Bigsap warning 2012-13

[PATheron]

MAYDAY!!! MAYDAY!!!!BIGSAP!!!!BIGSAP!!!!- Just practicing up for season. Been working steady down here since season ended. Pretty pumped about season. Hookin up more trees, finetuning stuff around the shed, just a little of everything this year making things better. Think Im going to buy a trailer to haul my sap with this year behind my truck. Dad says he doesnt want to monkey with it and wants to just use the 425 in the truck but I dont think he understands what Ive been doing in the woods exactly. Like Parker says, Gotta WANNNN it! Theron

[lew]

Theron,

Don't mess around with a trailer. What a pain in the A$$. Why don't you buy my old sap truck instead. It's got a 1,500 gallon vacuum tank, V-345 engine, 2 speed rear end and is wanting to haul sap real bad.

[PATheron]

Lew- Is it airbrakes and such or is it more or less a simple truck? I wasnt sure what Id get into getting a truck like that. I was going to buy a 10,000 gvwr trailer and put a 1200 gallon tank on it and then have the 425 in the truck. I would like to be able to haul around 1200 or 1500 gallons. That would make season way easier. I think my one remote bush is probly going to run about 3000 gallons per day plus my other one does 1500 at onother pick up spot. Whats the year and make of the truck?

[220 maple]

Theeeeeron,
I have been waiting on the test of the BIG SAP WARNING system, I consider it a wake up call to get to the woods, time is running out, maple season is near.
Thanks.

Mark 220 Maple

[sirsapsalot]

Lew- Is it airbrakes and such or is it more or less a simple truck? I wasnt sure what Id get into getting a truck like that. I was going to buy a 10,000 gvwr trailer and put a 1200 gallon tank on it and then have the 425 in the truck. I would like to be able to haul around 1200 or 1500 gallons. That would make season way easier. I think my one remote bush is probly going to run about 3000 gallons per day plus my other one does 1500 at onother pick up spot. Whats the year and make of the truck?

Here is a nice 4000 gallon milk truck near the Ohio border..http://www.sugarbush.info/forums/showpost.php?p=13616&postcount=16

[PATheron]

Sapsalot- I think thats bigger than I want to do right now. It would be great though. I think If I could do 1500 gallons that would be pretty good. Id only be doing three or four trips a day and its real close to home. Theron

[tuckermtn]

not sure if its still available, but here is another option. http://www.commercialtrucktrader.com/find/listing/1973-Chevrolet-C65-104884308

[Amber Gold]

Now that's a sap hauler! Stainless tank to boot. Since it's for farm use, is a CDL -B required? It probably has a 500gpm pump...that'll suck those tanks dry.

[Maplewalnut]

Then fill it full of Pennslyvania fancy at the end of the year and back right up to Bruce's dock in that new building to unload!

[PATheron]

That truck would be so much fun. If I was rich Id buy that. Turn on the siren while your on your sap run. Theron

[tuckermtn]

just found out truck has been sold

[PATheron]

Mayday!!!! Mayday!!! Bigsap!!!!Bigsap!!!!- Friendly reminder from your emergency Bigsap System. Its going to get cold soon now. Good time to wash your sap tanks so you dont have to do it when its freezing cold in Feb and the water sticks to the tank and freezes as soon as it touches it. Its nice and warm now get everything clean. Also a good time to make repairs on your lines. Sure there will be more problems but the ones you have now arent going to fix themselves. Been doing all that kind of thing down here to Pierce and Sons as much as time allows. Changing some things at the shed to make things just a little bit nicer. Got to get ready for the big runs. Last year they came early have to be ready. Wish I could go to the auction today but have to work for the man. Hope everyone has a good time. Theron

[delivron]

Before hauling sap in a bulk tank without baffles make sure you understand the effect it will have on your vehicle.
Trying to stop thousands of pounds of liquid is a completely different experience then moving a solid object like a tractor.
Make sure you under stand what might happen with all that liquid sloshing around in the tank.

