First draw.

[alsappo]

Collected 125 gals. yesterday from 225 taps with the bucket brigade. Boiled it to sweet, waiting for next warm-up.

[hfitch]

good deal : ) When you say boiled to sweet, do you boil down to 66 brix or however far you go then refridgerate it until you have more to filter and bottle?? Or do you freeze it? This is my first year doing syrup so you'll have to excuse my questions if they seem obvious to the veterans.

[alsappo]

I boiled it down so there 2"s of sap in my evap pan. I shut down the fire, pull all the plugs and float so they don't freeze, blow out my pre-heater coil, and just leave it set until the next boil.
This way the syrup is safe from spoil because I only do this when it turns cold enough to stop or delay the run. There's a little freezing but it has never hurt the pans. As soon as the run starts again we are a little ahead of the game on our first completed batch. This may not be recommended by the manufacturer, but I have had the same used arch & pans since 2000.