Steaming drill bits in Andover- 2013

[tuckermtn]

Had to start somewhere- Kat and Mark drilled the first 200+ taps in at Hattans this afternoon- Mark in his boots and Kat on her tele skis making tracks through the sugarbush. I worked on washing the tank and setting up the new drain fitting. Should finish up tapping tomorrow and get the SP-22 turned on and releaser set.
Will fix leaks and get that bush tidied up before moving to set up some south facing 50 and 60 tap all 5/16ths runs. Shooting for 1500 taps this season and lots of helping hands...

[GeneralStark]

I'm glad to see that there are others that like to tap on skis. I'm hoping for more snow in the next week or so to have better ski tapping conditions.

There is a company in Michigan making these funky skis that are more like snowshoes that are great for using in a sugarbush. They are fat and short with a waxless base and can go pretty much anywhere. I have been using these more and more in the sugarbush.

http://marquette-backcountry.com/

Anyway, good luck with the season! I look forward to following your progress.

[tuckermtn]

415 taps in, vac running but only pulling 11" at the releaser. Sap not running very hard, think the releaser dumped twice in 2.5 hrs. Need to fix some leaks and a star fitting tomorrow...then shifting gears to running some long 5/16's.

After tomorrow, we have only one day above freezing in the 10 day forecast...I like the slow warm up way better than the full-tilt start we had last season.

[red maples]

Hey eric... I agree I have been running full speed (except for tonight) all week trying to get everything done. then a freeze up to work out any bugs and the relax a little I hope then right back at it when thing defrost again!!!

[tuckermtn]

chasing leaks yesterday but Kat finally got the vac levels back up to a respectable 23 at the releaser, 18 at the last gauge. Need to figure out if it is just the back gauge low or if there is a bigger issue. was running pretty well around 4, and still running when Heide and I checked at 8:30pm. Guessing we have 225 gallons off of the 415 taps there. will set up sugarhouse today and boil it in (no RO) tonight.

[tuckermtn]

Surprise run Saturday and we collected 400 gallons of 1.6% (total gathered so far- only 415 taps in). After most of the day getting things dialed in, we fired up at 5pm. Sweeting the pans with raw sap takes a good long time... Front pan was stuck at 214 for several hours then spiked when some foaming got away from us...so first boil of 2013, first burnt pan of 2013. Will drain it off today and asses the damage.

[Maplewalnut]

Opening day jitters, hope your pan scorch is minimal. We had the same thing here but caught it just in time. I need to re level the rig this week, our first draw was 4 gallons on a 2x6! Good luck Eric

[red maples]

OH NO!!!! well at least you got it out of the way early!!! and you can get caught up on it the next few days might get some sap on Tuesday!!!

[morningstarfarm]

Ouch...hope it's not too bad...good luck with it...

[Russell Lampron]

Sorry to hear about your pan scorching incident. Had a close call here last night too but caught it in time. Had the float valve stick on the front pan. Noticed it just by chance and got the sap flowing again before the level in the pan got too low.

[Amber Gold]

My goal this year...no burnt pan. We'll see if it happens. So far it's been a yearly ritual.

[tuckermtn]

Pan is pretty badly puckered and the burnt crap is being very stubborn. Have had it soaking in pretty strong pan cleaner since 2pm yesterday and still have some stubborn areas. Lots of elbow grease needed. Ordered a new pan from Bill Mason yesterday but not sure when it will be available, so trying to get this one atleast workable. Kat is now officially inducted to the burnt pan club that Mark and I are already members of...

Fortunately we have some cold weather for a bit of breathing room. Looks good toward end of the week and next weekend.

[tuckermtn]

Mark and I worked on tanks and plumbing today, while Kat got in another 300 taps. Approx. 700 in so far. Will have another 250 in by the weekend, then wait and see on the buckets...

Had vacuum on this afternoon, but not much running.

Looks hit or miss from Friday on...

Good luck to all getting things dialed in...

[red maples]

yeah really nothing running we still hit 40's but trees need time to recover and thaw from the deep freeze over the weekend. maybe Friday, then maybe mon/tues/wed maybe. We'll see I guess!! Hope your pan gets done quick!

[tuckermtn]

No real run today despite the 40deg temps and nice sun. Kat got lots of tanks cleaned, Mark worked on some new tank covers. My jack of all trades and detail oriented cousin Ben has been working on finally running some legitimate lighting (moisture tight and caged) and a few more outlets to the sugarhouse. Finally got the tank in the unimog.

