Spring Harvest 2014

[Amber Gold]

Official start of the 2014 for Spring Harvest Maple Farm.

Some changes this year. Installed an electric service at the tank, so I could move my vac. pump down to the releaser. Also switched to an electric releaser, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it works. It'll be nice to have the vac pump and releaser in one location and heated...hopefully a problem free year. The vac. pump is pulling cooling water downhill ~180' across the field from a stream...trying it out and hopefully it works. If not, I'll be putting a sump in. I think it'll work, but my only concern is it freezing if we get an extended cold period. Upgraded my evaporator to an 802Maple 2.5x8 arch with Dallaire pans and got the new H2O 600 RO running last week...can't wait to try them both out.

All tapped in as of yesterday. Should have about 850+ in at this point and still finding more taps to add which I'll be doing this weekend. The 18" of snow with a nice crust made getting around a lot harder. Borderline snowshoe weather, but didn't want to tripping on line with them. New vac. pump/releaser setup is working at least without the woods turned on. Hopefully the woods warms up enough to walk the woods before things start running this week. A lot of repair work this year. Something (guessing deer) either walking through laterals and breaking them or chewing them in half. Really slowed us down on Saturday.

The Dill's are still hauling sap to me this year, and they're adding on a bit as well. Got a call over the weekend, and another local wants to sell me sap as well...100-200 taps on buckets from the sounds of it. Total tap count TBD.

[tuckermtn]

Hey Josh - good to hear the update...best of luck dialing in all the new gear...hoping we might have enough to boil over the weekend?

hope you get .5 gal per tap or better...

[Dill]

I believe the plan for the first boil is friday. If the forecast holds I don't see why not. To say the snow has made tapping take longer is a bit of an understatement.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey it's good to see that you have finally started your 2014 thread Josh. We tapped without snowshoes Saturday and put them on Sunday. I wish I had used them Saturday too. I am also glad that we got all of the tubing tapped last weekend. We've got a lot more snow to deal with now.

[red maples]

Hey you finally got your thread started. congrats on all the new stuff.... new stuff is always fun but a lot of work getting it set up!!!!

[Amber Gold]

I've been thinking about starting the thread for a week or so, just never got around to it.

Russ, I agree. Tapping with all this new snow would not be even less fun. We got quite a bit over here

Brad, shiny stuff is nice.

[Russell Lampron]

Yes to the shiny stuff!!! I like stainless steel.

[Amber Gold]

Collected 1800 gal of sap and have ~200 gal in the woods tank. After spending the weekend in the woods, vac.'s up to 25". On the wood's end, everything working well except the moisture trap/vac. pump issue. Have some ideas to resolve that this week during the cold snap.

Boiled Sat. and Sunday night...~1000 gal both nights. The new RO is running real nice. Easy to operate and shiny stainless. Still trying to figure the new evap. out...runs completely different than a standard arch. I either get a good boil in the back pan and a foaming syrup or a good syrup pan and a lackluster flue pan. I do like the crossflow setup and this year my draws have been nice and steady with no temp spikes that I've been used to. Another issue I'm having is the flue pan float not maintaining a consistent liquid level. Having issues with it letting the liquid level get too low.

Goal for this week is get my digital box wired up (stack and syrup pan temps w/ low level alarm on the flue pan), the sugarhouse cleaned, my neighbors 60 gravity taps in, and add in rest of the new taps in the vac. woods.

[red maples]

Wow you just have awe-some trees!!!

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

1800 gallons?????!!!! Wow! That's all I've got, is Wow!

[Amber Gold]

Yeah...I'm not complaining. I've got about 500 gal in the tank from what I left in it from Sunday's pickup and what ran yesterday...wasn't expecting a run yesterday (~0.4gpt) otherwise I would've boiled it last night. Going to be cold in the SH tonight.

I got my magic box mostly working last night. The controllers turn on, but the syrup controller is reading in the 1200F range (haven't figured out how to calibrate it) and I haven't gotten the high temp. buzzer to work. Work on it this week.

[Amber Gold]

Collected 475 gal from Sunday night's and Monday's run. Squeezed it down and ran it through the evap. Kinda touch and go with everything being frozen, but no catastrophes. Got the stack thermometer portion of the magic box working, and it was nice having that to go by. Found I wasn't firing the evap. anywhere near hard enough, so that helped speed things along.

[Amber Gold]

Put the past two weeks to good use and was able to finish prepping for maple season and getting the sugarhouse picked up. Now I just need sap. Added a few taps over the weekend, and made some repairs I've been meaning to get to. Will be adding a few more taps this weekend too. Finally getting a warm-up on Friday and hopefully boiling again on Saturday.

Maple Weekend's coming quick...need to make some syrup.

[Amber Gold]

Sap ran OK over the weekend. I was able to bring home 475 gal last night, but will boil it tonight with today's run. Woods holding around 25" of vac. and was able to walk the entire woods and hammer back in loose spouts. Still have a mainline that needs some repair work and new taps added in. Will get to those this weekend.

I replaced a drop that was leaking like a sieve, and looked like a sieve...literally. 15" of the drop was full of little pin holes. Anybody seen this before? Not sure what attacked it, but easy fix.

