A whole bunch more newbie questions...if you don't mind.

[Newbie_syrupmaker]

Hi guys, me again.

Had my first boil today; thanks to everyone that has gotten me here so far; but now I have more questions:

(I have a leader 1/2 pint)

1. I am planning on finishing on the stove, so I need to draw off early..how do I know when? I mostly did it by taste today and ended up with about 2.25 gallons of pre-syrup from 40-45 gallons of sap. I hope to make a gallon from this batch when all is said and done. Should I have pushed it even closer to syrup before drawing it off?

2. As far as using the half-pint...seemed pretty easy (first time here), what I did is continually load the pre-heating pan from my 55 gallon tank and let the pre-heating pan continually drip/run into my main pan...is that the recommended way? or should I have been running a batch into the main pan, waiting until it was ready and then drawing off and re-filling?

3. How do I use the syrup tester (specific gravity). I know I was drawing off early but I tried a few tests anyway and couldn't get anything to happen? I have the leader tester and the SS cup. I would fill the SS cup with hot sap/syrup, put in the tester and it would just sink to the bottom...is that normal? Does it serve no purpose until you are really, really close to syrup? (i.e. use it only for finishing?)

4. What is the recommended shutdown procedure? I boled from 7:30 to 3:30 today, and at about 2:45 stop loading wood and am letting the thing cooldown slowly (I am using hardwoods so the bed of coals remains hot). I'll keep adding sap to keep the level at 1.5 to 1.75 inches until it is cold or near cold...is that how you leave it? with a pan full of syrup/sap? Seems it would make sense to cover it so that I don't find dead-mice floating around in the morning...

Thats it for now...a lot of work for a gallon of syrup. Hope I can find someone to pay me about $500 for that gallon of syrup!

I do plan on upgrading this year, but I took the majority advice hear on mapletrader and decided to get some experience on a small system before jumping into a 2x6 or 2x8. I am glad I did even if it does mean most of march I'll be doing nothing but boiling....

[jmattice]

newbie,
I've never used a half pint, but I started out on a flat pan about that size.
Heres my 2 cents worth. I would try to run it closer to syrup before drawing off. Otherwise it will take so long on the stove. Use your hydrometer to check it. If it makes you more comfortable leave yourself a little room for error on the hydrometer. As for the preheater I would say that sounds about right. My cousin has a 1/2 pint. he fabricated a little door in the last partition to allow him to kinda finish in that section. It speeds things up a bit. The hydrometer will tell you when its syrup. If it doesn't float, its got quite a ways to go. Your shutdown procedure sounds about right.
Hope this helps some!
John

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Newbie,

Another thing I will add to that is that a hydrometer will not float until it gets close to syrup. You are quite a ways away from syrup at what you drawed off at, so when you get it down close to syrup, you will see how it works. Always test the syrup as boiling hot as possible. What I try to do is put hot syrup in my test cup and let it get heated up for a minute or two and then dump it back in and put more hot syrup in and test it immediately. It doesn't hurt to draw off well before syrup until you get really comfortable with everything. Better to take it a little at a time and learn as you go.

As far as everything else you are doing, it sounds fine. What I normally do when I shut down is flood my pans by running the level up based on how many hot coals I have under them.

[MaineMapleDave]

Good morning WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER.

I have been using a half pint for 8 years now (this will be the 9th season), and everything you are doing seems right to me. I'll go through your list and offer my 2 cents worth. I hope you find it useful.

1: Draw off early. I calculated that the half-pint holds about 3 1/4 gallons when the sap (or concentrate) is about 1" deep. Given that the bricks will hold heat for a looooong time, as will the hardwood coals, I wouldn't let it get much below 1" deep. It will simmer down a bit more (even when you think everything is cold) and become more concentrated. Then, a stove-top finish is the way to go--that's really the best way to deal with the half pint and only about 45 gallons of sap to start with.

2: Preheating. Everything you did is perfect--that's really how the half-pint is intended to work. If at some point you have more sap to play with, you will probably be able to draw-off small batches of near-syrup periodically. I once had nearly 100 gallons of sap to play with, and was able to draw off quarts of near-syrup periodically. Great fun.

3: Hydrometer. Given the quantity of sap you were starting with and the limitations on how much you could boil off, the concentrate was probably simply not dense enough to float the hydrometer. Starting with 45 gallons of sapy, you would need to be down to about 2 to maybe 2-1/2 gallons of concentrate before the hydrometer would do much.

