Hop Kiln Road 2021

[Hop Kiln Road]

The Point of the Spear

Been having a real bad problem with my hearing aids and couldn't hear M too good lately. Haven't been sleeping neither cause the inside of my skull sounds like ole Miss McClain on her chalkboard and that thought alone is a nightmare. Whole issue has been sloping me off the edge cause new fangled hearing aids cost more than a used pickup. Don't get me started. Anyway, got real, real bad at supper last night. Couldn't sit still. Figured one of them must have broken off but when M finally found HER eyebrow tweezers on MY fly tying bench - gawd another issue - to fish it out of my ear canal...my goodness if it weren't a pair of them young fireflies looking for someplace private, like in total rut! M said Treat it's a sign to tap and I could hear her loud and clear!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Yup, getting the bugs out of my systems too. Retubed my last orchard with 3/16 when the going was pretty good in January. Orchard has great slope. I think parts of it have been tapped for 200 years. Took 8,000' and had to reposition some mainline. I'm thinking of running mainline across the top of the ridge so I can Zappit load all the laterals downhill. Put on some .172 DSD Stars, used them a couple years ago when there was a shortage of .225s, but the 11/64 bits snap pretty easy. The orchard was seriously damaged by a previous operator. He abandoned the woods saying the trees no longer produced any sap. I took it over 5 years later and found with the extend of cluster tapping it was easy to conclude he certainly wasn't drilling much white wood. But with thinning, fertilization and conservative tapping the sap yields and SC are rising but still 25% below the other orchards. Noticeable improvement in bark quality, some improvement in tap closure and crown growth, and there is going to be some nice ingrowth.

[red maples]

Hey Good to see someone else getting their thread going!!! Sorry to hear about your hearing hope that gets straightened!!! I see people all the time ruining trees tapping the same area every year small trees and over tapping trees its one thing if its a cull tree(although I have been tapping a few cull trees for several years). Sad really. but it takes time to fix the woods when someone ruins them. kinda like many things these days. Anyway, good luck this year.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Got 500 in and both shurflos up and running with low vacuum. Hope to get the rest in this PM if the wind dies down. Trees are pretty cold so not much sap. Pretty interesting 30 day forecast.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Bruce it's good to see that you're getting some taps in. I got all of mine in on Tuesday and Wednesday. I spent the day today chasing vacuum leaks. I found and fixed the big ones and got some of the small ones fixed too. Good luck this season.

[68bird]

Hey Bruce, I'm with ya on the hearing aids!I have to have my youngest son(27) check my woods for leaks!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Could figure out why I was merrily pumping sap on one side of the swamp and nothing was going into the road tank at the other. Until... I found the wired 1/2" line had been shredded and mangled out in the middle of the swamp, five feet off the ground. Suspect the neighbor, a dentist, had gotten into the gas and tested out some of his new handy work. If I hadn't gotten water in my boots falling through a couple times I would have gone over and given Dr Smiles a piece of my mind.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Wild first boil Monday. Trucked in 500 gal Sunday afternoon, loaded the RO membranes and assembled the evaporator. All set to go. Woke up to find it 34F and everything had run all night. First, one of the RO membranes had failed in storage over the summer. Pressures and flows weren't right but it took awhile to figure it out, but the clue was the storage container was only half full of liquid. Fortunately I had a spare but had to wash and rinse all over again. Back in business. While the 200 GPH was squeezing, brought in another 1,000 gal. I run a 2 pass system so everything was backing up. As I was pumping the field tanks, the sap was flying in as the temps climbed all day.
Got the evaporator started and boiled 9% for about three hours and did a good draw. Stack temp 1100. Second draw, my front float ran dry, checked the flue float and it was NOT asking for sap but the head tank was low. Look inside the hood, steamy, but could see down the flues!!! A Chernobyl moment. Over rode the flue float, killed the blower, opened the doors, stopped the draw. Checked back inside the hood, sap gushing in but still see down the flues...until finally... it fills. The pipe between the flue pan float box and the flue plan, which controls the level of the flue float, had a wasp nest in it, unseen by an external visual inspection and had broken loose after a couple hours and choked off the float box leaving it full while the flue pan boiled off. Oh my. Fortunately no scorch, I think inside the hood was just steamy enough, the sugar content just low enough and the reaction just fast enough that nothing stuck to the metal. Just, just, just maybe by a minute or so.
So the run was 3 gpt. Averaged 2% which is a low. Got everything buttoned up last night. Drained the RO and turned on the heater. Got the finisher half full of syrup, 200 gal of 5% which I haven't checked on yet. And blocks of ice in all the field tanks. A little dicey but a great ending considering the possibilities. Cold and breezy this morning.