Might have a line on a replacement syrup pan- Bill was too busy, so I think I located a factory second at Leader that will work.

Heading up to The Rocks estate tomorrow for the Intermediate Maple Workshop. Think the snow will hold off till after the workshop...

I thought we were pretty well set to get rolling early this year, but it always takes way longer than I think...

-Eric

[Russell Lampron]

Before the season started I thought that I was further behind than I really was. Everything came together right on schedule though.

Good luck with the new pan and hope you make it back before the big snow starts.

[Amber Gold]

Unimog...those things are cool! Great sap hauler.

[tuckermtn]

Was shake down day for the RO today. Started with 600 gals of raw sap, made 300 gals of permeate and dumped the concentrate. Then ran through 300 gals of water to rinse all the perservative out of the new XLEs. Late in the afternoon Mark and Kat each hauled in 200 gals and we started concentrating what was left for raw sap and then the additional 400 gals.

Boiling in a blizzard- Fired up the evaporator around 6:30 and shut down around 8:45. Drew off maybe 3-4 gallons.

getting used to the XLE flow rates and settings. Had the slightly faster NF270s previously. Was running 2.3 sap through at between 250 and 300 PSI, 6-7 GPM and making 1.5 GPM of 8.2% concentrate. 0 sugar passing as best I can tell with my Hanna refractometer.

Boiled on warped pan tonight, running deep. Tomorrow the plan is to swap out the warped one for the Leader 2nd we picked up last weekend.

Feeling like things are coming together here...hope everyone has an excellent season...

[tuckermtn]

been pretty straight out here in Andover. Continues to be the year of pan problems- this time a leak around the drain fitting in the flu pan. Fortunately it sugars over with burnt crap pretty quickly. Was thinking about pulling it off and getting repaired, but then I looked at the 10 day forecast.

Made 4 gallons out of the burnt stuff from the first boil, then we have made 48 gallons of good syrup. Don't have new grade set yet, but based on last years gade set it is borderline light. Have another 20 in the canner that I hope to get to this morning.

We had an unexpected good run yesterday. 37-38 deg with a NW wind and it was running pretty well. Not sure if we will get much today as is snowing and about 29 here at the house.

MArk and Kat have been putting in a lot of time and have made all the difference this season. Thanks to Parker for the pump and sap help. Also getting some drop in help from neighbors as well.

I enjoy the busy, productive nature of sugaring, but to me there is a community, social aspect of it that I also enjoy a great deal. Kat's boyfriend stopped over to hang out last night as we were boiling and he brought along his banjo- blower blowing, evaporator boiling, beer-drinking and banjo picking seemed to all fit together pretty nicely...

Need to do some jugging and clean up around the sugarhouse- have some visitors coming tomorrow afternoon. Time to clean up the beer cans and burnt sugar...

- good luck to all in The Maple Nation...

[R A Powers]

Eric, Sounds like you burnt a pan, sorry bud. You were just telling me how hot the new arch was at the PO the other day. Dick

[R A Powers]

Eric, I just scrolled back ans saw where you burnt the pan and you talked about buying a new one from Bill Mason. I'm don''t know who that is. I am looking for a new flue pan for my old lightning and haven't been able to find a 2x3 flue pan. is this guy local? Dick

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Hey Eric,
My first boil of the season was Friday, burnt the pans on the first batch... They are salvageable. Spent yesterday cleaning them and will finish Fridays boil as soon as the pipes thaw out. Looks like things will start for real here on Tuesday.
I would love a banjo picker in my sugar house!
Doug

[tuckermtn]

Dick- Bill Mason is just over the line in Porter Maine. Excellent welder. Very busy man, but very good quality and reasonibly priced. http://www.wfmasonwelding.com/

We have been boiling on the puckered pan the last few days and things seem to be going okay. Running pretty deep, but making borderline light and wicked good tasting syrup so hesitant to rock the boat.

Now I have a back-up pan if we ever burn this one again...

