find them again. When I walk in the woods, I need to have flagging tape with me.

When everything's frozen, I'm pulling ~26" and when the trees are running I'm about 22". I need to be out there when the trees are running so I can find where those leaks are. Maybe I can leave work a bit early today to catch some daylight. I know where two of the leaks are. One is on a new reducing tee which I don't have an extra of. I've tightened it up and it still leaks. The other is the top of the releaser where the pipe fits into the center of the top releaser cover. The vac. pipe is putting too much torque on it and opening up a slight leak.

[red maples]

Yeah I guess your right normal. I know I didn't want to miss anything if it kept going!!! just excited to get going...just like everyone else. Josh, you gotta hit that 600 mark!!!

[Amber Gold]

Even though I tapped early, I'm not worried about my season ending early and should go into April.

Yesterday I walked the woods looking for vac. leaks and I found another drop I missed and two more trees which should be tapped so that'll get me to 600! I'm sure I'll find more as I spend more time in the woods.

The 10 day forecast looks real good and this weekend in particular.

[Dill]

Let me tell you what its a cold 40 in the woods right now. Its just trickling into the releaser and barely dripping on gravity

[red maples]

yeah it was the same here!!! with that last batch of snow and rain and ice and snow and rain. I need a few days with nice warm sun to really get things going. got about 12 gallons of sap in the last 2 day out of the 26 gravity taps and they are in full sun. Got about 35 gallons out a the rest on vac.

Temp went from 42 to 35 in 1.5 hrs!!!

[SSFLLC]

Went from 37 here to 30 in about 15 minutes and its still snowing. We got about 10 gallons last 2 days. sugar seems to be very good so far 3%. If it holds like that I would really enjoy this year. Last year we boiled something like 80 to 1 from the middle of the season on. Good luck keeping up with the deluge coming this weekend. Keith

[Amber Gold]

Spent the day working in the woods and getting things tightened up. Things didn't start running till after 2pm. I came home for lunch and it was 40F in the woods, but 50F at the house 6 miles away (by car). The woods must be in a pocket because this isn't the first time I've noticed it being significantly colder than my house.

I picked up about 150 gal at 5:30 and still not all the trees are online yet. There's a section of red in a low area and they weren't doing anything.

The temp. at the house still reads almost 50. This should help the trees thaw out and hopefully salvage a good run this weekend.

[red maples]

thats seems to be the norm!!! trees here didn't really get going until after noon sometime as well. I actually put a thermometer in the woods and it was the same. 49-50 at the house but only 41* in the woods at tap hieght, and its only about 4-500 few hundred feet from the house!!!

[Amber Gold]

Been pretty busy. I got an additional 475 gal of sap on Sunday by noon time, put it and yesterday's 150 gal through the RO and boiled for 3.5 hrs and made a lot of syrup...guessing 15 gal. I got the dumping station w/ filter press hooked up and it worked slick. With this set up I could boil by myself with no problems. Things are coming together on the processing end.

Between Sunday afternoon and Monday night, we got an additional 600 gal of sap, which we processed Tuesday morning for a local nature camp. Again things went well and produced another 10-12 gal of syrup. Monday morning I found my vac. line froze. At some point it had sucked in a load of sap. I got out what I could, but had to leave for work. The line thawed out about mid-day Tuesday and I got the system back on line by 2pm. I also finally got a chance to do a vac. leak check with the sap running...started the day at 24" everywhere and finished at 27" w/ sap still running...mostly just taps pushed loose. Let's see if I can keep it there. I found my 8' spider lift works best with a slight leak. With no leak it was about 18", I cracked it open a touch and once all the sap went through (it was backed up for 10 min.) the vac. level was only 2-3 inches different. For my short 2' lift, the air leak isn't needed.

We got 350 gal of sap between Tuesday afternoon and all day yesterday, about 200 gal of which came from Tuesday. Boiling that tonight with today's run.

This weekend I'm adding a moisture trap to keep the vac. line from freezing again.

The end of the week and weekend are shaping up for some good runs. I'm going to need a lot more sap to reach my 0.5 gpt goal.

[red maples]

Josh you still breathing over there or drowning in sap?????

[Dill]

I think he's getting 600+ gallons a day even yesterday. Good thing his wife hauls during the day. It really takes a bite out of boiling time to haul first then boil.

[Amber Gold]

I've been drowning in sap...RO was running almost 24/7 through the Thursday through Sunday between concentrating, washing, and rinsing...full update coming at noon. Between boiling (actually not that much, but happening at night) and dealing with vac. problems, there's been little sleep.