More snowing coming on Wednesday/Thursday. Currently predicting 4-8"...awesome...I guess. Spent Sunday post-holing through the woods, so not really looking forward to more snow. Saturday, I could walk on it, Sunday not so much.

[Russell Lampron]

Sap ran OK over the weekend. I was able to bring home 475 gal last night, but will boil it tonight with today's run. Woods holding around 25" of vac. and was able to walk the entire woods and hammer back in loose spouts. Still have a mainline that needs some repair work and new taps added in. Will get to those this weekend.

I replaced a drop that was leaking like a sieve, and looked like a sieve...literally. 15" of the drop was full of little pin holes. Anybody seen this before? Not sure what attacked it, but easy fix.

More snowing coming on Wednesday/Thursday. Currently predicting 4-8"...awesome...I guess. Spent Sunday post-holing through the woods, so not really looking forward to more snow. Saturday, I could walk on it, Sunday not so much.

I have seen drops chewed like that before. With all of the pin holes I was thinking fisher cat or something like that. The ones in my woods were definitely chewed up but not chewed off.

Sounds like the sap ran better for you over the weekend than it did for me. Saturday was a disappointment. The sun didn't come out until almost noon and went back in almost as fast. I only managed to get about 200 gallons from Friday through today. I hoping that tomorrow will be better so that I can boil Wednesday.

[Amber Gold]

It was only the trees in the sun that were running. Even yesterday. I only collected 175 gal in the afternoon, but found another 150-200 in the tank this morning. Had some sap delivered and boiled everything I got from the weekend and made 17 gal of DA/B syrup. I wish the grade would come up and hopefully the trees wake up with these near 50F temps today.

Fisher cats...hadn't thought of those. Also had a new type of damage this year. Over the winter, lateral lines would be chewed in pieces and would need to replace sections of lateral lines, and it was only in a couple sections of woods. The only thing I can figure is it's deer. In one of the breaks, I found the line stretched right out before it broke. First time I've had this type of damage.

Russ, you need to put some heaters in those woods to get them warmed up and running. You generally run cold, don't you? I have a mix of sugars in the sun and a lot of reds in a swampy area that run colder...balances things out.

[GeneralStark]

It could also be porcupines. In my old woods there were lots of them and that was a pretty common thing to find. I think sometimes deer will run through lines and stretch them until they break. I have seen that as well.

[sjdoyon]

First few years we had a number of lines stretched out and broken. Wasn't too difficult to see what did it, moose tracks everywhere. They now walk in our roads and we've seen them flip the laterals with their heads and walk under. Have found moose hair caught on our wet line wire/pipe from a moose going under the wet/dry lines. Had over 30 laterals chewed up and on the ground this year. Saw a black bear early December last year in the sugarbush, he did one heck of a mess.

[abbott]

It could also be porcupines. In my old woods there were lots of them and that was a pretty common thing to find. I think sometimes deer will run through lines and stretch them until they break. I have seen that as well.

I get that quite a bit too and was also blaming porcupines. Particularly when a length of lateral gets knocked down, but also on stretches of tubing or drops that are still up.

[Russell Lampron]

It was only the trees in the sun that were running. Even yesterday. I only collected 175 gal in the afternoon, but found another 150-200 in the tank this morning. Had some sap delivered and boiled everything I got from the weekend and made 17 gal of DA/B syrup. I wish the grade would come up and hopefully the trees wake up with these near 50F temps today.

Fisher cats...hadn't thought of those. Also had a new type of damage this year. Over the winter, lateral lines would be chewed in pieces and would need to replace sections of lateral lines, and it was only in a couple sections of woods. The only thing I can figure is it's deer. In one of the breaks, I found the line stretched right out before it broke. First time I've had this type of damage.

Russ, you need to put some heaters in those woods to get them warmed up and running. You generally run cold, don't you? I have a mix of sugars in the sun and a lot of reds in a swampy area that run colder...balances things out.

I had a moose run through my woods that stretched and broke a few laterals. One year when the snow was really deep I think the deer chewed on some laterals. They were chewed right off in the center and too high off of the snow for anything else to do it.

Most of my trees face west or north. Some are down low in a swamp. There's a lot of cold down there and that helps when it gets warm out but not very helpful when it has been cold like this season. Yesterday I pumped 375 out of my tank which included a 150 gallon ice block that finally melted. With yesterday's temps I was expecting more.

[Amber Gold]

I was disappointed in yesterday's run as well. We got a 500 gal truckload out of the woods, but was hoping for more than that. Sugar's testing 1.7%. With the load that Dill dropped off, we made around 14 gal of syrup last night. Anybody else making dark syrup this year? I've been just over the line and into a Grade B syrup all season.

Not too enthusiastic about the 10-day forecast...hope it warms up.

[Dill]

I'm more disappointed in the evening run last night. Not sure why but the moisture trap was full again this morning and no vac. Must be how quick its freezing up at night or something. Didn't have this issue last year, once I dumped the hobby releaser for a full size version.

[red maples]

My sugar was actually up to about 2.25% (that's what was in the tank anyway combination of about 85% vac and 15% buckets). That would bring the sugar up but, yesterday I had about 2% coming in in the afternoon. and was much slower but and dropped to approx. 1.75ish by the late evening.

