2018 Spring Harvest

[Amber Gold]

Getting things ready. Spent a few weekends in the woods and got things ready to go. Fortunately, light tree damage this year, so it went well.

Ditching the liquid ring vacuum pump and going with an Atlas Copco rotary vane pump from MES. Tired of dealing with needing a cooling water source and not having one close by and the issues that entails. First time I’ve paid full price for a vacuum pump, and they’re not cheap. Pump is wired and mostly plumbed. Just some misc. parts I didn’t have with me to finish the job. Going for the big suck this year, and hoping I can suck the sap from all the guys in Loudon 😊

New truck tank on its way for pickup this weekend. Going with a 725 horizontal leg tank. The bigger tank should cut down on some of my trucking.

RO startup is tomorrow night. Hopefully no issues.

Really disappointed in the warm-up...them weather guys blew it again...we weren't supposed to get any sap in February and now it'll start running this week. Tapping this weekend.

Good luck to all this season.

[maple flats]

Good luck! I hope all goes well.

[Maplewalnut]

Good luck Josh, stay at it

[Russell Lampron]

Josh if you're going to suck the sap out of Loudon just concentrate on getting the sap from the ridge. I need all of the sap that I can get over here on my side of town.

Good luck with the new season.

[Dill]

He's ALIVE!

I highly recommend the Accu forecast it shows me making syrup til the end of april. Much better then the ever warmer weather channel one.

[Russell Lampron]

He's ALIVE!

I highly recommend the Accu forecast it shows me making syrup til the end of april. Much better then the ever warmer weather channel one.

I've been using the "NWS Now" app. It only goes 7 days out but seems to be the most accurate.

[Amber Gold]

Thanks guys. Good luck to you too.

Yes, I am alive...sometimes barely.

I generally use the NOAA app, mainly because I like the format the best. I really don't know if any one is better than the other. During the season, I look at NOAA, weather.com, and accuweather, and pick the forecast I like the best...early season, 25/40, late season when everyone else is showing 60's, I still like the one that's showing 25/40. It may not be right, but I like it the best.

RO issues tonight...OMG!!! Put the RO together, filled the sap tank, went to kick it over...nothin'...like nothin', nothin'. Poked around in the panel with my fingers and a multimeter, and I'm clueless...everything seems fine. Pumps are turning over when manually operated, so they still work. I started a thread and contacted the NA rep. Lets hope somebody's got some ideas. Good thing is I didn't wait until the last minute, and I don't think I'll be boiling until early next week.

[red maples]

there is always something right??? so the pumps aren't turning over at all? hmmm. but there is juice to everything? maybe a fuse in there? don;t know whats in there that doesn;t make sense.

good luck anyway... hopefully you can get a rep out to look at it although I sure they are busy right now!!!

[Amber Gold]

I'm figuring it's something simple...just need to know what that something is.

[Parker]

On my lapierre there is a breaker inside the panel that will pop..on mine u just push the brealer to reset

Goo luck!

[Maplewalnut]

I was going to say the same as Parker but mine is a Lapierre also. The breaker has a little red pop button that is the reset

[Amber Gold]

Thanks guys and makes sense.

Kyle from H2O called first thing this morning. He thinks it's a fuse and there should be spares. Will look tonight after work. He's going to send me the fuse specs, so I can see if the local supply house carries them, and I can pick some up in case there isn't spares. I really like H2O's, but I wonder why they use fuses that pop when a breaker can be reset. Hands down, best customer service I've had on any product I've purchased.

[Russell Lampron]

It's good that they got back to you fast. I was thinking a tripped breaker too but a fuse makes sense. Hopefully you'll get it running before you get some sap.

[Amber Gold]

RO is back up and running...woohoo. huge props to Kyle at H2O. One 0.5 amp fuse was broken. Swapped in the spares and fired her up.

Out tapping trees today and stopped at the truck for lunch. Will get my sugar line tapped and hoping my 100 tap line too.

[Russell Lampron]

I'm glad that you found the problem Josh. I always like a simple and inexpensive fix.

