Spring Harvest 2023

[Amber Gold]

First post of 2023 Spring Harvest Maple Season.

I spent time over Christmas break getting the woods walked and tuned up. Things were left in good shape and ready for the season….and then we got some big storms and haven’t been back since.

I usually plan on tapping Presi. Weekend. It works out well with work and typically maple season type weather. With the vicious cold we had last week, I thought winter was here to stay…at least for a little bit…boy was I wrong. The weather’s been good since the end of last week and looks good for the long-range forecast. Problem is I couldn’t tap any earlier anyways. My truck’s injection pump went, and that’s snowballed into a new radiator, water pump, and power steering pump while it was apart…can’t haul sap until it’s fixed. The deep freeze broke the pitless adapter on my well. Got that fixed last week and found there’s another leak. Spent Saturday digging and found the second leak. A new water service pipe is being installed tomorrow. Also, we had a weekend ski trip planned with the kids…final kick-off before maple season, but that was cancelled because of the water issues. And then there’s work. This season, it’ll be challenging to keep up with work and make the most of maple season.

For me, my approach has always been to block out four days and get all the tapping done at once and woods turned on. My thought is once I tap a tree, I want the vacuum pump running, and there’s no point in doing that unless my big lines are tapped in. Plan is to take Thursday/Friday off from work and tap trees. The snow should be mostly gone by then, so tapping should go quicker. I should have the two big lines done the end of Friday and maybe even the vacuum pump on…if not Saturday morning. Hopefully, the woods are still in good shape from winter storms. Sugarhouse. Everything needs a hosing and put the evap. back together, and we can make syrup.

Status quo this season. Still will be 900+/- taps. Same vacuum pump, tanks, evaporator, RO. We have a system that works.

[Amber Gold]

Finally, we started tapping today. Was solo today, so not great progress. I got the back woods line done and started the sugar woods line. Say 250 taps total. Also, I had to do some repair work because of animal damage. This is the worst year I've ever had for deer damage...at least that's what I think it is.

I think I'll finish the sugar woods line by lunch tomorrow which will put me close to 500 taps. I may turn the vac on and get that going to make sure that's all good. Get those two lines tight, and then tap the house line between Friday afternoon and Saturday. Provided that all goes well, the last two lines (~150 taps) will get done Sunday.

Truck is back on the road. That turned into quite the project. 1998.5 Dodge 24V and the injection pump failed. The project expanded into a new radiator, water pump, coolant, power steering pump (2 of them), and some gaskets. I'm now $3600 poorer, but the truck should be good for a while.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Takes my breath away, Josh. Hope the season goes well for you, but the weather is suspect.

[Amber Gold]

Somewhat productive day today. Mainline anchor tree fell over, so I had to relocate the anchor tree. Finished tapping the field line, and got about half the house line tapped. Probably gets us to 700 taps. The house line will get turned on in the morning and tightened up.

Had about 500 taps online all day today, but didn't get much sap.

Vac. pump is using oil. Not sure why, and going to start a post about it. It was low this morning, and low again at the end of day.

[red maples]

hey there he is!!! sorry you had so much **** going wrong... but thats life I guess.

For the pump oil. Mine did the same thing yesterday. when its pulling a lot of sap as mine did the past week or so no matter how good your moisture trap filters etc are you are gonna get a little moisture vapor that settles out in the oil this will make it like there is more oil. even when its running the pump side is pulling oil and the oil is somewhat aggitated but the exhaust side sits idol. this allows any moisture to settle since the synthetic oil V68 doesn't mix with water. I have a fitting and a clear hose connected to the drain valve and a jug to catch the water. so even when its running I can crack the valve and see the moisture running out. its obvious to tell the difference because of the viscosity even when the oil is warm it would be even easier if the oil had a dye in like the dairy oil I used to use on my old pump was blue easy to see. Ideally it is better to do it after a good freezing night because the oil has a chance to rest and any moisture to settle out but when you have a 2 or 3 days stretch you don't want to shut down the machine!!! when its cold like yesterday and there isn't much sap coming in then not much is vaporizing from the High vacuum. My oil levels are always higher when its warm and or lots of sap coming in but I know thats just the moisture pushing the levels up. hope that made sense. at rest I make sure the oil level is about 1/4 high in the operating zone and as long as it is in the upper half of of that zone while running I feel comfortable.