[R A Powers]

Thanks, I found his web site and sent him an e-mail about a replacement for my flue pan. I think we are going to tap this afternoon and tomorrow we are going to run a new line to get us back up to 55 or 60 taps. As you said yesterday it's more of a social thing for me. I don't sell any, just use it for gifts and split it up with the people that help so we don't push to hard. I'm 67 and Butch is 66 so we can't push to hard anymore, lol. Thanks for the info. Dick

[tuckermtn]

Been a crazy 3-4 days for us. Had a very full sugarhouse on Monday after the tapping ceremony, but still managed to make a good haul of syrup that afternoon/evening. Took Tuesday off from boiling to fix the sagging door on the front of the arch- closes way easier now. So we started yesterday with 975 gals of 2.1% and then Mark hauled in another 975. Heide and Kat did buckets and some of the smaller tubing runs for another 800 gallons. Started recirculating at 1:30, Kat fired up at 3:30 and was boiling 13.2% to begin with. Made over 40 gal. of syrup by 9pm.

We are up to 140+ gallons, more than 1/2 of what we made all last year. For what has been filtered and graded, its 50 gal. of light and 50 of medium. the 40 in the canners looks to be medium or borderline dark.

We will boil the 800 we didn't get to last night today and we probably still have another 750 to pick up.

10 day forecast looks excellent after today...bring it on...

good luck to all of Maple Nation

[Russell Lampron]

Sounds like you are doing good over there too. The sap has been running when it shouldn't here and it's starting to look like the year before last.

[red maples]

Go Eric...Geez. we have been too warm at night here although it is 32* and snowing and sap is coming in good????

[tuckermtn]

right around 1200 gal trucked in today, but mostly left-overs from Tuesday and Wednesdays runs. 34 and snowing, but we still had a minor run today. Made another 33+/- gals tonight, and the stuff we put in the barrel tonight was still light. Heide says to me tonight "I hope your going to make some dark soon." I said "don't worry about that..."

[tuckermtn]

Had a very good run here yesterday. Had 6 German families staying at the Inn at the bottom of the hill help with emptying the buckets on the lower part of Maple St yesterday morning. Buckets averaged 3 gal each, and when we tested the whole load of 200 gals from those buckets it was 3.8%. That is why we still tap buckets...

All told we hauled in over 1800 gallons and still have 450 in Putney.

Most things are working as they should except for my filter press. Wicked slow and surging. Will pull apart pump and piping today and see if we can figure it out.

Hoping for another good run today. Plan on putting the "Boiling today" signs out on Rt 11 mid-day to see if we can sell some syrup.

think we are up to 200 gallons, but we have 50 or so in the canners since the press is so slow...

Good luck to all in Maple Nation- forecast looks pretty dam good for the next 10 days...

[tuckermtn]

lots of help around the sugarhouse the last few days. Figured the filter press problem was the new oberdorfer that I installed last season crapped out on us. Cleaned and re-installed the one we took out two years ago and it is filtering better, but still not like it should be. Thanks to Parker for letting us borrow his press to clear the back-log of 46 gallons on sunday evening.

Made our first dark of the season on Sunday on the Mason pan that had not been cleaned in 150 gallons. Swapped pan out and installed the new Leader front pan yesterday and the syrup we made yesterday was medium.

Only thing running for us still is a few buckets and our vacuum bushes. Hauled in 1100 gallons yesterday and about the same today.

up to 281 gallons filtered and finished, and with what we made today we will be a bit over 300. Last year's total was 270. Forecasting a nice freeze here Thursday. After that the ten-day looks pretty "sweet"

Good luck from the tired but satisfied Tucker Mountain Maple crew...

[Russell Lampron]

Glad to see that your season is going well too. We will be catching last seasons total soon. Got a decent run and an unexpected freeze last night. The sap is pouring in. The report from home was 475 gals. pumped up at 10:00 this morning.

[tuckermtn]

Didn't gather on Wednesday, but pulled in 950 from our vac woods (we have 820 taps on vacuum) and boiled it in last night. Had a Merrimack County Cooperative Extension Advisory Council meeting in the sugarhouse last night which meant we made some pretty irregular density syrup. Distracted "driving" of the evaporator for sure...

Got cold (down to 15deg.) last night so didn't get much of a run today. Hope to get a quicker thaw tomorrow and can get enough to boil tomorrow. Up to 311 gallons jugged so far- making some nice Dark A now.

hoping for another two weeks- only half way to my goal of 600 gallons.

Keeping the faith in our corner of Maple Nation.