[red maples]

Ha.... I knew it... Fuse. Well at least it was easy fix. Good luck tapping.

[Amber Gold]

Four day summary.

Tapping. Friday, got about 370 tapped and some repairs done. Finished the sugar hill line and almost finished the backwoods red line. Sunday, finished that line, fence line, and got the backyard lines half done…~350 total. Sunday, I got an unexpected surprised that set me back a couple hours. The discharge line from my releaser pump had broken the top of the elbow off and split the discharge pipe…water froze maybe?? Unplanned trip to Lowes to get fittings for a repair and another hour making the repair. Finished Sunday with the backyard line finished and the swamp line completed…all taps were in…I thought. I thought I had 900 taps to drill, but finished with about 890 taps in. Found out when I turned the vac. pump on and doing my vac. leak check and found probably 20 taps that weren’t drilled. A few 1-2 tap laterals and few full laterals that I missed. It took my two circuits of the woods to get it tight…seemed like more squirrel chew damage than usual too. Finished the day at 26.5”…pretty happy with that on my first day.

Even though I was hoping to have the vac. Pump turned on at some point Sunday, I don’t think I missed much sap over the weekend from not starting collection until yesterday evening. Overall, tapping and getting the woods online has gone well (everything’s working great), just took longer than expected with some unexpected repairs.

Submersible pump screen plugged up just as I was getting ready to leave last night (fortunately), so broke the releaser down, cleaned it off, and put it back together. Always happens for when the lines flush out, just a matter of when. Adjusted the top float because the pump was kicking on too late. Set at 24” from bottom now. Works better now.

Last night, I got the evap setup and ready for boiling.

Sap ran well overnight. Woods tank almost full, so hauled a load out this morning. Vac was reading ~29” with the sap running when I got my load. Really liking the new Atlas Copco pump!

I think that’s everything that happened over the long weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

We had a busy weekend here too. You didn't miss much Sunday. We got enough of a sap run to get the lines flushed and most of the woods walked to repair vacuum leaks. The sap has been running good ever since though.

[Amber Gold]

Tuesday was 1350 gal of my sap and 330 gal of other sap. Sweetened the pans and made about 15 gal of syrup. Wednesday, I hauled in something like 1300 gal myself and almost 700 gal from others. Made for a long night but made over 40 gal of syrup…made Amber for the first time in a couple years. Real good flavor this year.

During Wednesday afternoon’s pickup, I noticed the woods has some leaks on a couple of the lines…vac’s down to a lowly 22” in the woods (25” at releaser…thinking the releaser gauge is reading a bit high), but I won’t get to it until Saturday. Sap flow Thursday morning was nothing much, and based on the weather, I should have enough to boil tomorrow night.

Good freeze last night, so might run well today if it can get warm enough. Sun should help. Got 500’ish gallons in the tank this morning and 350’ish gallons at the sugarhouse. Will be boiling tonight.

[Dill]

Nothing really ran after noon yesterday. So you didn't miss much. I doubt we will get much today either. Saturday looks great.

[red maples]

yeah saturday looks really good. I just hope I get a freeze tonight. that will make tomorrow even better.

[Amber Gold]

Walked the woods Saturday and got the vac from 25" to 27.5"+. 2100 gal of sap got brought over Saturday between me and others, and boiled down that night. Made dark syrup...only got two runs of amber...oh well.

Surprisingly, the sap actually ran from Saturday afternoon through this morning. I was able to bring a load home this morning, and it's at the sugarhouse ready to go. I'll have at least another load in the woods after work to get with another 300+ gal being delivered.

My digital refractometer is AWOL after last maple season, so not sure what SSC is.

[Amber Gold]

After hauling a full load out yesterday morning, I thought it was going to be a promising day. Got to the woods after work and only found 300’ish gallons in the tank. Turns out I was only pulling 15” of vac, and the sap wasn’t running that well, so I walked the woods and found two spouts had come out. Fixed those and a few other little ones, and got the vac back to 25”+. Sap flow picked up dramatically…more vac really does equal more sap. Total for the day was ~1000 gal of my own and 340 gal of others. Syrup total is about 140 gal so far. Propane bottle ran out yesterday, so need to make sure I get it filled tonight, so I can empty the canner.