[sugarsand]

Before hauling sap in a bulk tank without baffles make sure you understand the effect it will have on your vehicle.
Trying to stop thousands of pounds of liquid is a completely different experience then moving a solid object like a tractor.
Make sure you under stand what might happen with all that liquid sloshing around in the tank.

delivron, you "re not wrong there. I use to haul chemical trailers and you have to be extra gentle in steering, ecellerating and extra extra careful with the brakes.

sugarsand

[PATheron]

MAYDAY!!! MAYDAY!!! BIGSAP!!!!BIGSAP!!!!- Need to practice up on my warning system for upcoming season. No big changes for us this year. Just trying to do a little better like usuall. Believe it or not been pretty steady in the woods since last season ended. Did put in about 1300 new taps for the season. No real changes in the sugarhouse as far as ro or evap. Making my releaser boxes and tanks better. Moving a releaser to capture all of a hill Ive been working on. Got to move a big tank for that bush. Tweeked out a smaller bush and need to install the pump and releaser there. Everything on electric vacuum this year so that will be nice. Just plugging away. Cleaning all my tanks up and covering them this week. Sounds like everyone else doing the same. Good luck to all. Theron

[noreast maple]

How many taps does that make you for your total count as of now theron? and what size evaporator and make do you have? by the way ,GREAT PICTURES , nice looking set up!!! will be waiting for that BIG SAP alert this year ,so keep practicing:lol:

[PATheron]

Noreast- I think all my photobucket pics are from when I kind of first started. This year I will be tapping 6000 taps. I have a 6 by 14 thunderbolt oil evaperator. For ro machines I have a two post cdl 900, and two piston pump ro machines I changed from one to two post machines. One of them is a 900 and one is a 1200. Im probly going to stick with that equipment for a while. Im always caniving to make my stuff bigger and better like everyone else. Ill be ready with the alerts but we have a while to go unless its like last winter. Theron

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e234/poultneyfiredog18/Sugaring/IMG_0839.jpg

heres me taking my 125 gal tank out of jeep, boy could i feel that sway back and forth when it was not full

[archerybs]

Flat Lander,

That picture is awesome!! Don't take this the wrong way but...that picture absolutely confirms your title of "Chumlee of the Trader". I love it!

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Flat Lander,

That picture is awesome!! Don't take this the wrong way but...that picture absolutely confirms your title of "Chumlee of the Trader". I love it!

Yea thanks, you can thank 3RD Gen for the name tag he came up with it a couple years ago.

[Randy Brutkoski]

Thats nothing, I have seen him wrestle with a wild turkey before.

[PATheron]

Chum- Thats a good idea for hauling your sap. Does it squat bad full? Theron

[Thad Blaisdell]

My thought was you can run the heat on full,,,,, preheater? maybe have something hitched to cigarette lighter?

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

Thats nothing, I have seen him wrestle with a wild turkey before.

hey dude you weren't supposed to saying anything about the wild turkey incident


Chum- Thats a good idea for hauling your sap. Does it squat bad full? Theron
ohh yea when I hit bumps in the road it hits the rubber stops on the rearend


My thought was you can run the heat on full,,,,, preheater? maybe have something hitched to cigarette lighter?
I actually took an inverter with a electric hot water element and slid it through the top and plugged it into the lighter. I think it was a little warmer when I got back to the sugar shack

[PATheron]

Really feel like Im wrapping up most of my big projects now before winter. Gonna spend rest of the week cleaning up the rest of my tanks. Gotta run a tank drain line down to a tank near the road maybe 150 yrds max. Need to install an sp22 at a small bush I have and hook up a simple releaser and run a wire to the pump. finish up some minor connection work on some of my new lines. Not too much left and what is left is easy. Looking foreward to an easy winter with minimal frozen fingers and just kind of tweek along till its time to tap. Wanna be ready for all the BIGSAP. Theron

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Glad to hear you're about caught up down there in the sunny south. I know where you can spend all your free time this winter freezing your fingers (and other appendages) off. Always something needs doing here in the North country:)

[PATheron]