-Eric

[R A Powers]

First day of spring and it was 9 degrees here in Cilleyville. My lines and collection drums are all frozen solid. It looks a little better for the weekend but I'm starting to get a little discouraged. We haven't boiled since Monday the 11th. My wife wants to visit your sugar house this weekend if we don't have a decent run so we may be down. Keep the faith, Dick

[tuckermtn]

Well I think all of buzz around maple weekend helped us out with a great turnout yesterday. Steady traffic and steady sales. About $400 more in sales than our best single day so that is a good thing.

I think we boiled 250 gallons in 6 hours so just slowly chugging along. Just enough to make some steam and make it smell good. Sap ran a bit yesterday but we won't need to gather till late today or even tomorrow. Its already 32 here at 7:30am, so hoping for a good run today...

up to 350 gal so far. Guess we were making B yesterday since we were just limping along.

Good luck to everyone open for maple weekend today...if you boil it, they will come...

[Russell Lampron]

Well I think all of buzz around maple weekend helped us out with a great turnout yesterday. Steady traffic and steady sales. About $400 more in sales than our best single day so that is a good thing.

I think we boiled 250 gallons in 6 hours so just slowly chugging along. Just enough to make some steam and make it smell good. Sap ran a bit yesterday but we won't need to gather till late today or even tomorrow. Its already 32 here at 7:30am, so hoping for a good run today...

up to 350 gal so far. Guess we were making B yesterday since we were just limping along.

Good luck to everyone open for maple weekend today...if you boil it, they will come...

Good luck on your second day. We had a great turn out yesterday too with sales at $2 less than last years total for both days! It sucks that you don't have sap to boil. I've got enough to go about 3 hours here running a single pass through the RO.

[tuckermtn]

Mother Nature was very good to us on at least three levels yesterday. Fantastic weather encouraged folks to make the trek up our muddy and pot holed road yesterday. The sun meant folks could linger at the cookout the Heide and crew were running. And finally we had a very good run, so we can fire up this morning and make some syrup for real.

Sold out of cream and candy by noon-time, and much of the syrup Mark was canning yesterday went right out the door. Our total sales for the weekend doubled what we did last year...Lots of people had maple on the mind. The media coverage of Maple Weekend this year was excellent. Had folks from Ossipee, Hudson, and a cluster of folks from the Concord area stop in.

We have often donated syrup to local organizations for fundraising auctions and activities. This year we decided to donate $1 from ever quart or $4 from every gallon sold retail to the ALS Association (looking for cures for Lou Gehrig's Disease). Over $200 raised this weekend alone. See if they can prevent someone else from getting this disease...

We will fire up this morning in a little bit with 1200 gallons to start with and I expect we will bring in another 900 to 1000 gallons by mid-afternoon. Have a good friend Peter coming over to help Kat with the buckets this morning. Time to get the RO back up and running.

Forecast looks good for the next 6 or 7 days then touch and go for overnight freeze-ups after that.

Good luck to all in Maple Nation. Only one week till opening day for the Sox. To me it has been a good season when I can listen to the Sox in the Sugarhouse...

-Eric

[tuckermtn]

Two good gathering and afternoon boils the last two days. about 30 gallons of syrup per day. Up to 420 gallons of syrup. Moved from the grade B we made over maple weekend back up to dark on monday's boil and almost a medium from yesterday.

Have had more vacuum problems in last two days than we have had all season. Worst was moisture trap failed (hate the white PVC ones since you cannont see what is inside) and sucked sap in to the SP-22. Kat and I spent two + hours cleaning up the pink maple merange around the pump from the sap and ATF mix. Its back up and running today.

Had a good freeze last night and its a decent run so far today. Think we might take the day off from boiling and do some tank cleaning...

good luck to all in Maple Nation-

-Eric

[Russell Lampron]

We took last night off so that we could get some tank cleaning done. Back at it tonight though with yesterdays sap and some of todays.

[red maples]

We sold oput of stuff early as well. just a crazy crazy maple weekend!!! We never had so many people come through here. I still have standing orders to fill!!!

My daughter with help from my wife and my son make homemade bracelets and key chains and sell them durring maple weekend and this year they made $175 some people just donate money as well, and all the proceeds go to the NHSPCA, and I match what ever they make so we will be donating $350 this year!!! last year they made $125 so we donated $250. The sad thing is they have SOOOO many animals in there right now as people have to give up their pets because they just can't take care of them.