Good luck today.

[Shaun]

I looked at the literature on the GVS 25a and it appears to have a gas ballast valve. This is usually opened to get rid of moisture in the oil. I'm not sure I fully understand the concept... I run the gas ballast open all the time, not sure if this is right or wrong but I do not get any moisture in the oil. Figured I'd mention it in case it helps.

[Amber Gold]

Hey Brad, not sure if I'm really following what you're getting at. I've always run it the same way.

Hey Shaun, that was another question I was going to ask. It has a gas ballast valve, but I don't understand what it does or how it works. I forget if it's open or closed. I'll check tomorrow and make sure it's open.

The consensus thread I made is the exhaust filter needs to be replaced. I don't understand how that works either, but I have a call in to MES to see if I can get one tomorrow.

Thanks guys.

[Amber Gold]

We got the rest of the woods tapped today. It was a late finish, but it was worth it. Final tap count TBD, but it will be 890-900. Nic, our youngest son, spent the day in the woods with us. He had fun and was a trooper. Great day.

Woods was at 24" when we left, but I had to turn the pump off because of the oil situation. I didn't trust it overnight.

Sugarhouse needs to be cleaned. Tomorrow night's project.

[BAP]

Good to hear that you are all tapped out. Doesn’t look like a lot of sap this week especially later in the week, so you will have some time to get everything squared away for the next big runs. Some years it seems like no matter who you are, you are always running behind the 8 ball. Sounds like you are having one of those years. Hopefully that ends and you can go on to have a good year.

[eustis22]

Wait, what? Why no sap? In Haverhill I show 40s/20s till friday....

[Amber Gold]

Pump is now back in business. Drain back orifice was clogged. Everything seems to be working well.

Got the pump going at about 1230 and spent a couple hours in the woods and got the vac. up to 25". Went back to work for a couple hours, and drove to the woods to haul a load of sap out...woods tank had 900-1,000 gallons in it. That is sap that's been collected while tapping in and some vacuum run time.

Last night, cleaned all the tanks and started picking up the sugarhouse.

Tonight, clean the evaporator and finish picking up the sugarhouse. I'll be concentrating tonight, but not sure if I'll boil. I have a late afternoon meeting that's in the middle of when I'm busy getting stuff done around the sugarhouse. Same deal tomorrow.

[Amber Gold]

Checked on the pump at lunch and still good. Vac. at 26.5". Pulled a load of sap out while I was there.

Last night, swapped out the RO membrane and did a rinse. Cleaned/prepped the evaporator. New pan gasket this year.

Tonight, will be the first boil of 2023. We'll have the two truckloads collected so far, plus 150 gal from JD, and whatever comes in today. It'll be a big night, but need to get caught up before the freeze up.

[Amber Gold]

Checked on the pump at lunch and still good. Vac. at 26.5". Pulled a load of sap out while I was there.

Last night, swapped out the RO membrane and did a rinse. Cleaned/prepped the evaporator. New pan gasket this year.

Tonight, will be the first boil of 2023. We'll have the two truckloads collected so far, plus 150 gal from JD, and whatever comes in today. It'll be a big night, but need to get caught up before the freeze up.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday, I brought another load of sap to the SH and left ~400 gal in the woods tank with the sap still running. I had a 2-hr late afternoon meeting that delayed the last of the sugarhouse prep (mainly cleaning/putting together the evap) and it took a while for the RO to run the first pass. Sap temp at 35F and running 2C/5.5 to 6P at 320 psi. Started the evap. About 1030 and shut down at 0215. Sweetened the pans and made about 20 gal of syrup. Everything went well on this end.