Per usual, the lighter syrup didn’t last too long, and I’m making Dark, Robust syrup. I think it’s mostly due to the short boils. I’m fine with it because it tastes great and sells well. I may, may look into building an air injection system for the flue pan, mostly to keep the flue pan cleaner because it’s a project to clean it during the season when working full time. If I did it, I’d want to find a way to tap off my high pressure blower that feeds the evaporator. I don’t want to listen to something else in the sugarhouse.

[Russell Lampron]

You definitely need a high pressure blower to run a bubbler. I tried to run mine with the blower that I had on my old arch and it didn't work. How many gallons per hour does your evaporator boil off?

[Amber Gold]

Somewhere between 90-120 gph. I remember reading your bubbler thread and the low pressure blowers not working. I think the hard part of using my HP pressure blower will be can I filter the air and is there enough surplus air for the bubbler and the evap.

Got a truck load hauled out yesterday and made about 15 gal of syrup. Skirting the edge of a Very Dark right now. Temp's dropped below freezing around 8pm last night, so that was a pleasant surprise.

At yesterday's' pickup, I caulked up some vac. leaks on my releaser and gained an 1" out of it. Well worth the 5 min it took. Still have a leak somewhere in the bottom because there's bubbles forming in the sap with no flow.

This morning I had about 300 gal in the woods tank, so should be a two load day today. Rising dropped off almost 300 last night for processing today and should have another load this evening. Might see Madbury too.

[Dill]

You opening up this weekend? I just noticed "Maple month" doesn't actually start til next weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

Is your HP blower noisy? I'm looking for something quieter than the shop vac. Your evap numbers are quite impressive for an evaporator that size. When I was looking at larger evaporators before I got my RO I think a stock 3x10 was getting 100 gph. Needless to say I'm glad that I got the RO.

How long did it take to make the 15 gallons of syrup? Light the fire, get the evaporator up to temp and shut down?

What are you using for sealer on your releaser? I had a small leak on mine and put food grade silicone on it and I think it leaks worse now than it did before I made the repair.

[red maples]

the best thing you can do for the bottom is have what is that lapierre or bernard? if you have a clean bottom its a different material than the canister and really not much works except to have them use their magic epoxy under vacuum to pull it into the seems. I tried just about everything and couldn't get it to work. but if they are both PVC (the black bottom) then they might work with just the PVC glue.

[Amber Gold]

OK run yesterday. Brought home a truckload and had almost 600 gal from others. Took it to 16% and made about 25 gal of syrup in 1.75 hrs. Right on the edge of the D/VD line. Downside to having a 600 is it dumps like 20 gal of sweet permeate into the head tank when doing a sugar rinse at the end of the night. So I may have started with 16%, but ended up something less than that.

[Amber Gold]

Russ,

I’ll get back to you on the H.P. blower specs. Not sure how to calc. air flow requirements for the arch and for the flue pan blower. Blower isn’t bad, but you have to raise you voice to talk, which can get old. I would like it quieter. It’d also make it easier to hear what the RO machine is doing which would be nice.

Evap rates are based on the RO machine. I set it to 2gpm concentrate, and it’ll creep ahead of the evap…sometimes I can keep up with it if I really put the heat to her. I figure 90gph is about right. Based on the figures above, I’m making like 14gph of syrup including startup/shutdown. I’m happy. I'd still like to get more sap though, so I can run it longer and get better use out of it.

I just used regular caulking. I didn’t know they made food grade. If it helps, it’s silicone based.