[red maples]

well I am sure your getting one hell of a run today...I know I am relaser is dumping once every 3 minutes 26 gallons an hour!!!

[Amber Gold]

Glad to hear things are running well...hope my releaser's working properly...yesterday I started having problems with it hanging up.

Things have been pretty busy and I haven't had time to update my thread. So I'm going to summarize things, to date I've collected 4700 gal of sap (7gpt) and which should yield about 113 gal of syrup (0.19gpt) and have processed 2100 gal of sap from another producer and have burned about 2.5 chord of wood. So far, my numbers are almost as good as last year and I've burned 25% of the wood and it's only the first week. There's been misc. problems to deal with, notably sap in my vac. line giving me problems which isn't giving me the free time I thought I was going to have this year. I think I've lost almost 3 days of production from this problem...figure 1000 gal of sap there. This week's looking pretty good, but I'm not seeing a freeze up until this weekend which could be a problem, especially for maple weekend. I was really hoping to have 2000 gal of sap for the weekend so I could run the RO and boil all day, but I doubt I'm going to get there. Hopefully I'll get 1000 gal through the weekend so I can run the evap. all day on raw sap...not as much fun.

From the deluge, I've collected about 2500 gal from Thursday night through Sunday or 1.2gpd, with the bulk of it coming on Friday and Sat....got as much as 500 gal in a 12 hr period.

Aside from the first batch of DA, all syrup's been a pretty consistent MA. Flavor is great this year as well.

Filter press is working, (lifesaver by the way), but the pump's pretty tired and isn't moving liquid too quickly...sometime's my evap.'s making syrup as fast as I can run it through the press.

[Amber Gold]

Just got a report from Lisa that no vac. at releaser. Pumps running. She pulls the moisture trap off and only 1/4 full. Puts it back on and we're getting vac....don't get it, but I've missed say 3-4 hrs of what sounds like a great run. Vac./releaser have been very frustrating this year.

Forgot to mention that vac. pump tripped yesterday because of a voltage drop, so I missed all of yesterday's run as well.

[Meridian Maples]

Josh, what if you where to put the dry line coming out of your releaser going straight up approx 30' up on a tree and then down going to the vacuum pump. A friend of mine had a home made type tower releaser he used that went up a tree approx 30', he said sap would only go up the line so high and it will drop. It would be a pain in the butt to put up though.

[red maples]

Sorry about the problems....always bugs to work out!!! poop happens I guess. but your getting some syrup so thats the good thing!!!

yeah I am a little worried about having enough sap this weekend too. start saving up sap tomorrow I guess and try to pack it with snow!!! If I can keep on hand 300 gallons I will just empty the syrup pan and keep that asside and fire it slow so I least I can be boiling sap and not water this year then also I can talk to people and not have to worry about things burning and stuff.

[3% Solution]

Brad,
I don't think your going to have to worry about that!!
Your going to have enough sap.
Just have fun.

[Ridgeland Farm]

Josh. I had the same problem. It ended up being a slug of water caught up in a dip in the vac line. I pulled it of my released then put it back and it was fine. Super run today almost 900 gal in 6 hrs on 775 taps!

[Amber Gold]

Even with problems with vac. system, I'm still getting about 1 gpt per day. Yesterday morning the moisture trap was empty and by 1:30 it was full. It couldn't have been shut down for too long because I still got an additional 250 gal from what was already in the tank. Check on things on my way home and things looked fine...sap's running hard and already had 200 gal in the tank since earlier's pickup.

Checked the tank this morning and moisture trap full again. Also only pulling 10" at the releaser so there must still be sap somewhere in the vac. line. Things did get below freezing last night so it should run good again. Tank is very full (not overflowing yet) so I got another 450 gal overnight. Will need to start the RO early to process all this sap, figuring another 1gpt today.

[Amber Gold]

Still picked up 1000 gal of sap yesterday and held it over for open house. Sap was coming in to the releaser crystal clear Friday morning and by that night's pickup it was pretty cloudy...amazing how quick it turns w/ 70F temps. Trees didn't freeze last like they were supposed to, but still in another 500 gal truckload tonight and left the tank w/ 100 gal and sap still running. I'm in the middle between having enough to start the RO and evap, or just the evap. I think I'll run it anyways and see where I end up. With yesterday's sap being so warm it was flying through the RO. I had to turn it down to an idle and crank it down so I was only pulling out 0.5gpm.

