Onondaga County / CNY

[danfredw]

I tapped late in the day on 2/21 as we had good weather then. Got a few good runs but have really only collected around 15-20 gallons. All frozen now. Hoping to get some good runs starting this weekend.

I expanded and rebuilt my cinder block evaporator to hold 5 hotel pans up from 2. Also to hopefully draft better with an improved chimney design more on the ticket stove idea. Two years ago I didn't really have one and the syrup was a little smokey.

First time posting..

[maple flats]

Welcome aboard, I'm over in Oneida, I can see the old Erie canal from my sugarhouse.
The sap will start this weekend and will flow almost every day into April. You will be glad you added 3 more pans. Be ready for long boils and have your wood split about wrist size for a hotter burn. As long as you have sap in the pans there is no such thing as too hot. Just be sure to monitor the depth when the steam fills the air, it only takes a second from oh-oh to oh no.

[maple flats]

Dan, where in Onondaga county are you? In the future (if you get bigger) you might want to check into the NGMP (Next Gen Maple Products) pans, they are made on Wilbur Rd, just off Manlius Center Road. 481 is in their back yard. They make some nice beginner size equipment at reasonable prices.

[danfredw]

Thanks. I'm in the hills of Pompey.

I'll keep that in mind. I would love to expand, but we'll have to see how things go. I myself don't have many more trees I can tap, but quite a few neighbors have mentioned it would be fine to tap there's and they've got 30-50 acres.

In that case, I would of course need something more. I was looking at some RO ideas which seem fun to build yourself. I had been thinking of having my brother weld me up a better pan but I'll check into their pans etc too. Lots of fun to be had.

[maple flats]

Another idea, if needed in the future is to watch the classified ads on here, with various dealers and in The Maple News. Starting shortly after each season there are lots of used evaporators and pans for sale as producers get ready to expand and out grow what they have. I guess my biggest advice is to keep it fun, don't expand so fast that you no longer feel like it is still fun.
As far as your brother welding a SS pan. You need to realize that welding a thin gauge pan is not that easy, but if your brother has experience welding SS it might work.Most pans are 20 ga at the thickest, the rest are 22 ga. ss. The thinner the SS the faster the boil.

[danfredw]

Thanks for the tip. I saw some on Craigslist in the past seasons so you're right, not a bad idea. We'll see how this year goes and go from there. I'm freer this year with work, but that won't happen again so I'll have to figure something out like this or I'll have terrible keeping up.

I'll see what my brother says about the stainless steel. But does the thickness matter that much? I understand it might help the metal heat up faster, but once hot, wouldn't thicker metal hold the heat better like a cast iron pan or a Dutch oven does?

[maple flats]

Not so you'd notice. The sap is pulling the heat out as fast as you put it in. SS is a poor conductor of heat, but SS is required now, that is why the evaporator companies all use 20 or 22 ga. Your syrup will boil harder in a 22 ga pan than a 16 ga pan, with the same fire under it. The maple companies do not use 22 ga to save money, they use it because it works best. If your brother wants to try, I understand the best welders use a form fitted heat sink to back up the weld. That help avoid burn thru.
I'm not a welder, maybe some welders on here can chime in.

[danfredw]

Tapped almost all of my trees today. Just missing one bucket. Ran into some problems where my old tubing probably wasn't the standard size and while the ID was 5/16s, the OD was 7/16s. The Leader tubing I bought new for this year seems to be more like 13/32 OD. I only needed a little bit and was able to save it for my new taps, but now I'm going to have problems with the holes in buckets not being a snug fit for the tubing going forwards.

Anyone else experience anything like this? I'd rather not keep track of buckets, buy more of the larger tubing, and have to do some of each, but my only other thought was to try to figure out a good way to plug the larger hole going forward.

One thought I did have was to take a short leftover length of the larger tubing, drill a new hole and feed it thru both holes to plug it. Kinda stupid but it would work.

[Super Sapper]

I have put a piece of electrical tape over the hole to seal it. You can cut an X in the hole and your tubing should be snug.

[danfredw]

Thanks. I tried it and it's holding better. I'm not sure if it will cause the sap to "shear" off the tubing as it comes back down along it from the end (my tubing often seems to curl upwards at the end inside the bucket). But we'll see.