[Amber Gold]

Brad,

what I should do is pull the releaser apart at year’s end, so I can take it out. It’s going to be some work to do it. Then reseal the bottom with PVC glue and maybe a good coating of silicone? I’d actually like Lapierre to put a flat bottom on it, so I can pump it down further. I leave like 12” of sap in it because the bottom’s domed causing the releaser sits about 4” off the bottom. Maybe send it back to lapierre and have them fix it?? Didn't know they'd do it.

[Dill]

At the end of the season just send it up to Lapierre. I did that with the Northwood releaser. They rebuilt it for short money. I think it was under 75. New gaskets, vac tested. Bascom's hauled it back and forth even. I was blown away by how inexpensive it was.

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Alden. That's not a bad price.

1300 gal of sap processed last night. Made another 23'ish gallons of syrup. Think that puts me around 200 gal...almost a half season. Now at a very dark. Sap very cloudy...need those cold temps back.

Sap flow is down to a trickle. Hopefully things pick up tomorrow. Taking tonight off and getting some sleep.

[Russell Lampron]

The sap is only trickling in here too. I've got nothing to boil so I'm taking the night off too.

[BAP]

No sap here either. 7-8” of wet snow today so hopefully it will run hard tomorrow.

[Amber Gold]

Processed about 1600 gal of sap yesterday for an afternoon boil. 1200 gal of sap collected from me since Thursday night to Sunday noon (that kinds sucks) and 400 gal from Rising. Only got it to 14.5% before I fired the evap up. Shut her down just after 6. I had visitors for the first hour plus and the flue pan foamed waaay over…might’ve forgotten the defoamer. It happens at least once every season.

I spent Saturday walking the woods and got it tight again. Ended the day with vac. at 28.5” at the releaser and 26” at the end of the mainlines. Lapierre and others said I’d have problems with the releaser functioning properly at super high vac. and I haven’t seen it yet. Also, the submersible pump seems to pump fine against vac levels that high.

Long range forecast looks perfect. Lets hope sap flow picks up and SSC increases. Hope everyone caught up on sleep and is ready for the big sap!

[Russell Lampron]

When you build a bubbler for that beast you won't have to worry about the defoamer as much. My bottle is only about a 1/4" down since the start of the season.

[Amber Gold]

Russ, I don't think I want to build a bubbler for the syrup pan, so if I'm not using much defoamer in the back pan because of the bubbler, do you know how it'll affect syrup pan foaming?

[Amber Gold]

Been a bit since I last reported on here.

Last weekend, I spent waay too much time chasing down vac. leaks. I’m finding a lot of drop lines popping off the CV2 spouts. Reading the VT page, some are having the same issue. Spent most of Saturday chasing things down, and got the vac. up to 26.5” only to get there Sunday and find it back down to 5”. Spent a few hours walking the woods and finished the day at 28.75” at the releaser. Got to the woods yesterday to find the vac. at 15”. Walk the woods again to find three more drops off the spout…this is getting frustrating. Got those back on and vac. back to 28”

Boiled Sunday night and made about 30 gal of syrup. Grade is back up to a Dark, Robust.

Rode out the snowstorm at home. It’s really nice being able to work from home, have the woodstove going, and watching the snow fall around you. You know It’s bad when the plow truck gets stuck on your road during the day, and almost gets stuck again that night. Snow was mid-thigh with drifts over my waist.

Boiling last night was interesting, and almost really bad. Fired it up, started the first draw, and noticed the syrup temp kept rising, and then a burning smell. A nearby water bottle saved the pan. Found the plug from the float box hadn’t been pulled. I usually don’t put a plug there, but the previous boil, I cleaned the float box, so I had to put two plugs in and didn’t take the second out…oops. Close call, but all’s good…almost. Notice all night the temp probe is saying syrup, but the bubbles says it’s beyond syrup. Not sure why, but run with it. Finish the night and find the canner’s 7-8 Br heavy. I need to think about this one today. And then it gets better. I shut things down, let the evaporator cool off, prep the canner for bottling, go in the house for 5 min. to clean things up, and come back out to find the syrup pan’s burning. For some reason, the syrup pan boiled down more than usual and turned it all into syrup…maybe the pan was running low all night?? Again some nearby water saved the night. Pan is burned in half of one bay, but not bad…a run under permeate water tonight should take care of most of it. I think both of those issues are firsts for me.