Today had an impressive turnout...surpassed all of last year's weekend. I'm estimating at least 500 people, and likely more. The pancake breakfast across the street was a big help for the early morning crowd and we had a better turnout that last year afterwards. Hopefully tomorrow goes well also. Last year we sold about 30 lbs of cream/candy and I think this year we may double it. Also, we almost ran out of syrup today and fortunately we were making some so we could bottle it to re-stock the shelves.

Due to yesterday's warm weather, we dropped down to a B syrup. This week's looking perfect so I'd expect to come back up to a dark amber.

[red maples]

where in the heck do all those folks find parking????!!!!

[Amber Gold]

Brad, they were parked on the lawn coming up the driveway. Also, in the morning they were coming across the street from the FD.

Today's turnout was almost as good as yesterday's...couldn't believe it. We thought we had bottled up enough syrup and sold out by 2pm. Unfortunatley we're not set up to bottle syrup while we're making it so it was hard to get the shelves re-stocked. Unfortunately I think we lost some business because of it. I'm estimating sales to be double of last years and at least 800 people over the weekend. I'm blown away by the turnout we had...never expected this much of an increase. Fortunately we had the help of my parents and a friend of ours.

Over the weekend, we got a groups from Isreal, Switzerland, and some grad. students from Guatemala and Spain...pretty cool.

I kind of like maple weekend better when it's next weekend because it signifies maple season almost being over for us. I'm exhausted now and still have tons of sap coming in. We've been making B syrup since yesterday afternoon, made more of it today, and picked up another 500 gal of sap tonight. Sap's coming into the releaser clear, but there was some leftover in the tank which has made it cloudy. Plan is to get the woods tank pumped out tomorrow and cleaned up so we can start making some DA again. Tomorrow the RO will be started up first thing to work through today's pickup and tomorrow morning. Need to boil super sweet concentrate to get the pans sweetened back up quick. We weren't sure if we'd have enough sap to run the RO, so we boiled raw sap. It made the day go a bit easier, but pretty boring going to back to raw.

[red maples]

Wow thats a HUGE turn out. Good for you though!!! thats really good. I was packed again today as well!!! and I ran out of syrup about 2pm as well. Yes long days I am beat!! and I gotta boil tomorrow. I think they need to move it back to the original weekend sap or no sap !!!!

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Brad. I was expecting an increase, but nowhere near as much as I got.

Overall, season's going well, just beat. Definitely could use a break which vacuum doesn't give to you. Season total is ~18gpt so I'm almost at my 20gpt goal which I'll reach this week. If I haven't had my vac. problems, I'd already be there. Sap's flowing well and typically getting >1gpt per day. Sugar's dropping off at ~1.6%...between what we've collected and has been delivered, we should've produced, by my calc's, ~270 gal of syrup so far, but we've only bottled 203 gal, not including what's in the pans...not sure where the rest of it went. I know my refractometer was out of calibration for a bit, but not by that much.

Grade dropped to a pretty dark B because of Friday's temps...boiling sap has a yeasty smell like it did 1/2 of last year...also foaming a lot. Cleaned the pans last night and two runs of fresh sap has pretty much worked things back up to a DA. It's amazing how much sap it takes to work all that crap out of your pans.

Just bought a diaphragm pump and it should be in today. Hopefully can get all the parts/pieces to get it hooked up tonight. It looks like today's run will get a late start, so I'll hold it over and boil everything tomorrow night.

[red maples]

yes a break would be good. I am not having the season you are but definitly heads and tails over last year!!! I still have this **** cold which is just dragging on...and on and on!!! and lack of sleep is not helping it go away.

Glad your season is turning out good for you. I am sure you will hit that 300 gallon mark weather is suppose to be in favor of sugaring 'til the end of the month.

You were right about the sap ladder not producing the large amounts of sap that you are getting. it has been good but not great. So I think I will keep the sap ladder in place for emergencies...(flooding) and raise the lines up a bit put in a lower tank and run a pump down to the lower tank. Then I will get more sap and still have the flood option of the ladder!!! and maybe add in a dry line to help things along, being that the slope will be less. Sometime when the season is over and I feel like maple again!!! I wanna come over and see you dry line set up.