I will know more about grades once I can make more syrup only 5 gallons so far and it looked like it lightened up a little bit closer to DA line but still GB I am thinking there is still a little of the 14 day layover sap in the Evap that need to get pushed through. Sap is still coming nice and clean and is finally crystal clear so I hope it lightens up a bit more.

One good note I have a friend that watches the weather more than we do (he is a power commodities Trader/ orderer what ever you wanna call it works for power companies and monitors usage of electricity, Propane, Coal, natural gas etc. and that is directly effected by the weather) anyway he says that they way the computer models are setting up for April there should be a slow warm up which you can see in the 10 day but good sap weather straight through mid April so far. We'll see....

[Russell Lampron]

Nothing but medium amber here. I really like my bubble master. The sweet was frozen in my evaporator since Feb 23rd and some of the sap sat in the woods tank that long too. We made 9 gallons last night which will help with the open house weekend a little more than a week away. I'm not impressed with the 10 day forecast either but things can change.

[Amber Gold]

Collected 330 gal yesterday, and with the 165 gal that got delivered, made about 10 gal last night. Shutting down as the evap. was leveling out. Wish we could get a good run and be able to boil for a while.

Dill, I don't think you lost any sap. The only time I've had issues with the releaser hanging up and filling the moisture trap is first thing in the morning if I didn't get there in time to clean the ice out of the releaser and manifold, or on those real marginal days where it really doesn't want to run and the manifold's icing up and eventually hangs up.

[Amber Gold]

Running short on time with little opportunity make syrup, so last night, we took some of this year's Grade B syrup and made a batch of cream with it. It came out very good. darker than I'd like, but since the B didn't taste like a B, it wasn't too strong. Will be making more this weekend. I'm wondering how the candy will come out making this syrup.

Hoping for a run tomorrow. It'll be around 30F tonight, so it should. Then cold again for a few days.

[red maples]

I am having second thoughts on making cream for maple weekend. just might do all the stuff that doesn't require as much syrup, like nuts and mustard. but I will still do candy.

[Russell Lampron]

Running short on time with little opportunity make syrup, so last night, we took some of this year's Grade B syrup and made a batch of cream with it. It came out very good. darker than I'd like, but since the B didn't taste like a B, it wasn't too strong. Will be making more this weekend. I'm wondering how the candy will come out making this syrup.

Hoping for a run tomorrow. It'll be around 30F tonight, so it should. Then cold again for a few days.

I've made cream with dark syrup before and I felt that it tasted better than cream made with light syrup. The candy should be good too, just dark colored.

Looks like we may get a little run tomorrow but usually you need 3 good days in a row to get a good run.

You, Kieth and Brad all bought new RO's this year. It's your fault the sap ain't running. The same thing happened when I bought my RO.

[Russell Lampron]

I am having second thoughts on making cream for maple weekend. just might do all the stuff that doesn't require as much syrup, like nuts and mustard. but I will still do candy.

I'm doing cream and nuts. If I run out of syrup I'll take orders. The value added products are where the money is!

[SSFLLC]

I believe the problem here is not me Brad and Josh. It would be Red Roof Maples for not getting one 9RO0 big enough so the sap goddess is holding out on all of us

[red maples]

ha I like that one.... Yeah russ come get with the program here!!!

Just walked through the woods only pulling 18 at the releaser couple of loose taps and 2 really good squirrel chews. But looking around I got the classic sap stopper all over the place the DREADED ring of ice at the base of most trees now since we got that rain/snow and 7* evening!!! So should be like Thursday froday before we get going again.... yippie!!!

[Amber Gold]

Sorry Russ, but I agree with Keith. Time to upgrade.

Busy weekend. Made a pile of cream and making more candy tonight and tomorrow night. Had a surprisingly good run on Saturday considering the trees really didn't start running till about noon. Ended up with 1gpt even though 1/4 of the trees still aren't running because they're in a low area out of the sun. Collected it yesterday and boiled it down with some delivered sap and made about 35 gal of syrup. Grade finally creeped into a DA. Feeling better about going into maple weekend now. If it wasn't going to be so cold tonight, it'd probably run tomorrow. Looks like a run from Wednesday through at least Saturday and then cold again. Maybe even an overnight run??

Still have plenty of snow pack and most of the trees don't have tree wells with exposed ground, so we still have plenty of season left. This nice thing with the cold weather is the sugar content's up. Everything that came in yesterday was over 2%.

[Russell Lampron]

I know Josh, I should have upgraded a few years ago. I have to finish paying for the addition before I can do anything with the RO though. Hopefully for next season. I just need to make some syrup now!

[Amber Gold]

Get your swimmies on! I see a gusher tomorrow through Thursday. No freeze tomorrow night and a low front coming in. Russ, I think you'll get your syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

We're starting to get some sap trickling in now. I still have to make a lot to catch up to last season. I'm at about an 1/8 of what I made for the season last year.

[red maples]

I got 50 gallons today woo hoo!!! of sap that is. Just never really got warm here. it was actually warmer in Barrington than it was here!!! its already 30* here pump is off!!!

I am at 1/8th of what I made last year too. and I have 225 more taps too. SO just waiting for the flood of sap!!! maybe some rain tomorrow night too!!! sap weather looks good straight through until sunday before we freeze up yet again. I hope it lasts!!!