I carried almost 600 gal from yesterday’s run into today, and it’s sitting in the sap tank. Another 1100+ gal will be dropped off today by others, and then whatever I truck in from my woods from today’s run. It’s going to be a busy night!

Looking at the long range forecast, things are going to freeze up for a while. Good time to get things cleaned up and prepped for maple weekend.

[Amber Gold]

In reading my post again, I think I've solved one of the issues. If I was making syrup that was 8 Br heavy, then it was already well past syrup when I shut down, so normally I don't have a cool down issue, but where I started so heavy, I did.

Still not sure why the syrup was coming off so heavy.

[Dill]

I just blame the time change for everything that goes wrong this time of year.

[Amber Gold]

Agreed. I hate daylight savings...stupid. Particularly since it happens during maple season...that last thing I need.

[sapman28]

Agreed also.

[BAP]

Agreed. I hate daylight savings...stupid. Particularly since it happens during maple season...that last thing I need.
Yes it stinks to get in rhythm and time changes.

[Russell Lampron]

Russ, I don't think I want to build a bubbler for the syrup pan, so if I'm not using much defoamer in the back pan because of the bubbler, do you know how it'll affect syrup pan foaming?

I've always ran the bubblers in both pans and don't know if the front pan will foam up without it. I'll have to shut the front one off to see what will happen.

[Amber Gold]

Thanks Russ.

I went into yesterday thinking it was going to be an epic, all nighter boil, but such is not the case, and in the end, it's a good thing because I was able to get to bed. Fortunately, RSS pump line froze and they couldn't get all the sap out of the woods, which made it easy for me to justify holding over the load I hauled out to today. This also allowed me to take a 200 gal load off Jim D's hands today. All in all, the 3000 gal I thought I was processing yesterday turned into about 1700 gal and I'm figuring at least 1400 gal tonight. I thought things were going to freeze up early last night, but I don't think it got below freezing until midnight or so. I may have another decent load out of my woods that I wasn't counting on.

Got the syrup pans swapped out and had to resweeten the syrup pan. Yesterday's burnt pan still had good syrup in it, but it needs to be boiled down more. I'm also making almost an Amber, so I didn't want to use the "burnt" syrup with the light syrup. For now, it's set aside in a pail. I made a keg, plus 14 gal (so close to filling another keg), and sweetened the pans. Good night overall.

Not sure what's changed, but last night, syrup temps were at 217.5. I've always drawn off at 219.5. Curious as to what it'll be tonight.

[Amber Gold]

Also talked to Jim about my waaay heavy syrup, and he said the barometric pressure was very low Wednesday night...explains why the syrup came off so heavy. First time I've experience the air pressure making that much of a difference.

Burnt/nitered syrup pan with permeate water flowing through it from the RO drain and a metal spatula means very little work to make a pan look new again.

[Russell Lampron]

SapTapApps will tell you what the draw off temp will be at the time that you are boiling. You can get it at saptapapps.com and you can use it to log your sap collection times and amount of sap you gathered. You can have more than one sugar bush which is handy for guys like you that get sap from other people. It keeps a running total of how much sap you got for the season and how much sap per tap per run. It uses data from weather underground to make sap flow predictions too. I've got it on my tablet and phone and have been having some fun with it.

It froze up around 9:00 here last night and it looks like i won't get another run until Tuesday. Surprisingly I had 650 to boil last night and made 12 more gallons of Amber. Unlike you I want my color to go the other way. It would be nice to make some dark for maple Weekend but I don't think that it will happen.

[Amber Gold]

Woah...you just opened a whole new world to me Russ...I had no idea this existed. I need to check this out!

It's pretty cool how little changes in so many things affects maple...production, temps, weather, grade etc.

[Russell Lampron]

Woah...you just opened a whole new world to me Russ...I had no idea this existed. I need to check this out!