[Amber Gold]

Since it's been a while, I'm going to summarize. We've collected over 12,000gal of sap so I've surpassed my 20gpt goal and expecting to reach 25gpt by the end of the week. We've produced 250'ish gallons of syrup, some of which is from delivered sap. We've been making a lot of MA this year, and have recently dipped into a DA. We did make some B from the warm spell we got. I cleaned the syrup pan yesterday in hopes of lightening things up, but I don't think it helped. We've already sold about 1/2 of what we did all of last year in total sales, so retail sales are off to a great start. Sugar content increased to 1.8% for a bit, but dropped back down to 1.6% yesterday and I'm not expecting it to go back up. Even with the cold weather over the weekend, we still managed to get ~0.75gpt for both days.

We've been boiling 11-12% concentrate, and aside from the first draw being pretty hairy, it's pretty smooth running. If I can stay on it, I can keep a steady stream going for quite a long time...sometimes I've noticed I'll make a bunch of syrup at once and will about drain 1/2 the syrup pan in a draw and have the syrup pan crash.

New diaphragm pump works great...definitely a great buy this year. The RO feed pump is starting to give me more problems. The pressure's getting harder to maintain, so I'm thinking it's not an undersize feed line and probable something wrong with the pump internals or the pump is just crapping out. Problem is the RO is usually running when I'm home so it makes it hard to take it apart.

This year has been a lot of late night boils, but I haven't been spending much time boiling...typically <3hrs...usually ~2hrs...I think I need to get a better system to process the sap more efficiently (new membranes would help), so I'm boiling by 6:30-7 and not 8'ish. I am concentrating more now, which is keeping my boil times less, but it's sometimes resulted in later start times.

Even with the frustrations and late nights I've had this year, I'm already considering how/where I'm going to be expanding next year. With how things are going so far, and what I think I see in the future, I expect to sell out of my crop this year and be buying syrup again. Crossing my fingers.

Brad, you're welcome to come over any time...it's working great although I think it may be a bit undersized for 600 taps and 2% pitch...heavy flows I get sap flowing in the dry line. Brad, if you can go with an electric releaser, or put a mechanical in w/ a dumping tank and just install a pump w/ a float to pump the tank into a larger tank. There isn't much vac. loss in the lift, it just takes a while to thaw out and I think freezer earlier?? You're other option would be a series of star lifts which work well...thaw out much quicker.

[eustis22]

newbie here, of course...so glad I found this forum....I saw the comment about running until the end of the month and am happy to hear that as I am still tapping and getting clear sap. I just wanted to confirm folks were still tapping.

[red maples]

Banner of year and we're still going!!!

Josh its up to you but if you would like to sell a 5 gallon blue container (wholesale price what ever that is) I am looking to buy 5 gallons of MA as I didn't get any... came really close but didn't make it. I can switch an empty one out with you. but we can figure that out after the season is over and get a chance to breath.

[Amber Gold]

Looked at my log book and we're up to 25 gpt of sap and have produced 250 gal of syrup...wow. If I hadn't lost those days due to vac. problems, I'd be at almost 30gpt right now and still looking at a weeks' worth of runs.

I had a fitting come apart on my wet line yesterday...one of those blue wye's. When I installed them I notice how short the barb section was and how small the barb's were and wondered how well they'd hold...guess I got my answer. Lost most of a days production before it was taped as a temporary fix until I could get home to put it back together. Still managed to get 600 gal of sap out of the day though.

Syrup's lightening up again...may be back to a MA.

[tuckermtn]

Josh- we have had two of the blue "y"s pull apart this season. We are going to switch them all over to stainless "y" s for next season. Larger barb section and better grab...plus less restriction.

Pricey, but when you figure what we lost this year in sap on the ground, it pays for itself...


Live and learn...

[PerryW]

Never liked those blue Y fittings for my black plastic mainline. They are a smaller diameter and slide on and off too easily. I got rid of all the blue fittings and used the regular white or grey barbed fittings you get at the hardware store.

[Amber Gold]

Eric, I was thinking of switching to stainless wye's and tee's when I come off the wet/dry lines. I figure the strength is needed there if a tree falls on them, plus the bigger barb size. Some of my wet/dry line needs a ladder and would hate to fix it mid-season if something happened. I figure I've lost 2-4 full days of sap production because of vac. problems, whether it's the pump, releaser, or the fitting coming apart. Things will need to change for next year.

Perry, I ordered them and didn't realize how small they were. If I did, I wouldn't have bothered with them.

Who's the best source for stainless fittings?

[Amber Gold]

Been getting about 1000 gal every day this week, except for Friday when we lost power for most of the day. Walked the woods this morning and pulling 25"+ now. Trees are running good.