[Russell Lampron]

The vacuum pump just got shut off here too. I didn't go down to the tank to see what I got but had about 25 gallons at 4:00. I hope it runs better tomorrow.

[tuckermtn]

1/8 of crop here so far as well. Not sure if Sbascom will chime in, but rumor has it Bascoms is at 10% of crop so far.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Using .25 gpt, only 8% here, but a lot of ice in the orchard tanks, could easily put it up to 12%.

[Amber Gold]

We're a little better than 10% of last year, but we added a few more taps.

[Russell Lampron]

The temps are generally a little warmer for you Josh. What was yesterday's daytime high? We only got up to 34* here despite the bright sun and lack of a breeze. I didn't turn the vacuum pump until 2:30 and turned off at 7:00 last evening.

[Dill]

I had 37 for a high temp. The gravity barrels in southern exposure melted, but didn't run much. Flipped on the vac for a bit but iced over and no sap.

[highway]

Crazy year Huh?

I tapped my tubing lots Jan 22nd and 23rd. I have only gathered 2 times so far. We have made about 8 gal. of syrup compared to 70 gallons this time last year.

Hope things improve for the weekend open house.

Good luck to you all.

Ed

[Amber Gold]

Russ, we are a bit warmer hear, which can be good. About 1/3 of our woods gets plenty of sunlight too, so if the sun's out, it can help overcome the colder temp.s.

Ed, definitely an odd year, but so long as we can make syrup well into April, I'll take it.

Went to the woods after work yesterday to check on things. Pulling 25" at the releaser, but decided to walk down the wet/dry anyways to check on things before the big run. Found a branch line had a significant leak. Turned out a lateral line had pulled off a tee. I've found a few of these heading into the season, and not sure why. Maybe because I'm using 30P for laterals?? Don't know. Put the line back together and back to pulling 26". I will say, putting the pump at the releaser has made a significant difference on the pump's ability to overcome vac. leaks.

Didn't get much yesterday...200 gal maybe by the end of day, but got another 150 gal in the overnight. Slight freeze in the woods last night. Just enough to shut things down.

Last night we bottled the syrup from Sunday and the grade came up a lot..about halfway between MA/DA. Ran the flue pan through the filter press when I shut things down on Sunday, so maybe this will bring the grade up even further. Should be boiling tonight, then will hold tomorrow's run for Sat. big day. Weather's not looking so hot though.

[red maples]

Yeah weather not looking good at all. for Sat. maybe its a good thing and we can try to stretch the syrup we do have. Which aint much. hoping for a bunch for tomorrow. I'll be bottling everything I make fri, sat .

[SSFLLC]

What did you get today for sap? We got just under 300

[red maples]

got about 350-375 so far still coming in pretty good. Slow start until the sun came out then things picked up and was flowing really good until the wind picked up and slowed things down a bit.

[Russell Lampron]

What did you get today for sap? We got just under 300


got about 350-375 so far still coming in pretty good. Slow start until the sun came out then things picked up and was flowing really good until the wind picked up and slowed things down a bit.

Only 325 here. Had a problem with the releaser and some sap went past the moisture trap and had a hard time getting the sap out of the vacuum line. Sap is coming in now but slow. I hope it runs better tomorrow.

[Dill]

Josh had a load just a hair under 500 gallons. My woods under performed, I only hauled 150 and 50 of that was from a 25 tap gravity barrel. Good news is sugar is way up. 2.2 and 2.4 almost record numbers for these woods. Nice to see clear foamy sap.

[Amber Gold]

Busy weekend, but we got through it. Quick summary.

Business was down from last year, but last year was a record year. I'd say we're down 20% from last year, and I think all of it was attributable to Saturday and the weather liars snow/rain forecast...IMO. I think Sunday was just as busy this year as last. Still did good for the weekend and happy overall. Met a lot of cool people and had fun.

Sap ran better than I expected. Was able to pick up 500 gal on Friday, and had some number of gallons delivered, so we ran the equipment all day as I hoped. Actually, didn't squeeze it down enough Sat. and boiled well past closing time. Collected another truckload Sat. night, another 275'ish delivered on Sunday, and we hauled another 350'ish gal Sunday, and was able to boil all day Sunday as well. Wasn't expecting the amount of sap coming in on Sunday that we got, so ended up boiling well past closing time, which worked out well because we had customers trickling in afterwards. Ended up making 50'ish gallons for the weekend. No idea what our season total is, but still well shy of last year...obviously.

I apologize last week for the "get your swimmie's ready" emergency false alarm...too much wishful thinking. It's a little early, but it looks like this coming weekend is it. The forecast is looking good for a sap tsunami.

[red maples]

sap sunami this weekend but the end of the 10 day doesn't looks so good!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Enough of this sap tsunami, get your swimmies talk!!! You don't want to jinx the rest of the season do you? The extended forecast does look good and if the temps follow the "what we got versus what was in the forecast" trend we will get some better than the forecast sap temps.

[Amber Gold]

Sorry...I will not say another word about the raging torrent of sap we're going to get this weekend...oh, did I just say it again...

Brad, in this biz, you need to cherry pick your forecasts to get the right temps you want so you can stay positive. I look at accuweather and weather channel, and if I don't find what I'm looking for there, I go to NOAA.

