May Journal

[wnybassman]

This morning I finished splitting the little bit of wood required to fill all my wood racks again. Been working at it a little at a time since the season ended. With the racks filled, and with the RO now, it is probably a 3 to 4 year supply of wood. I also have a few trees bucked up on the ground, and three trees on the ground that need to be bucked up. Needless to say, I have wood coming out my ears!

Not much else to do to get ready for next year. Biggest decision for next year is what spouts and drops I want to go with for the second year on the lines. A lot of talk about bad experiences with CV spouts this year and has me nervous about those. I'd like to change all my drops to 2 barb T's as well, to reduce "pull aparts" next season.

[Russell Lampron]

I've still got 3 tanks to wash before my clean up is done. Hopefully I'll get that done this weekend. I've got some repairs to make on the releaser and RO and I need to redo some of the bricking in my arch. The refractory cement didn't set up too well in the below freezing temps last January.

Noel I didn't have any problems with the CV2's and will be using them again next season. A lot of producers had a lot of problems with lines coming apart last season and it was with all types of taps and tubing. CV's were getting a bad rap because they are very popular.

[DrTimPerkins]

We used about 50% CV2s this year (~2,500 taps). We had ONE pop off all season. Cold night, quick thaw the next morning. On that particular drop, spout was on the southeast side of the tree and the dropline ran around to the north side. I think there was still ice in the drop when the tree thawed.

We had a lot more mainline stainless fittings come apart this year than ever before (very rare in most years). Our lines cross under a road. Both the wet and dry lines froze, the sap started to run and built up in the lines way up the hill, and trees were adding to the load on the system -- pressure finally blew apart the lines.

I think when fittings do come off it is more of a matter of either a mismatch of sizes on fittings and tubing (some manufacturers/fittings tend to run a little big or a little small), tubing aging and loss of elasticity (happens more with rigid tubing), or quality control issues in tubing size. We use a small tubing sizing tool to check each roll and reject any that are too big or too small.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

We just finished pulling taps in the big bush last weekend. We have all of our stuff cleaned up and put away but the new to us 2x6 is coming a week from Saturday. We have a lot of work to do in the shack to get ready for boiling on the bigger rig next spring.
We noticed the same thing as Dr. Tim with fittings. While we didn't have any blow apart, we have replaced several over the years mostly from moving mainline around. With CDL tubing, the plastic fittings are a much better fit than the stainless ones. The OD's definitely vary between the two. Then you can get 2 of the same fitting, one from CDL and one from a hardware store and again get variances.

[buckeye gold]

Hey thought I'd add my May journal comment, although it has no application to Maple:

1st two weeks of May....Turkey hunt until I drop in exhaustion
rest of May.....Fish, fish some more and then fish even more, occasionally mow some grass or do a little around the house just to keep the queen form getting too upset

[BAP]

I have my pans soaking with cleaner. Need to get them drained, rinsed and pressure wash the bottoms. Everything else is cleaned up and put away. Now, to get next year’s wood all split up.

[wnybassman]

We used about 50% CV2s this year (~2,500 taps). We had ONE pop off all season. Cold night, quick thaw the next morning. On that particular drop, spout was on the southeast side of the tree and the dropline ran around to the north side. I think there was still ice in the drop when the tree thawed.

We had a lot more mainline stainless fittings come apart this year than ever before (very rare in most years). Our lines cross under a road. Both the wet and dry lines froze, the sap started to run and built up in the lines way up the hill, and trees were adding to the load on the system -- pressure finally blew apart the lines.

I think when fittings do come off it is more of a matter of either a mismatch of sizes on fittings and tubing (some manufacturers/fittings tend to run a little big or a little small), tubing aging and loss of elasticity (happens more with rigid tubing), or quality control issues in tubing size. We use a small tubing sizing tool to check each roll and reject any that are too big or too small.

I guess I was more concerned with reports of the balls getting stuck open or closed.

I am still considering 5/16ths drops into the 3/16ths lines as well. Have not heard too many pros and cons on this.

[n8hutch]

I guess I was more concerned with reports of the balls getting stuck open or closed.

I am still considering 5/16ths drops into the 3/16ths lines as well. Have not heard too many pros and cons on this.I ran 400 ,5/16 drops on 3/16 tubing this year the tubing was one season old.. I think that the CVs did their Job, I got good sap flows until I turned the pump off because the sap got buddy.

[Maple Man 85]

Got a sun burn pulling taps... Sugar house is all cleaned up, finishing up the evaporator tomorrow. Walked the next two parcels we are tapping for 2019 and got that squared away. Now we're back to cutting and splitting wood!

[Russell Lampron]

I washed my last 3 sap tanks yesterday. Now on to the repairs and upgrades.