We're up to about 28 gal of sap per tap and have produced ~310 gal of syrup. By my records, we should be closer to 375 gal, assuming 30 gal of syrup in the pans...not sure where the rest went, but the permeate is testing at 0% sugar.

[Amber Gold]

Wood supply has run out and I am splitting more. Season's still going strong, although a walk of the woods yesterday showed some trees have given up the fight. Back to pulling 25.5" at the releaser...found a hollow tree I had tapped. Even though I was still in good wood, the tree must've been hollow not too much further in. We picked up a 475 gal load yesterday at noon and another 475 gal load at 7pm. It didn't freeze at my house last night, but the woods is a bit colder so it might've there.

We dropped to a grade B Friday night and made 7.5 gal then and about the same today.

Looking at the extended forecast it looks like we might be able to go through this week, depending if we can get the night's to dip down a more than they show. The trees I've seen show no signs of budding yet.

[Dill]

I didn't get much of a run friday or yesterday. Hopefully something starts to flow today. Did it freeze last night?

[Russell Lampron]

It didn't run much here yesterday either even though it was down to 27 overnight. I started making light syrup Thursday and other than going back to dark Friday night I am back up to light. Friday's might have been light too but I saved some concentrate from Thursday and over flooded the flue pan when I shut early down because of exhaustion.

[Amber Gold]

Still been getting plenty of sap...~0.75gpt. Vac. line was froze most of Monday so didn't get much then, but still managed to get enough to boil 950 gal on Tuesday and 500+ gal yesterday. Syrup's picked up an off flavor. Could just barely taste it over the weekend, but has become stronger since. Not sure if it's buddiness (never made it before that I'm aware of) or burnt niter...unfortunately now I have about 25 gal of commercial. Syrup pan is pretty clean, but I haven't cleaned the flue pan at all this season and I wonder if it's from that. It's a PITA, but I may try pulling the hood and preheater tonight and inspecting flue pan. I have noticed the sap in the flue pan has gotten pretty dark.

We've produced in the neighborhood of 350 gal...far cry from the 83 gal I produced last season.

I'm still wondering when the season's going to end...it was low 20's this morning and the same predicted for tonight.

Russ, I agree, this season although it's great is wearing on me.

[Amber Gold]

Boiled off another 525 gal yesterday. Sugar's down to 1.4%, still not bad for being 7.5 weeks in. Woods tank this morning had ~300 gal in it so I'd imagine we'll have about 800 gal to process today. Looks like sap will be running tomorrow, maybe Sunday, then probably call it quits.

[Amber Gold]

Threw in the towel yesterday to spend time with family. Left 600 gal of 1% in the woods. Been making mersh all week anyways...syrup had a chocolaty type of off-flavor. Boiling off the pans tonight and pulling taps this weekend.

Great, record breaking year. More to follow.

[Amber Gold]

Should be going on a helicopter ride this weekend to find another woods to tap. I figure you can only see so much from the road and a copter will cover more area much faster. Mark out possible areas on a map, then find out the property owners. Hopefully I find a hidden jewel. Also noticing the others trees are starting to come online so hopefully the sugars still stand out a lot...should've thought of this last week.

[Amber Gold]

Had a good time on the ride but didn't a nice, big, beautiful sugar maple stand like I was hoping for. I did find some smaller pockets, which combined with some reds, might be OK. Time to track down the property owners and see what's really there. From the air, the sugars stand out like a sore thumb...impressive how much. In an hour we were able to get over the northern half of Barrington and parts of Strafford. I'm debating if I go back out and try to cover the southern half of Barrington. Need to make my decision soon though before the leaves get too dark. The reds could be picked out, but only up close because they look similar to oaks which have a orange color to their leaves. Overall it was a worthwhile trip because it allowed to confirm what's there/isn't there in a short period of time.

[red maples]

very interesting...I was waiting to see what came of your copter ride!!!

but your right its a challenge from the road driving around beacuse whats along the road is not ness. whats in the woods. there are lots of huge road side maples everywhere but you might have a grown in pine/oak forest 100 feet back which is not worth anything. Its hard to find good maple orchards around because southern NH was basically clear cut for pasture back in the 40's and 50's when timber was at a premium!!! Excellent idea though!!!

[Amber Gold]

It is a good idea, but I can't take credit for it. A friend is a logger/farmer/sugarmaker and it was his idea.

Brad, like you said, you'll never see what's there from the street. My 600 tap woods, you'd never know it was there from the street. The 2500 tap woods I was looking at last year started 0.5 miles in the woods.