[red maples]

Alrighty... not another word... yeah I know I check the same 2 spots and NOAA too. and they change sOOOO frequently that now the end of the 10 day looks to be in our favor 20/40 again so I am sure tomorrow will be different. All I know is we all need sap one way or another right?

[Amber Gold]

Alright, I'm keeping quite now on my predictions...failed twice now. It's gotta come some day though. This week, accuweather has the better forecast, and I'm running with it.

Got some sap over the weekend and was able to boil Saturday (1250 gal) and Sunday (1135 gal)...1800 gal of it was from our woods. Trees still aren't flowing as good as they should and only half the woods is doing much. Hopefully they wake up this week

My diaphragm syrup pump failed me last night. Noticed that it sounded funny on Saturday, but still moving liquid so didn't think about it. Sunday, it pumped OK at first, and then wouldn't build any pressure. Finished boiling, took the pump apart, and found one of the diaphragms was pulling apart and was torn. There was some sugar buildup where it slides back and forth, and it was too abrasive. A rebuild kit is going to cost maybe $200 to have it here by the end of the week, and a new pump about $500...bummer. It looks like we'll be making syrup this week and not being able to filter it.

[Russell Lampron]

It sounds like you are doing better down there than I am up here. I was able to boil Saturday night but didn't get enough sap to boil yesterday. Pumped up 400 gallons tonight that took 50 hours to get since the tank was pumped last. Saturday's boil was the first since maple weekend.

[tuckermtn]

Josh - where did you get the rebuild kit for your Warren Rupp diaphram pump? might be good to have on hand...

[Amber Gold]

I tried local Warren-Rupp distributors, but it's not a pump they carry. Grainger's getting me a price for the rebuild kit. They stock the kit for the lower temp seals, but not this one. I'll give you the Grainger p/n when I get it. First issue with the pump I've had that I haven't been able to take it apart, clean it, put it back together, and have it work.

Surprisingly a good run yesterday. About 0.75gpt in 24 hrs. Brought a load home, but will boil it, and today's run, tonight.

[Dill]

FINALLY!!
Stuff is working and sap is flowing correctly! I need to figure up my overflow tank tomorrow if this keeps up!

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Glad to hear it Dill! I wish i was so lucky....

[Dill]

9532
And a pic of the happy sapper. Note his truck isn't in the pic, cause it needed to run for a second load. We had to wait for the RO to process enough of a hole to pump all of my truck off. I guess my brother's tree's didn't run that well yesterday. So it was finally a good day for vac.

[red maples]

yes very big smile when you got sap!!!

[Amber Gold]

As Alden said, busy night last night. Boiled almost 1600 gal last night. Started the RO at 3:45 and was boiling 13% at 8pm. Recirc'd a bit longer and had it up to 17%...sure was nice to finally have enough sap to take it that high. Boiled 17% the rest of the night and made almost 40 gal of syrup. The third load from our woods will be processed today. I thought about running it through, which would've brought us over 50 gal for the night, but we finished at 1am as it was and I didn't want to stay up later than that.

Funny you posted the picture because I didn't even know it was taken. Glad to see our trees are finally starting to run.

[Dill]

Not much ran last night in my woods, maybe 50 gallons. But the lines were filling up at 8:30 this morning. Should be another good run today.

[red maples]

We didn't get much here yesterday, the average 250 gallons or so. didn't get quite the freeze I was expecting the night before. but Woke up to 27*. Hoping for a good day today!!! maybe break my season record of 400 GPT (2/3 GPT) ... I hope anyway!!! Good luck!!! too bad that 40 unfiltered gallons but so goes it!!!

[Russell Lampron]

Josh there's 2 pictures on Facebook!

[Amber Gold]

Two pictures! No idea. Facebook's my wife's thing.

We hauled another 1400 gal yesterday (500 from the night before) with another 145 delivered. Sugar's still 2%. Made >30 gal last night. I tell you what, packing unfiltered syrup just sucks. It looks dirty going into the barrel. Also, since I can't run the syrup pan through the filter press at the end of the night, the niter buildup is awful. Too bad the pump had to break the week the sap starts to run...figures. The pump's rebuild kit will be here tomorrow...$200 including shipping.

[red maples]

Having the best sap run of the year its coming in really good right now!! Bummer you aint got no filter!!! Sorry!!!

[Amber Gold]

If that's the only problem I have, I'll take it! Sure beats having a vac. pump or RO machine go down. Glad to hear the sap's gushing out. I really would like to put 2000+ gal through the sugarhouse at some point this year. Give me a chance to see how things work if we expand.

[red maples]

true... also if add a second tower to the RO you currently have then it will squeeze it twice as fast too.

[Russell Lampron]

With the unfiltered syrup you will be able to pour the clean stuff off of the top and only filter the dirty stuff on the bottom but it's going to suck to have to reheat all of it to repack it. I think I would wait until I was jugging it up to do anything with it.

[Amber Gold]

Second tower...hmmmm...
Russ, that's what I decided to do. I have 5 kegs with unfiltered syrup in them. I thought about it and it seemed like a waste of time to reheat just to filter and re-pack it. All the syrup we made last night is sitting in the canner waiting to be reheated so I can filter it tonight and put it in kegs. Calling now to get a tracking number on the pump.