[Amber Gold]

Hey Bruce, always enjoy reading your posts. Good luck this season.

One maple weekend, chatting it up with a visitor, look over at the site glass, and no sap. Look inside the hood and sure enough, there's only a couple inches of sap in the bottom of the flue! I forgot what the issue was, but got it rectified in short order with no issues to the pan. I don't get it, but not arguing with her.

[Pdiamond]

Whew, Bruce.
Glad you got all that rectified before disaster struck. That could have been really bad. Happy sugaring.

[Russell Lampron]

I had one of those *** puckering moments myself last night. The valve from the flue pan to the front pan clogged up with what I suspect was an unnoticed wasp nest or something like that. I too caught it fast enough to avoid a disaster.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Glassed the first batch with the new canner. Put 20 gal through and the filter press didn't get above 12 lbs, so pretty clean stuff. Good test of my new system to pack 15 gal kegs when the going get tough. Grade was only 44% but it had sat around a lot at various stages. Pumped 500 gal from under the ice yesterday afternoon and things were just starting to flow. Crunched it overnight. Going to be a busy couple of days.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Boiled the previous day's crunch and and grade rose to 50%. Ran it through the same filter press cake, got the pressure up to 20 lbs. Can't believe it. Magic DE? Big ice block still in the concentrate tank. Didn't running as well as I had expected yesterday. Pumped 600 gal and expected 1000. Sugar ranges from 1.5 to 2.9, suspect they're running low on tree sap and the ground is still firmly frozen. Still got ice in all the field tanks, some tanks, a lot of ice.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Been pumping .75 gpt for the last 3 days so the runs are a little weak. Sugar popped back up yesterday with nothing below 2.0% and one at 2.7%. Grades still in the low 50's. Been hooking the filter press to the pans at the end of the boil, sure makes them look pretty and might be adding a couple points. Got new o-rings for the sap pumps. And, plus got a teenager, E, who likes to bottle 12 oz glass, those safety caps go on a little hard.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Frost starting out of the ground Friday. Still some ice in most of the field tanks, but that is about to change. Only pumped .3 gpt but the SC continued to rise to 2.5. Son #2 is coming with granddaughter to boil today. Think I'll do a Red Roof crankdown and try to one pass it to 6 or 7 for their boil. I usually two pass to 10 or 12. 23F overnight but a lot of wind so probably another weak flow once it warms up.

[red maples]

Man I wish I had that many sugars and sugar that high!!! Makes ROing go a lot quicker!!! I have a lot of reds but hey thats what I have!!! make the best of it!!! its still all fun!!!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Had visitors to watch the boil. Another weak .4 gpt last night, SC still low 2's. Today looks like another short flow with a freeze by 5PM. Probably let it all freeze in the field tanks. Suspect the ground hasn't unthawed and the trees are just low on bole sap. Almost at 50% of an average season.
22227

[Russell Lampron]

It's good to see that you're at close to half crop. The sap isn't flowing that good here yet. I've made about 1/10 of a crop so far.

I did some harder crunching than usual and got 7% on my first pass, up from the usual 4 to 5%. I had a hard time on my second pass keeping the concentrate down to 14%. At one point I was at 19.5%.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Pretty cold out with a stiff breeze. All my orchards have signs of previous production. One, an old farm, has a number of outbuilding, one of which has an early arch. I had never gone in it because the building is collapsing and the brick chimney had been roofed over a long time ago. But I think this is an arch designed to hold two kettles so it would date around the Civil War, perhaps a little earlier. When I have some time after the season I'll get a better look at it.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Here's the picture.22234

[Russell Lampron]

That arch, if you can call it that, is in surprisingly good condition given the condition of the building. Nice find!