It's pretty cool how little changes in so many things affects maple...production, temps, weather, grade etc.

Another thing that I forgot to tell you about the app is that it tells you what temp to draw off syrup at when you are boiling. Pretty sweet huh! Ooops I just reread it and that was the first thing that I told you about it. (Too many boiling soda's already!)

[Amber Gold]

I did see that feature. I checked it out over the weekend, and plan to start using the sap log feature this week. Thanks Russ!

Sap ran Wednesday through Friday. I think it was about 1500 gal both Wed. and Thurs, and I had the bright idea of holding over a truckload from Thursday to process Friday before the big freeze, and it turned out not to be a good idea. Thursday night and Friday ran unexpectedly well…had another truckload Friday night to bring home…wasn’t planning on having anything. Since my sap ran well, so didn’t Sean’s…he brought over three truckloads. All told, I had 2600 gal of sap to process that night. RO was started at 4pm, and didn’t get the concentrate to 11% until 11pm which is when I fired the evaporator up. The sap was cold, so it slowed the RO down. At that point, I thought it was better to just deal with the sap that night instead of spending the majority of my day Saturday boiling and dealing with possible freezing issues. Boiled from 11-4am (I think…or maybe it was 3:30) either way, I didn’t make it to bed until after 5am. Couldn’t get the concentrate past 12%, but the evap. was cranking that night. At 2gpm, the RO was barely getting ahead of the evap. I wish I’d started with fresh canners because I don’t know exactly what my syrup total was for the night, but it must’ve been 50+ gal. Biggest night ever at SHMF!

I do need to find a better way to process sap more efficiently for next season. These late start times are getting old. I don’t mind going to bed at midnight, maybe 1am, but much later starts to wear on you. Option 1 is a 600 gal bulk tank that I forgot about. I can use this as a permeate tank set up behind the sugarhouse and use the current permeate tank as a concentrate tank. I need to think about how much this really speeds up my process. Option 2 is a bigger RO...either add a post to mine or sell it and get a 1200.

[red maples]

thats cool russ.... I just checked it out quickly. but I will play with it once I have a little more time!!!

[Amber Gold]

Frustrated. After the deep freeze, there were drop lines off spouts everywhere. I expected it, but not the extent. I bet I had at least 5% of the drop lines off the spout, maybe even more. I ran around the woods (literally) to get things buttoned up before dark (I wanted to be prepared for big sap today). Got the woods back up to 26.5" at the ends of the mains after two tours through the woods. Also, I found some drops that weren't off, but close to it. Wondering if I'll get anymore today.

[Russell Lampron]

From what I've been reading others are having problems with drop line popping off of the spouts. I haven't had the problem here and hope that I don't.

[Amber Gold]

That's what I've been reading when I've skimmed the VT page. Saw Larry at Sunnyside on Sunday, and he's finding the same thing. I've never had a problem like this...might find 10 in an entire year, now I find 10 every time I go out it seems. One idea I have is maybe the nipple the drop fits on is a little bit smaller this year, so it's not gripping as well. There has to be something different. It's not like this year is abnormally cold or anything.

Got to the woods in the afternoon and had about 300 gal in the tank...good. Only pulling 5" of vac...bad. Ran the woods...again, and found at least another 20 drops off spouts. Had to make two tours of the woods to make sure I got them all and feel comfortable going to work today. Got the woods up to 26", but feel like I'm missing something because it should be higher but it was getting dark, and I needed to get the kids. I bet in the last two days alone, I've fixed drops on at least 10% of my taps. This doesn't count all the other ones I've found before this.

[Russell Lampron]

That's what I've been reading when I've skimmed the VT page. Saw Larry at Sunnyside on Sunday, and he's finding the same thing. I've never had a problem like this...might find 10 in an entire year, now I find 10 every time I go out it seems. One idea I have is maybe the nipple the drop fits on is a little bit smaller this year, so it's not gripping as well. There has to be something different. It's not like this year is abnormally cold or anything.