We brought in 1000 gal again yesterday, another 200 from Dill, and 250 from others. Made about 30 gal last night. Evap's running smooth with 18% and in wood conservation mode. We chewed up a lot of wood this season with all the short boils to make only a little syrup. This week, I've been robbing the house wood shed and have about a 1/2 chord left. Burning a 1/3 hardwood-2/3 softwood mix, I'm getting about 90 gal/chord per night's boil and 10 min. load times at about 60gph. Those numbers I can live with. Next year will be all hardwood, so I figure I can get up to ~150 gal per chord, 15 min. load times, and maybe a little better on the evap. rate. Getting used to the new rig and liking it more, but wish the rear float would work right...constantly having to adjust it....PITA.

[red maples]

yeah I guess with the second tower its like putting it through a single tower twice since they are in line. So if its say 2% and you run it through a single tower it will be 4% but running through your system set up with 2nd tower it will be 8% on the first pass.

[Russell Lampron]

I'm surprised that you are only getting about 50gph out of your new evaporator. I only have a rough idea what I'm getting for evap rate with my evaporator because I never run it long enough to use the formula to figure it out. Using 40gph and dividing that into the boiling time minus a half hour seems to work pretty good though. We lit the evaporator the night before last with about 90 gallons of concentrate. It took probably about 5 to 10 gallons to top up the flue pan and then took 2 1/2 hours after we lit the evaporator until we ran out of sap. 80 / 2 = 40. In that time we made 13 gallons of syrup.

[red maples]

yeah that seems a little slow at 60gph weren't you getting more with your old rig or were you going through a lot more wood? I guess that would be a bit of a trade off. I am getting roughly 40gph too. I too have gone through a little more wood than expected from smaller boils too. after concentrating the most I have boiled this year is 1.5 hrs. that first 1/2 hr is killer on wood/evap. rate then once everything gets humming along its time for shut down.

[Russell Lampron]

I stopped at my neighbor at the end of my road's sugar house yesterday to check out his new evaporator. He's got a stock Thor 2 1/2 x 8 and says that he is getting 60 to 65 gph with it. He came down here last night and I think he going to have a blower on his next season.

My sugar wood supply is holding up fine. My furnace wood was gone 2 weeks ago and we have been cutting standing dead wood to keep it going. That is a challenge with all of the mud we've got right now.

[Amber Gold]

Busy weekend. Got the pump's repair kit on Friday and rebuilt the pump in about 2 min. Reheated Thursday's run, filtered and kegged it. Only 75 gal of unfiltered syrup in kegs, so that's not too bad. Basically 1900 gal of sap processed on Sat. and Sunday. Still getting 1k gallons per day out of the woods which is about 1.25gpt/day. Surprised the trees are still flowing this good with taps as old as they are. Testament to CV spouts?? SSC is down to 1.6%. Making a very dark Grade B syrup now. Still good flavor. The long range forecast doesn't good to be making retail syrup much longer. Hopefully still boiling through this weekend.

The 50 gph is a guesstimate based on what I'm concentrating to, and what I've produced during the night's boil. The 50gph includes startup, so probably 60gph when hot. I was getting 80-90gph with the other rig, but firing every 2 min. with small wood...a lot harder on me. Now firing a mix, the boil rate goes down, but firing every 10 min with woodstove size pieces of wood. Boiling for 4 hours isn't so hard anymore. Hardwood will be even better and I think I can get a bit more gph out of her, but don't really need to with the high concentrate. I would like to add a flow rate meter to see how I'm firing makes a difference and try to find the best compromise between hard boil and wood efficiency.

[Amber Gold]

Collected another 1000 gal yesterday and Dill dropped off another 150 gal. Made about 20 gal of syrup last night. Woke up to 550 gal in the woods, so a good run in the overnight. Strong flavored B and niiiiiiter.

Looking at the long range, I'm not sure if we're going to make it to next week's cold spell. No signs of buds popping yet.

[Amber Gold]

Collected another 950 gal last night and about 150 gal delivered. Our sugaring is still holding at 1.6%. This will be the highest average sugar content ever at SHMF. Niter levels went through the roof the last two boils. Using a ton of DE now to filter a little syrup.

After getting 30 min. draws and everything running smoothly the night before, I had a near catastrophic event last night. Second draw of the night, the syrup pan float sticks...notice temp. levels rising but opening the valve doesn't do anything. As I realize this, I smell some sugar burning, so I dump the float open and ladle some liquid over. Liquid level increases and all's good. Before this all happened, I noted the feed tank was running low and I'd need to set the RO to dumping back into the feed tank. Forgot about it and when I got the syrup pan straightened out, the feed tank was empty and the liquid level in the flue pan was very low...not much longer and it'd been real bad. After all this, everything went smooth the rest of the night. Still can't get the fr*^aking flue pan float to work to save my life. It either lets in too much liquid or not enough.

[red maples]

I have difficulty with mine as well and the level of the feed tank is usually the probem when its slow it comes in too slow when its full it floods the pans so I have to adjust the float through out the boil. Just a PITA I learned to work around it but its not easy.

