Southwest PA Tapping 2022 [Archive]

HowardR

02-02-2022, 11:04 AM

I hope you get a nice run! I live in Armstrong County and I'll be missing this run. My son's coming up from Virginia and we'll tap the trees together on February 10 and 11. Meanwhile, I still have a lot to do in order to get everything ready.

aunt stellas gardens

02-08-2022, 04:38 AM

18 buckets yesterday, sap was running on all but 1.
I had a short season last year, it got warm during my second week and I pulled the taps because of the mold specks accumulated in the buckets. I only got about 3 gallons of syrup.
Syrup season... Can't wait to start and can't wait to clean it all up. The busiest 4 weeks of the year!
New 2x3 evaporator in 2019

SRM

02-12-2022, 04:47 PM

Tapped in Amity, PA. I built a new sugar shack 16 x 20 with a new 2x4 divided pan Corsair arch. That was an improvement from the propane tanks and burners last year. Today, the wife and I boiled 30 gallons to learn the process of the new arch. Well besides
the 10" stainless steel chimney pipe turning bright orange nothing much out of the ordinary happened. The blower on the Corsair by Smoky Lake Maple was fantastic, almost too fantastic. I loaded the arch like the instructions said and lit the kindling. Then I started the blower and the fun began. The steam seemed to start within a few minutes and the boil followed. Then the nice attractive orange color of the pipe shown in the darkened shed. My wife wasn't too happy with the color so I shut off the blower and the stainless orange turned to a nice shade of purple. Well after a short 2 hours of adding wood without the blower on we were out of sap. The shed did not burn down and there was a nice gradient in the divided pan when we ended. I got another 20 gallons that afternoon, but will wait for about 60 gallons before I fire it up again. I didn't think that it would boil so quickly. Time to tap a few more trees. 70 gallons of sap. some boiled on the old propane burner and some on the new arch and some yet to be boiled.

HowardR

02-12-2022, 05:53 PM

It took us three days, but my son and I finished tapping today with help from a granddaughter, two grandsons and a friend. I leave my tubes out in the woods. I can't remember a year with more squirrel damage.

If the forecast holds up, there will be a huge run on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm ready!

Pdiamond

02-12-2022, 07:18 PM

SRM, Congrats on the corsair arch. I have had mine for four years and love it. I have the raised flue pan set. I usually do not even think about firing it up until I have a minimum of 125 gallons of sap. I can boil close to 50 gallons an hour with the blower on. Don't worry about the stack color it just means you have the rig working correctly.

sbedilion

02-14-2022, 06:57 AM

SRM...I'm probably just down the road from you. Lone Pine.....Shipe Run Road.

sbedilion

02-14-2022, 07:08 AM

All tapped. 81 taps. Collected 150ish gallons on Saturday and boiled down to about 10 gallons worth of concentrate. I'll probably finish that off tonight or tomorrow.

22625

22627

Skeller001

02-14-2022, 04:27 PM

Sbedilion

cool photo!

HowardR

02-15-2022, 09:55 AM

Low of 11 degrees last night and a high of 59 forecast for tomorrow! I can't remember a maple syrup season when the temperatures went down and up this fast.

sbedilion

02-16-2022, 08:41 AM

luckily Friday/Saturday will be cold.....I'll be able to catch up. ha. 10 day forecast looks great.

Mapleweasel

02-16-2022, 12:53 PM

Maybe this isn't the best place to ask this question, but here it goes anyways.
I evaporate over a homemad barrel evaporator, and then finish my syrup in the house on the stove. I really struggle to know when to remove the sap from the evaporator and begin the finishing stage. Is there any sort of rule that could help, maybe temperature or density? I don't think I can finish on my current evaporator setup as the Temps are to inconsistent.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

sbedilion

02-16-2022, 06:28 PM

Odds are you "batch boil" like me. I always have overestimated how close to syrup I am when I shut down my evaporator.....then it takes fooooorevvvvver once you bring it in house to finish. I don't have a good answer for you. I've gotten a lot better over the years but I still struggle with that part. I yank it off the evaporator and think.....an hour tops to finish this batch, but then it takes forever. haha. so i feel your pain. only thing i can add is.....it gets better with experience.

i know guys go by temp and other methods....but with batch boiling (at least with my setup), i have to time everything right cause i can't yank my pan off easily, so i stop feeding the fire and hope it stop evaporating at the right time....so i always play it safe and do it early but that means more time finishing.

HowardR

02-17-2022, 08:09 PM

Odds are you "batch boil" like me.