4: Shutdown. That's exactly how I do it. I'll let the fire die down at about supper prep time, and usually will sort of flood the pan to about 2 to 3 inch depth, then check on it periodically. I don't burn hardwood, so don't have the coals to worry about--only the heat that the firebricks hold. The syrup concentrate will continue to steam and simmer for a couple of hours at least, and will reduce down by about 1/2 to 1 inch before bed time. If everything seems still a bit warm, I'll flood the pan with a bit more sap to cool it all down. If I have more sap to play with, I'll start up with the sap concnetrate in the pan the next day. If not, I'll usually draw it off and filter it (cold) into the little finishing rig.

Have fun with it.

[mapleman3]

Ditto to what dave said, I used my half pint last year,did about the same, I was drawing off near syrup and finishing in a turkey fryer, then flooding when done, the first draw off each time I fired it up took a while, but after that as long as you don't draw to much too fast it went swimingly, the key is keep a good boil going and draw off real small amounts so whats left in the pan isn't too shallow in the last section and doesn't get flooded with lower density syrup, you want to keep the last section as much sugar as possible.

[DougM]

Hydrometer technique from the manual:

http://ohioline.osu.edu/b856/b856_77.html

Hydrometry – Some producers "hot test" with a hydrometer to determine when syrup has reached the desired finished density. It is a good idea to "hot test" syrup drawn off by temperature to verify that it is the correct density. In order to perform the hot test, the boiling liquid must be removed from the evaporator which may result in some cooling. Because the accuracy of a hydrometer depends on being able to accurately identify the temperature of the liquid being measured, it is important that producers verify that the density reading is being made at the proper temperature.
The hydrometer hot test requires a hydrometer with the hot test depth for finished syrup marked with a red line on the scale or a scale that can be accurately read between 59.3 to 59.6° Brix range The red line represents the hydrometer position in standard density syrup at a temperature of 210°F; 59.3 to 59.6° Brix represents the hydrometer position in standard density syrup from 210° to 218°F. The procedure is to fill the hydrometer cup with boiling sap/syrup, gently place the hydrometer in the concentrated sap/syrup, and read the hydrometer as soon as it comes to rest. When "hot testing" for the first time, place a thermometer in the hydrometer cup and perform a couple of practice readings to verify that density is being read at the desired temperature.

Sounds like you're on the right track, just keep track of syrup temp when testing. That's the purpose of the hyd. cup w/thermometer the Maple Guys have come out with.

[mapleman3]

here's a wild thought... what thermometer can you trust??? now that I calibrate my "adjustable" thermometer to water boiling...what about non adjustable I can hold 2 digital brand new therms at work and get 2 different readings... so when you hot test at 211 as shown for hydrometers... how can you be really sure it's right... mind boggling I think

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I always test mine off my finisher and never off the evaporator, so when I test it each time, it is close to syrup and the heat is on high, so I am testing it about the same temp each time. There is no way to be completely precise, just close to accurate. That's why I always finish my syrup one degree higher on the hydrometer to make certain. I lose about 2 ounces per gallon of syrup, but makes a better product.

I have thermometers on each side of the evaporator and they are screwed in. I calibrate them the first boil of the seaon with boiling raw sap and never touch them again. I only use them as a guide because I don't have time to re-calibrate them every time I boil and like last Sat, I boiled for nearly 20 straight hours and I am sure the temp was different when I finished than when I started.

[mapleman3]

as I boiled and drawed..drew..drawn... syrup off if I was on the money on the hydrometer I adjusted to 7deg, I checked density every now and then and adjusted the therm, it made it easy to keep an eye at what point I could draw off at, I like the drawoff therms, nice to see them where they should be!!

[michaelh05478]

Leader gave me a tip a few years ago on making sure your hyrometer hasnt shifted. Take it and stand it up straight on a cripple stud in the shack and mark the top and bottom of your red line on the wall, this will help you check to see if the paper inside has dropped......i check mine alot just in case....Hope this helps some of you...Mike

[mwarren]

I used a half pint two years ago and always finfished my syrup right on the evap. I never finished in the house intil the last boil of the season. I would usually draw about 3/4 to 1 pint per hour. I filtered it into a coffee pot and then used that to reheat and can at the end of each day. That seemed to work great for me. Each day that I was boiling I was able to start drawing off syrup within 1 hour of start up.

The key is to do what ever works best for you. Try it each way and see what is easiest.

Mike