[Russell Lampron]

The pressure from the level of sap in the feed tank has an effect on how my flue pan float works too. If I run the sap tank down too low I have problems with the pre heater vapor locking. I am concentrating in batches now and when I have one that will come out of the RO at 12% it goes to the feed tank and I start a new one. It is working better than when I was recircing and switching back and forth between the feed tank and sweet tank. As far as float problems go I have more with the front pan float when I change sides or change pans. I don't have much trouble with the flue pan float.

[Dill]

So the question is to pull this weekend or leave them in, shut the pump off and try make some mersh after the freeze coming next tuesday?

[highlandcattle]

How'everyone in NYS doing? we are still going here in Montgomery county.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Used to have the problem of varying pressure feeding the flue float, but now the float is fed directly from the RO so the pressure is constant.

[red maples]

So the question is to pull this weekend or leave them in, shut the pump off and try make some mersh after the freeze coming next tuesday?

I won't make it to then. I am calling it this weekend. sap aint running for me at night. it got down to 53* last night. and its 65 now. Buckets are done they coming down this afternoon actually got some sap out of them yesterday. but cloudy. Vacuum is still coming during the day but very slow today. and sap is getting almost milky coming into the releaser if we had a couple of back to back freezes right now I would keep going but sugar came up a little to 1.5 yesterday but is back down to 1.25 this morning and I haven't checked it lately but the amount of bacteria in there has to making it seem higher than what it is. So last boil tomorrow then finich out the Evap on Sunday. The amount of bugs I have in the releaser tank is pretty bad too. no Peepers here yet though. maybe tonight!!!

[Amber Gold]

Still got 0.75gpt through yesterday. Last night I boiled down 1700 gal and made about 20 gal of syrup...hardest syrup of the year to make. Dill brought over his biggest load of the year and his sugar went up...go figure. Foaming was incredible! It felt like I used as much defoamer last night as I did all season. Plugged a full bank press in 4 gallons of syrup. Reset the press, mixed 3 cups of DE in the filtered syrup, ran that through, and was able to go the rest of the night on the press..barely. Made the lightest syrup we've made all year...from reading other threads in NH, that seems to be the trend. Lisa liked the syrup, I thought it tasted weird...especially a few seconds later when it tightened up the back of your throat...I forget what off-flavor does this. Chalking up this weird syrup to the warm temps and heavy bacteria count. Draining the flue pan today and running it through the syrup pan this afternoon.

No signs of buds, so may turn the vac. pump on later this week and see if the sap clears up. Not hopeful, but what can it hurt. Peepers are screaming in the woods, but can't hear them at the house yet from the pond down the road.

[Russell Lampron]

I finished my season last night. The buds on the reds swelled a lot yesterday and will probably pop tomorrow if the temps get up near 80 like they are forecasting. With these warm temps I was also fearing the dreaded rope in the flue pan. I boiled out my evaporator last night so I don't have to worry about that this year. Last year it happened overnight.

The syrup I made last night was medium in color but it developed a bitter strong taste bringing it up to density in the finisher. I have this problem every time that I have to bring the density up a couple of points and haven't been able to figure out why. If I only have to bring it up a couple of tenths it's okay. The sap smelled of being slightly sour when boiling and the foam was bad here too. With the Bubblemaster I often times don't even need to use defoamer but last night I was constantly adding it.

It's funny that you made your lightest syrup last night. I made mine on 3/29 and 4/1. I could have graded them as light amber but because they were the same color as the sample with a medium flavor I graded them medium. In April my colors were all over the spectrum including 4 days of making B before it came up to dark and then medium.

[red maples]

yes I used a bunch of defoamer yesterday too... couldn't keep up with the foam!!!

[Amber Gold]

Talked to Larry, and in the warm-up, his grade went from a B to a MA. On a whim, I tested the pH of the perm. water from that sap...5.2...pretty low. I tested the pH of some perm. water that I've been saving, and the pH was much higher...thinking at least 7. Maybe the change in grade was due to the pH. Glad I tested the pH though because my wash soap never go to 11 like it's supposed to. Ran another wash cycle and had to add twice as much soap to get the pH high enough.

Yesterday, boiled the flue pan through the syrup pan. Boiled perm. water in the flue pan. When done, I drained the syrup pan and put perm. water in it. Added 8 gal of vinegar to the flue pan and 4 to the syrup pan. Got up this morning and the pans are spotless. Had a thought as I'm writing this. One thing I'm sure that helped clean the pans is the already low pH of the perm. water. That coupled with the vinegar made for a stronger acid. 20 min. of scrubbing this morning and the pans are clean. Easiest time I've ever had.

[Dill]

That new RO is so awesome it goes to 11!

The whole leaving taps in is my leaning on Josh. Doesn't seem like the trees are budding as fast as normal due to the frost. Looks like we have 1 hard freeze and a couple light ones coming in the next couple days. I really want to see what happens sap wise. This is yet another year for vac.

[Amber Gold]

I'm bending under the pressure. Vac. pump goes back on Wednesday morning.

[red maples]

not me... sugars are still OK but a lot of reds are popped. I am done.

Youre welcome... the Acid content of white vinegar is 5% so if I remember correctly that gives it a PH of about 2.5 or something like that but I am sure that the Perm having a PH of 5 def. helped.

My syrup did lighten just a little bit but not enough to change the grade if it didn't have so much niter in it at the end it might have changed grade.