I think I'm one of the few people with a continuous process instead of a batch system. My sap gets automatically collected by gravity fed tubes to my tanks. From the tanks, it gets fed by gravity through the wall of my boiling room into my ROs which separate out 3/4 of the water and deposit the concentrate right into my natural gas stove-top-evaporator. At the other end of the evaporator, the almost-syrup drips out into a 5 gallon stainless steel bucket.

But it's not quite as easy as it sounds. I have to check on things every couple hours to make sure that everything is flowing smoothly. During big runs, I get up every 2 hours at night. I did this last night and will do so again tonight.

The only part of the process that is batch is boiling down the almost syrup, pressing it through the filter press and canning it into jars. My wife and I do this part together. Tomorrow will be the first day this season that we will can a batch, or maybe two batches.

DRoseum

02-17-2022, 11:11 PM

Very similar to my setup - basically as automated and continuous as you can get.

100 taps on 3/16 vacuum into a stainless tank which my RO draws from when it fills to a certain point and turns off when it's empty. RO feeds my head tank on my small drop flue pan set on a custom / all-stainless natural gas arch. Auto draw off into a stainless pot and a level sensor/controller to turn off the gas when head tank is empty.

Take the pot inside and check density and finish and filter thru stainless filterpress into containers.

Skeller001

02-18-2022, 07:44 AM

sbedilion

02-18-2022, 09:37 AM

That sounds lovely. haha. I do ok with my setup.....once I get the sap to my house (my IBC tanks are on a trailer at the family farm.....trailer back 150-200+ gallons to my driveway). My RO feeds my biggest pan 3x4ft (i call this my warming pan but I do get it boiling well) which then feeds my front pan (2x3ft). If I'm good.....My RO feeds the warming pan at the exact rate i'm feeding my front pan....which keeps ups w minor adjustments to my valves. When this happens I just feed the fire every 30mins or so.

I'd like to switch to continuous but right now with work and family.....sometimes I only have time to get everything boiling, then I have to leave for kids practices for a couple hours, so I flood the pans and let them slowly steam off. Then I'll get the fire going again when I come home. It takes me a couple days sometimes working like that but it works.

DRoseum

02-18-2022, 09:47 AM

Totally get it on the kids front and making the process work for the family and enjoy it (and the syrup) as much as possible. 😁

Your setup makes sense and is effective. Hopefully the weather next week doesn't ruin our season. All those consecutive warm days without a freeze are never good.

HowardR

02-18-2022, 12:21 PM

Hopefully the weather next week doesn't ruin our season. All those consecutive warm days without a freeze are never good.

The key temperatures will be Sunday night and Wednesday night. If they are both below freezing, we'll have a huge run next week.

HowardR

02-20-2022, 03:19 PM

I just finished canning last week's run. So far, I've made about 1/5 of the amount that I usually produce in a year.

Last year. the syrup was light amber through the first week of March. This year, the mid-February run was a dark amber.

SRM

02-23-2022, 12:53 PM

I received 25 (new to me buckets and spiles). Should I go ahead and tap trees now? It seems like the next few days will be great. What is the rule of thumb for this and when is too late for the amount of sap you will get?

DRoseum

02-23-2022, 02:32 PM

Go tap. Last year I didn't tap until 2/24 due to extremely cold weather. You will probably get a few good weeks right now.

HowardR

02-26-2022, 08:04 AM

Looking ahead at the forecast, it looks like a huge run will start on Tuesday.

SRM

03-10-2022, 05:02 AM

I am wondering what is the best way to save the contents of a divided pan at the end of the year. I need all the syrup I can get, so I don't want to let it sit in there at the end. I will clean the pan a different way. Is it best to get the sap to a boil and then start to drain the pan into a pot that I can finish over propane? Should I just drain it cold? How far down the sight glass can I go before I ruin my pan? This is the first year for me with the divided pan and I'm not quite sure what is the best method to use. I'm holding out this week to see what the weather will do, but I'm thinking I'm near the finish line. How is everyone's year so far? At this point I seem to be down on the final syrup count that I expected. How much syrup should a 2" depth 2x4 pan yield once it is boiled down without any more sap being introduced?

mainebackswoodssyrup

03-10-2022, 05:16 AM

You probably only have about 10 gallons in that pan. I would finish it over propane for sure. We finish our pans in a 16 gallon turkey pot. We put about 10 gallons in to start and just slowly add the rest after it starts boiling. We can run the pans down low to 1” or less pretty easily being on oil….just hit the off switch. I would not push it with wood on your 2x4.

DRoseum

03-10-2022, 05:46 AM

Agreed. Be careful running too low on wood. I am on Nat Gas and run it fairly low then turn it off and drain into a full size steam pan (12 x 20) to finish on a gas cooktop.

