dlwithers
04-13-2018, 08:24 AM
Grant Township
Pulled the last 40 buckets on Wednesday. My property is divided between by a ridge. The open south side on top, the flow starts 1 to 3 weeks earlier. Below, north, and dense, the ground stays frozen for weeks longer. This year, with the colder weather it was closer to the 3 week differential.
There was significant ice in the buckets when I pulled them and I recovered 50 gallons of sap and discarded the equivalent of 30 gallons of ice. Usually I will melt the ice and combine the liquid sap and melted ice and reduce the total to syrup.
When I would measure the sugar content in the ice it would be nearly the same as the liquid sap. This time i put the ice in buckets after 1 hour of melt I added to the sap, then let the ice sit for an additional 8 hours before checking the sugar content. Wow, I sure have wasted a lot of time, sleep, and firewood, not to mention effort to cut, split, carry the firewood when there has been a lot of ice in the buckets... after the initial melt the sugar content dropped to .5%. Ouch!
Anyways, a day older and a little wiser. Now for the season totals
4th year, home made evaporater that looks suspiciously - a lot - like pictures of a hobby unit from an state east of Michigan. With a separated 2 x 3 pan from Smokey Lake. Great pan!
75 5 gallon buckets about 600 gallons of sap 12 gallons of syrup. Lots of quality time hanging out in the woods. Priceless!
Pulled the last 40 buckets on Wednesday. My property is divided between by a ridge. The open south side on top, the flow starts 1 to 3 weeks earlier. Below, north, and dense, the ground stays frozen for weeks longer. This year, with the colder weather it was closer to the 3 week differential.
There was significant ice in the buckets when I pulled them and I recovered 50 gallons of sap and discarded the equivalent of 30 gallons of ice. Usually I will melt the ice and combine the liquid sap and melted ice and reduce the total to syrup.
When I would measure the sugar content in the ice it would be nearly the same as the liquid sap. This time i put the ice in buckets after 1 hour of melt I added to the sap, then let the ice sit for an additional 8 hours before checking the sugar content. Wow, I sure have wasted a lot of time, sleep, and firewood, not to mention effort to cut, split, carry the firewood when there has been a lot of ice in the buckets... after the initial melt the sugar content dropped to .5%. Ouch!
Anyways, a day older and a little wiser. Now for the season totals
4th year, home made evaporater that looks suspiciously - a lot - like pictures of a hobby unit from an state east of Michigan. With a separated 2 x 3 pan from Smokey Lake. Great pan!
75 5 gallon buckets about 600 gallons of sap 12 gallons of syrup. Lots of quality time hanging out in the woods. Priceless!