Glad to hear you had an outstanding weekend as well. Alot of compliments on the sweat shirt too. :)

[tuckermtn]

Clean tanks are now full tanks. Will start recirculating 1200 gallons on hand in the morning and then go gather the rest as the electric evaporator goes to work. Kat wants to make 50 gallons tomorrow. My bet is on 40.

[tuckermtn]

We were both wrong, but Kat was closer. Looks like Mark and Kat put together the best single day ever at TMM - 57 gallons from over 2500 gallons of sap.

I started recirculating at 8 am and Mark fired the evaporator at 10 am. Shut down at 7pm.

Pumps are fueled up for overnight...no boiling tomorrow, but instead hold some sap for weekend boil. Need to jug some syrup and restock the shelves.

[Amber Gold]

That's a big day on a 30x8! Biggest day for me was about 38 gallons in about 3.5 hrs off 1800 gal of sap...you smoked me. Hopefully the weather cools down a bit.

[tuckermtn]

Took Friday to clean things up and get some rest. Boiled both Saturday and Sunday, making 27 gal on Saturday and 30+ on Sunday. Lots of help from neighbors Chris and Heather on Sunday. Chris did a little unimog brake work, then hopped in the Tacoma and did a bucket run. Still getting 2.7% sap from the buckets. Woods are running around 1.7%. Heather jumped right in and despite not having ever running the evaporator before, after a short tutorial from Mark, she managed to run it expertly and made 30+ gallons and the density was spot-on.

Filtering and jugging tonight. Making B now. Up to 539.5 gallons, a new production record for us at TMM. With one or two more decent runs, we will reach my goal of 600 gallons. Since we have boiled a bunch of sap not from our own taps, once I factor that in, our per-tap averages will be close to our average of .33 gal/tap.

MArk and Kat plan on boiling tomorrow as I am heading up to Quebec tomorrow for a work related trip. If things wrap up early on Wednesday will likely stop at a few producers in NEK VT on my way back down.

Best of luck to all of Maple Nation who are still making some steam.

-Eric

[Ragged View]

Kat added about another 30 to that total today while I was mostly behind the wheel...

[tuckermtn]

1300 gallons of 1.7% sap on Thursday and 1100 gallons of 1.8% yesterday. KAt cleaned the pans on Thursday, and it looked like we were back to making B the last two boils. Been listening to the Sox the last few boils, so that means it has been a good season here. up to around 605 gallons so far. Plan is to do a final gather and boil tomorrow.

Best of luck to all still at it in Maple Nation...

-Eric

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Eric,
Things are winding down here as well. Making Borderline dark/B with good strong flavor but not any objectionable taste. Hard freeze last night and maybe down to 31 tonight and tomorrow night. Rain tomorrow and then a warm dry spell. Pumps starting now and will run til it stops. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. Have a bit over 2000 now and would love to hit the 2500 but afraid that is really stretching things. Most buckets have stopped. Wish my radio could get some ball games
Doug

[tuckermtn]

1100+ gallons from all taps today...last gather for us for the 2013 season. Didn't bother to check sugar content. Making C now. Mark gathered most of the tubing runs while Kat, Heather and my two daughters (13 and 11 yrs) did the final bucket run. I managed to jug up 25 gallons for a large order headed to North Carolina on Tuesday.

Sitting at 609 plus another 28 in the canner. With the sweet in the pans we should be close to 650. 200 gallons of that was made from not our sap, so it looks like we should be right around our .33 gpt average for the year.

supposed to be 70 on Tuesday- good day to start cleaning up.

-Eric

[tuckermtn]

surprised to get another 250 gallons this afternoon as Mark was pulling buckets and some of the shorter tubing runs. tested 1.9 so we fired up the evaporator and made another 15 gallons.

[tuckermtn]

640 gallons is our final tally. Could have probably squeeked a bit more out of the front pan, but wasn't interested in the mung on the bottom. With the exception of one batch, everything filtered well this year, especially once we went to the air diaphram pump Amber Gold recommended.

when you subtract the 200 gallons from not our sap, we had a slightly below average season with .31 gallons per tap.

Lots to figure out for next year. Looking forward to asking a ton of questions at the open houses toward the end of April. Not sure if we will try and re-tool for next year or just hang out at Mark's and be the filtering and finish guy for Ragged View farm...

Best of luck to those still at it.

-Eric