[Hop Kiln Road]

12F here this morning. Not going to hit 32 until afternoon and then it will run hard for a couple of hours but only float the ice and probably won't be able to pump it. Then a stretch of good weather with the root sap next week, which, according to my records, would be right on schedule: peaks flows have typically been between March 20 -22 here. Get a chance to test my new keg system.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Nope, more frost than I thought. Hit 36F yesterday afternoon and the lines barely dripped. 26F this morning and forecast above 32F at 10 AM, high of 52F with no freeze overnight. That should restart it.

[Russell Lampron]

It's 18 here this morning with a high of 50 in the forecast. The sun is coming up and there's no clouds in the sky. It's supposed to be 28 by 9:00 which is where I turn the vacuum on when it's nice and sunny. The high here was only 34 and I didn't even get 50 gallons of sap yesterday.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Hammered through the ice and pumped .7 gpt yesterday morning. Sap from Sunday afternoon and Monday's squirt. Pumped another .75 gpt at 6 last night and everything was running strong. SC above 2. Should be more this morning. Plenty of frost in the ground so no root sap yet.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Pumped 1.1 gpt of 2.3% from Thursday's flow. Best of the season so far. I'm at 70% of average sap flow, a little higher on syrup yield. Might hit average before it warms next week. Sap looks great but the grade is dropping into the low 40's.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Beautiful 12 hour run Saturday. Going to be over 1.5 gpt with more today. At 5PM last night I was pumping one tank with a 3/16 gravity 110 tap system and it was flowing a gallon of 2.2% every 3 minutes. Couldn't believe the flow volume. It is probably the wettest of the orchards.

[Russell Lampron]

It was running good here last evening at 6PM. It got off to a slow start but was coming in at about 100 gph when I pumped the tank which is the best I've seen in a while.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Saturday's run was 1.7 gpt of 2.2%, took most of Sunday to process it. Grade went as high as 54, but mostly mid 40s. Sunday night pumped another .7 gpt, still crystal clear and good sugar, but awful warm. Should hit my 15 year average before the warm up. I think we'll get some more on the other side of the warm up, still strong ice in the swamps.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Another .7 gpt last night. SC good. A little cloudy but tanks are clean.

[Russell Lampron]

I noticed that my sap was a little cloudy too but a 67 degree day will do that. It got down to 24 here overnight so it's looking like another good day for a sap run.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Hit my 15 year gpt average yesterday. Still ice in one field tank and sap is slightly cloudy, frost in the ground and the tanks are clean, but the forecast is not hopefully. Yesterday's boil was in the mid 40's with nice flavor. Probably end the season around 175 gal. Couple of notes: took 3 or 4 washes to get the membranes back to normal. RO usually runs at 225 lbs and will 2 pass 1000 gal, but it took awhile to reach this level this season. Syrup was usually clean. Got 20 gal+ out of the press when typically it would be 8 - 10 gal. The new 20 gal canner and keg system was timely. Made 28 gal last Saturday, a record, with no back up in the sugarhouse.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Couple observations. My season was astonishingly average when compared to the last 15, except the number of days the sap actually ran was quite low. 15 year average 17.5 days; 2021 14 days. And that was just the weather. My run/day/gallons/tap was actually quite strong at .79 with a 15 year average of .62

Start my post season woods protocol. I cut off the .225s when I pull them and fertilize the tree at the same time. A new .225 is 15 cents and 8 oz of fertilizer was only 10 cents last year. Then all the lines get loaded from the tops with zappit for a week and then flushed, dried and capped. I've installed some additional line so I can pump/load from the tops down, so it goes rather quickly.
no problems with plugged tees and some of the systems are 5 years old now. I put the new .225s on in Dec/Jan when I inspect/repair the lines.