Im sure Ill still be working every waking moment from now till season. Theres always so much to do that once you start wrapping things up finally it really makes you feel great thinking you might actually be ready for season. Two main things Im doing different now days is for one thing cleaning all the tanks before season and covering them. Nothing worse than trying to do it in february and have the water freeze to the tank as fast as you spray it on. Other thing is new taps go in in the warm too. Running mainline and doing all that stuff in freezing cold rain or wet snow stinks. Trying to work smarter. Ive actually been thinking it would be fun to come up and visit Doug if my buddy Wayside and I get a day that we can. Hes still got an overwelming amount of work to do. The only way we would probly be able to do it is well have to wait for him to just get sick of working on stuff and need a break for a day. Hes still got to set up a vacuum pump and releaser house, put in upwards of a thousand taps and build an ro room and hook up the ro. Im hoping if I get in a good spot I can help him with some of the tech work so he can get the woods work done. Hell be hanging tube with cold fingers. Theron

[Revi]

I am afraid that we are going to be hanging tubing with chilly fingers now. It's been raining every good weekend since the end of the summer, so I guess now is the time to get to it. Our kid is going to be in need of money soon, so work can commence. He's 17 and can be really helpful, so that's good. I have this idea of making natural vacuum happen with 3/16th tubing, and we have about 40 or 50 new taps we can put in. It is a fun experiment.

[PATheron]

ALERT!!!! ALERT!!!! BIGSAP!!!! BIGSAP!!!- Just kidding. Things chugging along at Pierce and Sons Maple Products. Nephew helping me other day wants me to change it to Pierce and Sons and Nephews. I told him Id change it to Pierce and Sons and Nephews and other various low functionings. I turned the pump off and we ended up with I think around 500 gallons on the fall gig. Gotta boil out the evap tomarrow night. Been working on another project last couple days. Did a trade deal and ended up with a bunch of 5/16 and got the bright idea Id run some gravity taps so to speak. Went over to a woods that Ive got vac taps in and decided to run some laterals up and down the hill where I want to tap next year right. We would run the lats up and down the hill which is vary steep. The average lateral has 15 taps and is 300' long believe it or not and then hooks in to a good vac line. So far weve hooked 650 trees up that way. Im hungry for sap and figure I have time to do that but dont have time to do it right so Ill get some production this year off it then next year Ill run the mainlines across the slope and Ill have them high performance like I want. So Im not really wasting anything. Its really fun to run line like that. Im tempted to get some more 5/16 and tap the whole mountain. Running mainline is such a drag. Think Itll do much more than gravity performance? Anyway gonna play with that next week or two then tapping everything in. Winters here now. Im going to go back to tapping where I left off with the fall stuff. Fix a line then tap it in till Im done. Then once the trees are really froze gonna ream all the fall stuff, thinking reaming will work really good that way. I used the Doctors checkvalves and see no sign of bacteria or anything anyway but anyhow thats what Im doing. Gotta wannnnnnn it like a famous sugarmaker once told me (Parker). Gonna try to break the 3000 gallon barrier this year and wannnnnn it bad. Theron

[Gary R]

Mr. Anonymous, great job on the fall syrup:) How many taps did you have on line for that? Have you thought about 3/16" laterals for the steep hills? Proctor has done some studies with it. It really produced well. I don't know what would happen if you hooked vacuum up to it later though. Good Luck!

[Jeff E]

Hey Theron,
Help me understand. Your tapping now, for sap runs in a couple of months? With the check valves and frozen trees, you dont have to worry about trees healing up and reducing the flow?
Others out there tapping real early?
I have always done the 'blitzkrieg' approach when sap starts running. If you dont loose much by tapping so early, why go nuts doing all that 18 hour tapping day stuff....

