2016 Results

[BigPine]

Done cleaning up. Everything was 2 weeks earlier than usual with the end result being one of the better years.
Probably the easiest year for everything as there was virtually no snow.
2016 totals: 105 taps - drop lines to buckets
1280 Sap Gallons (dumped 510 gallons)
770 Cooked gallons 18.4 gallons syrup 2.4% sugar
Best hobby ever - even after 20 years! Love the woods, the exercise, and the product.

[doop]

Finished with 78 gallons, would've been pushing 100, but I was teaching a buddy how to run the evaporator. I thought he had it down pretty well as he'd boiled by himself a couple times, then we thought we would switch and draw off the other side due to nitre build up. Fittings didn't work on other side so he started putting it back on original side and I went out to collect sap. I came back to green smoke and him shaking his head. He forgot to move the plug back to other side and so he was making syrup on opposite side of thermometer and didn't know it. Needless to say I need new pans. I was talking about getting new ones anyway, but would've been nice to still have those for back up. Had to dump around 500 gallons and lost all my sweet on the pans. Now I know why I never let anyone else run the evaporator.

[Tapping Gold]

Had an incredible year. 740 gallons collected on 44 taps, mix of buckets and bags, that is a little over 16.8 gallons per bag, crazy for me. Just finishing the bottling process now. Attached find my collection log for the season. For some reason i had a batch towards the end that was bitter, not sure if i had a bad tree or something but cleared up in the next batch. Last run was just as clear as the first run. Variation of colors in-between. Buckets are washed, minor repairs to my boiler complete. Probably see everyone next year.
14258

[Johnny t]

Finished with 78 gallons, would've been pushing 100, but I was teaching a buddy how to run the evaporator. I thought he had it down pretty well as he'd boiled by himself a couple times, then we thought we would switch and draw off the other side due to nitre build up. Fittings didn't work on other side so he started putting it back on original side and I went out to collect sap. I came back to green smoke and him shaking his head. He forgot to move the plug back to other side and so he was making syrup on opposite side of thermometer and didn't know it. Needless to say I need new pans. I was talking about getting new ones anyway, but would've been nice to still have those for back up. Had to dump around 500 gallons and lost all my sweet on the pans. Now I know why I never let anyone else run the evaporator.
Yikes! That sounds similar to an incident I had years ago when my brother was still helping. Nothing worse than losing a batch :(