Got to the woods in the afternoon and had about 300 gal in the tank...good. Only pulling 5" of vac...bad. Ran the woods...again, and found at least another 20 drops off spouts. Had to make two tours of the woods to make sure I got them all and feel comfortable going to work today. Got the woods up to 26", but feel like I'm missing something because it should be higher but it was getting dark, and I needed to get the kids. I bet in the last two days alone, I've fixed drops on at least 10% of my taps. This doesn't count all the other ones I've found before this.

What others have been saying is that it isn't one type of spout or tubing. They think that the mainlines are frozen and the sun is heating the trees up enough so that they are trying to run and the pressure is pushing the lines off of the taps. I haven't had the problem here because most of my trees are reds and they won't run without some help anyway.

[Dill]

Ive put 30 drops back onto tees in the last 2 days I've never had this happen before. But I had mainlines full and froze solid. Guessing the snow drift didn't help the situation either.

[Amber Gold]

Been a while since I’ve updated my thread.

Maple weekend was great on all fronts. Great turnout, weather was good overall, help was awesome and did a great job, everything worked smoothly. It was nice making almost 30 gal syrup both Saturday and Sunday and at least getting something out of all the wood I was burning.

Sap flow has been slow and steady. Trees really haven’t kicked back in since the big freeze. Not sure what’s up. I thought 20/40’s were perfect flow temps, but I’ve been getting about 0.75gpt since last week. Kinda stinks. Sugaring’s hanging in at 1.4%. Unless daily sap flow picks up, I’ll probably go into a boil every other night schedule until the end.

Syrup total for the season is unknown. I think I missed recording a couple of bottling session because my sap to syrup totals don’t make much sense. Sap processed for the season is approaching 35,000 gal and should hit 40,000 gal before season’s end. I’m thinking I’ll be making syrup through next weekend (still showing freezing nights in the forecast), and I’m still making a lighter DR syrup, so plenty of grade to drop.

Noticed this year that I’m making lighter syrup than I have in years. Halfway through the season I changed a few things. No longer recirc’ing at 5/5 (P/C) and 250 psi on the RO. Generally, at 5/3 and 300-350psi until I’m ready to boil, and then I change it to 4/2 and 450psi when I got to boil. I think reducing the number of times the sap goes through the RO is reducing bacteria growth in the sap?? That’s my logic anyways. Additionally, something I started last week, which I think has helped is to take the first 5-10 gal of syrup off the evap and put it in one canner. Once the grade lightens up, put the rest of the night into another canner. When the evap cools down, it darkens the syrup a lot, which throws off the grade for the entire night. I’ve done this the past few boils, and I’m still making almost a Amber, Rich. My electric canner has 20-25 gal of what should be a very dark syrup ready to bottle this weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

I play with the pressures and flow rates on my RO all the time. If I need it sweet fast I crank up the pressure and reduce the concentrate flow. If I'm starting a first pass before I go to work in the morning I will set it to a gpm on the concentrate side that won't overflow the sweet tank and run it at 250 psi. When I do a second pass I set it 50/50 and set the pressure at 250 and let it climb as it gets sweeter. When I need concentrate in the head tank fast because I'm running low I crank the pressure and increase the concentrate flow. I've had to do that a couple of times when I was getting used to the new arch. What used to be the hour to go mark on the wall for my head tank depth has now turned into the "last fire" line.

[red maples]

as far as grades go I do the same thing. the first draw goes into one canner and after that the remainder goes into the other canner. Do you have a grade checker? those are great it really takes out the guess work. The other day I tested 1st draw vs. last draw and it was a very short boil only an hour and it went from 38 to 47. with 25 as the bottom end of dark and 49 as the bottom end of amber.

I have also notice a major drop in niter with 20/40 temps. although the sap flows have been pretty slow considering the good temps (not sure whats up with that either) but after maple weekend I did a full evap clean out and strained out the back pan. to remove the extra load of niter from maple weekend from boiling a deeper level and little slower than normal. and that may have contributed to the lighter syrup as well.