[PATheron]

Jeff- Nobody taps as early as me. I dont know if its a good idea or not. The fall taps are the checkvalves with quarter inch adapters. Im going to ream them to 5/16 once the tree is froe real hard. I dont know if they will dry up early becouse Ive never tried it. They might. I always tap everything in January down here as a norm. Its early for my area too but I just always do and it seems to work for me. I consider if the tree is froze that time does not count on the hole in my book. I will say other people make syrup in April down here and I usually dont so Im not sure whats better. I do know that last year I wouldnt have made half my crop had I not tapped in January. I dont recommend it to others becouse I dont know if it will work for them or not. I just tap when its froe and make sure if its over freezing the pump is running. In another week Ill probly start tapping for regular season. Maybe weekend after next. Years ago I tapped in january with buckets and they dried up so I think you have to be able to run the pump all the time to get away with it. Theron

[PATheron]

Update from Pierce and Sons and Nephews and other various low functionings- Me and the low functionings have hooked up 1200 sugarmaple trees in the last two weeks. Their all on a nice slope with long laterals but hook into vacuum lines. I guess I should call them gravity. Next year Ill put the mainline in to make them high performance and that will be that. That makes us 6000 vacuum taps and 1200 of the vac/gravity. Have some finishing up to do next two weeks or so then hopefully well be down to just the tapping. Cant wait for that. Want all the hard work done. Hoping for a big season. Bring on the sap. Theron

[Randy Brutkoski]

I could of swore that last year you said no matter what you were not, i repeat not add any taps and just fine tune your stuff you already had set up. I tell my wife the same thing the last couple of years and i add 1000 taps or so each year.

[shane hickey]

Very true randy but its addicting. The money good to.

[PATheron]

Randy- I just cant seem to stop. Whenever I can I go out and tinker around on my lines and any time I can get some money I just want to buy sapline. Tonight I actually started thinking that if we have a good year I might be pretty dang busy. Ive got two buddies that bring me sap too off around a 1000 taps each this year. One guy does a 1000 road side taps and the other guy has vacuum that I think will work pretty good so if the sap runs we should have lots. Cant wait. Shane- You used to have kind of an old different style ro machine, do you still use that or did you get something new with all the expansion? Just curious. Theron

[shane hickey]

Hey there patheron yes i got that ro to work and it worked great
Its just a little slow. I bought another one springtec 800 expandable
Cant wait to run. My goal this year is to come up with an auto matic
Filler that can barrels and will shut off when its full. Getting it to
Run like a grain dryer.

[Maplewalnut]

Theron- has your wife fully diagnosed the disease you have or just turned a blind eye? Looking good, keep adding trees and suck that whole hill of your dry of sap.

[MapleChaser]

Whats the longest you have boiled? I have a 5 by 16 thunder bolt and we will be at 5000 taps this year. My longest boil last year on 2200 taps was 1 hour process to 12%. Just curious. Can't wait for this year.

[MapleChaser]

I should of said Theron whats the longest you have boiled?

[PATheron]

Walnut- She has kind of turned a blind eye. I think shes just getting used to it more somehow. She thinks its retarded but keeps me off the streets. Chaser- Last year I had 4700 taps and we might boil 4 or 5 hours but it takes a little bit to get going and we really run the evaperator a good bit slower than it will go for sure. It has a reostat and we only run it two thirds or what I figure is 360 an hour. Seemed to be a good match for the ro and dad likes it there and he boils so that suits me. I have boiled with it all the way up and its really something. We were usually doing 15% and it was batching for me but I dont really know what Im doing like dad and when you get a draw you open the 1.5 inch valve all the way open and cross your fingers and eye up the garden hose and you dont close it for a while. If yours dont have a reostat you better have something handy that holds a bit of syrup. Dad can get a steady draw lots of times that just goes and goes, hes real good at it and I dont tell him how to do his work, Im just glad I helps me. Theron

[Thad Blaisdell]

Theron, what are you using for nozzles, I had the same problem until last year, went with a different nozzle, now I RO to 20% and crank out around 150 gph.

[PATheron]

Thad- I dont know what they are, I can check. Were pretty happy with it. I know it will do like your saying but Dad would have heart failure. Were happy with it for now. It runs efficiently and with our tap count its easy. If I keep hooking up trees we may have to. Ill find out about the nozzles. Theron

[mapleack]

Hey Theron, where are the big sap updates? Hope you're season's going well!