[Russell Lampron]

I see that I'm not the only one with low ph permeate. I measured mine and it was at 4.80. My last 3 boils were all medium amber. I have been adding a lot of soap to my wash water too. I have to be careful to stay at 9 or lower with the NF 270 membrane and have been getting nervous about the amount of soap I am adding.

[Amber Gold]

Sap is normally a little acidic, right? 4.8-5.2 seems really low.

[red maples]

actually the lower the number would be considered high... just semantics, ;)

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Brad...

[red maples]

sorry... just thinking of a possible reason for the hig... uh lower PH. Since the bacteria was so high in the sap to begin with, could it be that the bacteria itself was causeing the sap to spoil and there for creating a vinegaring effect to the sap creating the PH to drop that low? Josh you also mentioned that there was a bite to the back of your throat this would be caused by the higher PH in the syrup as well.

[Russell Lampron]

I thought we were talking about the ph of the permeate, not the sap. I was surprised to see mine at 4.8 when it usually measures in the 6.5 to 7.0 range. Being that permeate is basically water molecules with everything else filtered out what can be causing the slightly acidic ph level? I boiled down some permeate last night to check for sugar and there wasn't even a trace. The wash water isn't turning yellow like it would if it had sugar in it either.

As far as the syrup grade getting lighter goes it is something that I have experienced in April before. I always thought it was because of the sap chemically changing when the trees came out of dormancy.

[Dill]

Well we are getting the cold. I was at a meeting til 10 last night, came home in 60 deg, tropical downpour. Got heavy sleet at 2am, woke up this morning to snow and thick ice in driveway. Looks like 2 days of 20 deg overnights. Plugging the pump in this am once we got above 32.

[red maples]

cold here for a little bit. Temp started dropping last night went from 63 to 53 in a matter minutes. woke up to it snowing pretty hard and an inch on the ground it did hit 26* here this morning but I am well budded now reds anyway. but sugars are just swelling. but I am completely broken down cleaned I just need to pull taps tomorrow!!! (all except for the underside of the pans and the cleaning the ash out of the arch.) I pull taps while the vac is on to help dry out the lines a little so I will see if there is any sap coming in. guessing it won't be any good anyway.

[PerryW]

got to 17 degrees here last night. nice hard freeze. all tanks washed and buckets emptied. Sitting at 60% crop (73 gallons) and hope to make some grade b or at least some commercial.

[Amber Gold]

Perry, I think you'll get there. Weather's been great this week, but I'm backed up at work due to the protracted season, and need to call it quits regardless of what we get in. I would be nice though to say we were still making syrup on April 19th.

Preliminary season total numbers (keep in mind that I need to double check the logs vs. the spreadsheet, but it'll be close)
Sap Collected: 16,686 gal (~19gpt...same as 2012)
Sap Bought: 6,258 gal
Syrup produced: ~475 gal (~0.4gpt from our woods...same as 2012)
Avg. sap to syrup ratio: 46:1 (this is what saved us because we're usually around 55:1)
>50% of our crop was produced in April, and that was in ~1.5 weeks...processed almost 12k gallons of sap then.
1/3 crop DA and 2/3 crop B, only ~20 gal of C. Basically all the DA's sold at this point.

Overall, much better year than I thought. If it wasn't for last weekend's heat wave, we'd still be making syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh I was having second thoughts about calling it a season last Saturday. The temps weren't quite right for a big run so I don't think that I missed much here. On my way home from work tonight I noticed that even the sugars are budding so now I know that I made the right decision when I turned off the vacuum pump for the season. It sounds like you had a better season than I did but instead of making 1/2 of my syrup in April like you did, I made 3/4 of mine in April. February was about normal and March was a total let down.

[palmer4th]

Sap ran great here the last two days! Just under 2%.

[Amber Gold]

Great sugaring weather since the heat wave...wonder what we could've made if we hadn't gotten yet. It would've turned an average season to a great season.

Russ, we get just a little bit warmer here than you do, and that must've helped us to get those runs we did in March. Some years it's a good thing, and others not.

Went to an auction on Sat. with Alden and bought a Ford 4610 in good shape for $5k. Looking forward to putting it to work around my 1 acre lot...

[PerryW]

I had 73 gallons before the heat wave and 93 as of last night. Should make another 5-6 gallon from what's out there now and the contents of the pans. hanging on after the heat turned a lousy season into to a below-average season.

Started washing lines today and pulled the buckets that were dried up.

[Russell Lampron]

Great sugaring weather since the heat wave...wonder what we could've made if we hadn't gotten yet. It would've turned an average season to a great season.

Russ, we get just a little bit warmer here than you do, and that must've helped us to get those runs we did in March. Some years it's a good thing, and others not.

Went to an auction on Sat. with Alden and bought a Ford 4610 in good shape for $5k. Looking forward to putting it to work around my 1 acre lot...

March was an absolute disaster here. It was way to cold to get any kind of a sap flow going. For the first 3 weeks with the buckets I emptied them on Saturday only because it had been a week since I did it last. Like I've said before "I only need about 2 good weeks to make most of my syrup". I got that the last half week in March and the first week and a half in April. It turned what could have been by far the worst season ever into 3rd place out of the last 6 seasons with the same tap count.