Since its a divided pan, you could drain it into multiple different pots and boil each down separately and combine at the end. Will be a little more fuel/time efficient than trying to boil 10 gallons at once.

Openwater

03-10-2022, 09:43 AM

Does anyone put water/RO permeate into the headtank to chase the sweet left in the pan for the final boil? Then just stop drawing off once the water hits the drawoff port? Not even sure if this is possible, but I think I've read about it somewhere.

SRM

03-11-2022, 02:46 PM

Well I got 20 more gallons today and went back in time to boil in 5 gallon stock pots with propane. After 3 1/2 hours I got it down to a small pot to finish tomorrow. Hard to believe that I was boiling close to that amount in one hour with the divided pan and forced air. I'm still hoping to get some more before Tuesday. I think that is the day I will pick up everything and call it for the year. I did get 3.8 gallons syrup from the remnants of my 2x4 divided pan. That worked out great, thanks for the suggestions and tips.

On another note, how do all of you place the section of information "like a footnote" in your posts. I haven't found out how to do that yet.

berkshires

03-11-2022, 09:59 PM

To add that "footnote" click on the top right part of the page where it says "settings". Then under settings, click on "signature".

Gabe O

sbedilion

03-14-2022, 09:38 AM

One final run for me and I'll be calling it. I'll probably do my final collection Wednesday evening.

I'm currently at roughly 10 gallons. Hoping this final run gives me 3-4 more gallons. Sugar has been extremely low this year. I've been holding at 1% all season.

DRoseum

03-14-2022, 11:20 AM

Same...last few days for sure. I've been sitting at 1% as well so ratios are pretty bad and made a lot more dark syrup than unusual. Overall very happy as I'm at 32 gallons already and will probably finish out over 35 for the year.

Best wishes to all of you in the offseason... or should I say the "getting ready for syrup season" season. 😉

SRM

03-18-2022, 05:35 AM

I finished with 12 gallons of syrup. Not bad for what I have now. I'm hoping to get to 100+ taps next year with a float box and maybe an RO system. I burned much more wood than I thought I would. There is a new RO that I saw: The new Leader Mini MicRO 110 volt RO machine, but that's an extra $2000. Is it worth it? I'm trying to make it as easy as I can for a one man operation. Currently I have all gravity fed taps with plastic and aluminum buckets on mostly flat land.

DRoseum

03-18-2022, 07:06 AM

Have you considered building an RO?

You can build a smaller unit comparable to the larger RO buckets. This would be good for up to 100 taps. I have about 100 taps on vacuum which makes it seem like I have 200 taps and thats what I have and it works great for me.

BoerBoel

03-18-2022, 07:14 AM

I second the suggestion of The RO Bucket. They should have something that would work for you at a more affordable price. https://www.therobucket.com/product-category/ro-buckets/ro-buckets-ro-buckets/

(https://www.therobucket.com/product-category/ro-buckets/ro-buckets-ro-buckets/)DRoseum...

...I have about 100 taps on vacuum which makes it seem like I have 200 taps...
At what vacuum level does it double the sap production? I have several 3/16 lines running between 14"-20" of vacuum and am trying to figure out the increase in sap with this vacuum levels.

DRoseum

03-18-2022, 07:27 AM

[/URL]DRoseum...

At what vacuum level does it double the sap production? I have several 3/16 lines running between 14"-20" of vacuum and am trying to figure out the increase in sap with this vacuum levels.[/QUOTE]

University of Vermont proctor maple research center has show you get 4 - 6% increase in yield for every inch of vacuum applied at the taphole.

I see 20 to 25 inches at my pump and all my trees are up on a large hillside and each tap is getting near max vacuum of 29imhg.

Assuming 5% yield increase per inhg, 20 inhg vacuum will double your yield over gravity.

SRM

03-18-2022, 07:35 AM

DRoseum

03-18-2022, 08:28 AM

Thanks for the idea. I did not know about the buckets. I think I'll look into the Rb15. I don't think I can do vacuum just yet. Most of my trees are spread out on the flat hundreds of yards from the house. I have a 17 acre hill that has sugar trees that I still haven't addressed yet. If there are enough trees, I will think about the vacuum. I think next year I'll try to tie in as many as I can on gravity.? Lots to do and think about in the off season. I appreciate the suggestions. Thanks again.

Anytime! Its always fun to plan and grow and look for efficiencies. Almost as fun as making the syrup LOL.

The RB15 is good, but of you have plans to grow, get the biggest pump. I think that is on the 20 or 25 kit. Or you can just buy that pump from RO bucket or online. I use a coronwater typ-8900 on my home built unit (link below) and believe it is the same pump they use on their largest units.