Green county '18

[ponderingjunkman]

Back after an annoying year last year of taking care of unpleasantries! No fun running out of syrup! Anyway, we started tapping today, put new 3/16 lines on a steep, treaturous hillside. More lines tomorrow, also on a new hillside. Then the 235 buckets on proven trees. Made some evaporator changes, again, as the sap pan i had built didnt perform to expectations. Rebricked the arch, and have a new driveway and brick sidewalk to keep the mud down. 100 gallons this year? That's the goal!

[ponderingjunkman]

Put another 59 taps in on a steep hillside yesterday. Lots of effort stringing new lines, and it was slippery! Used up the dominion and grimm tubing, and started in on leader tubing, which is much stiffer and harder to assemble by hand. Need to make a tool! Not much running today.

[ponderingjunkman]

Well, there are a few hundred gallons waiting this morning, ran well last couple days. Test boil revealed some weaknesses in the new hardware, and the need for better steam evacuation! Thrash time!

[ponderingjunkman]

Averaging about 50 gallons an hour, which means boiling into the night. Seems like the trees are slowing down, but not much! So warm and pleasant out! Drew off, and it is dark! Sure tastes good tho!

[Jonnie Maple]

Cool shack

[ponderingjunkman]

Thanks Jonnie! We tried to model it after old industrial buildings, but mostly, we had extra material laying around, and used what we had!

Finished boiling at 9pm last night, 550 gallons, and got almost 6 gallons of syrup. Probably could have drawn off another couple gallons, but didn't want to wait on the finishing pan. The preheater wasn't warming the incoming sap as much as previous years. I removed some baffling from the hoods to make assembly easier, and the new steam stack may be pulling the heat out too quick, have to ponder that

[Run Forest Run!]

I love the look of your brick sap house. How unique. Best of luck this season!

[ponderingjunkman]

Thanks Karen, right back at ya! My wife hails from Quebec, but she isn't french-thank goodness! Ha! Just kidding! Anyway we hung all the rest of our buckets today in the snow! Also had some crusty plastic buckets that we were able to use our extra taps with, so we now have 266 buckets. Not alot running today, but the new taps dripped, leading to that delightful sound of sap hitting the bottom of the buckets- delightful music! About 3 inches of wet sticky snow fell as we tapped. Nothing like being in the woods- so peaceful and relaxing- except for the wet feet, cold fingers.... still have to count the line taps

[ponderingjunkman]

Finishing up another 550 gallon run. This sub 1% sap is a pain!

[Run Forest Run!]

Junkman, I can't imagine running 550 gallons in an entire season! That would be a dream. But, I'll take today's 3.5% soft maple sap any day! Hope your % gets better.

[ponderingjunkman]

Went and counted all our line taps- 246. With 266 buckets, for a total of 512 taps. Buckets were not running yesterday, but the lines were. According to the leader sap hydrometer, we have 1/2 of 1% sugar content. Supposed to freeze tonight, so we should get a run Tuesday, likely boil Wednesday. We sure are going thru the firewood!

I got to thinking that it seemed unusual that the sap we left sit a couple days didn't spoil. Of Course! There's no sugar in it to go bad!17828 at least the barrel is full!

[YBSean]

Check calibration temp on hydrometer and take temp of sap in tank. I have one from Bascom that says 38F. You add 0.1% sugar to reading for approx every 10F in higher sap temp. Most maple books have a table or chart of the conversion numbers.

My refractometer typicaly reads about 0.2% higher than sap hydrometer with temp conversion. I zero the refrac with distilled water before each set of measurements. Keep your instruments in same general area as sap so everything is at close to the same temp.


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[ponderingjunkman]

Well, what I thought would be a good run Tuesday was not! Saw 28 degrees Tuesday morning, but got only 215 gallons. But I did dump 50 gallons- I snagged a couple 275 gallon totes, but didn't properly research here first, and thought that scented soap would easily wash out! Nope! Lesson learned! Guess I will make stainless tanks to go in the cages, I have a few sheets of 22 gauge stainless sheet. Oh well-seems like the sugar content is going up, sap tastes sweeter, and Wednesday's boil yielded 5 gallons and a pint! That works out to 41.95121951 to one? Better than the previous 60 to 1! Also, a customer came and bought 5 gallons! Also got a lead on a bunch of slab wood that may help us finish out the season if our wood supply runs low. Today was spent battoning down the hatches for this storm. I hope the snow and cold improves things. We will see!

[ponderingjunkman]

It's running! 4 hours time this afternoon, one main line with 85 taps on 3/16 filled a barrel! Tastes sweeter too! We had 15 inches of snow, and no power most of the storm. Walked the lines repeatedly, as trees and branches were breaking all thru the storm, until the wind picked up. No major damage tho, only one line parted from a tee when a branch fell on it. Heavy Wet snow, just up the hill in Windham There Was 38. Cool!

[ponderingjunkman]

Boiling during the Calm before the latest storm!

[ponderingjunkman]

It's been running, but sugar content is a consistent 50 to 1, based on gallons boiled vs syrup produced. Seems sweeter tasting the last couple runs tho. Good run today again, and it's still running, 34 degrees. We are at 76 gallons for the season so far.

[ponderingjunkman]

Well it ran slowly after this freeze. Guess it took a bit to thaw. Oddly, the buckets out produced the lines. Sugar content still at 50 gallons sap to one gallon syrup. Despite all that, we have exceeded 100 gallons! Finished the run at 108 for the season- a new record! Woohoo! Looks like more to go yet, but this coming week is showing a warm up, I bet we hear peepers a week from now.

[ponderingjunkman]

And just like that, it's all done! 134 gallons, and 3 quarts! Never thought we would make THAT much! 6835 gallons of sap. 50.7 to 1. Odd, we will pull taps with snow still on the ground. No Flow today, No freeze last night, and none forecasted till the weekend. Taps went in almost 6 weeks ago. Time to recover, do real work again, and catch up on everything that has been neglected the last few weeks!