Dealt with a yo-yo problem in the flue pan. Foam levels go up, pan level goes down. Fought with it for about 30 min before it settled out.

Also, it never fails that every year on the first boil that as soon as the flue pan starts to boil, it rapidly foams up. I was prepared for it this year (usually I forget about this), and it still happened. No mess this year which is good.

Since we missed the first 7+ days of the season, I’m taking this year as a mulligan. We get what we get, and it is what it is.

[BAP]

You never know, it might even out in the end for you. It’s easy to look back and see what you should have done but at the time it isn’t always what you can get done.

[red maples]

back orifice was clogged? where is this back orifice?

[Amber Gold]

Finally back on trader. Not much going on. Last Friday, my power was turned off at the woods. During one of the winter storms, the utility pole came down and I didn't find out until the day before I was going to tap. I still had power, and everything looked good, so I was hoping to get through the season with it, but someone called it in, so the power company had to turn things off. Saturday, a rush trip to Lowes to get lumber and concrete mix, and everything was reset by day's end. Power turned back on Monday afternoon. Thankfully, this happened during a cold snap, so no lost production, but just one more thing to add to the list this season.

I added a second security camera in my pump shed. This will allow me to monitor the vacuum pump and its oil level, and the tank level gauge when I get it set up on Saturday.

So now, I'm just twiddling my thumbs waiting for the sap to start running again.

BAP, that is a good point. You can always woulda, shoulda, coulda, but in the end, things are what they are, and who knows what the rest of the season will bring.

Brad, in the pump head, there's the chamber that you fill with oil and have the oil level gauge. On the left side, there's a second chamber that has the exhaust filter and second oil reservoir. This is for oil that gets trapped by the filter and drips down into this reservoir. For some reason, there's a float to maintain a set oil level in this second chamber, and when the float opens, it allows oil to drain through a port from the left chamber to the right chamber. MES took out the float and the plunger that seals that port, so once the oil level gets to port opening, it just automatically drains back into the main chamber.

I'd recommend ordering a spare exhaust filter, so you have one on hand. He doesn't stock a lot of them.

[Amber Gold]

Quick update.

Boiled for the second time of the season Sunday night. I got a stomach bug (thanks kids...) Saturday night, so it made Sunday fun. Processed about 1500 gallons total collected and made about 30 gallons of syrup. SSC ??...I keep forgetting to check it.

The drain pipe from the perm. tank cracked but was able to get through the night. RO room breaker popped three times...assuming a bad breaker and swapped it out a the end of the night. Breaker was getting warm, but not hot.

Last night, I walked the woods and found a new deer chew that dropped my vac. levels to 20" for the day. Also set up my tank level gauge. Initial impression isn't positive...it's in metric (but I can deal with this) but the worst thing is the screen contract is terrible. I can't read it on my video camera...work in progress.

Plan is to boil every other night unless there's a big run. Sunday after boiling, I hauled a load out of the woods, and yesterday, I grabbed another 650 gallons. Today sap flow is OK, so not sure how much more I'll have to boil tonight.

[Amber Gold]

Almost a week since my last post...not very good.

Sap flow has been OK. Been getting a truckload out of the woods every day and boiling every other day. SSC peaked at 1.8-1.9%, but it's been hanging lately at 1.6%. We boiled Thursday and Saturday nights.

I've been making AR all season...this has never happened. Usually, the first batch will be AR, but then it'll cross the line to the dark side. I didn't get a sample bottle of the first batch, but I think it was 65% TC, and the lowest I've had since has been 50%. Flavor has been excellent.

I spent Saturday boiling syrup down for cream. Cooked down 10 gallons of syrup (5 batches), and it took all day, which isn't productive for other maple related things. I also made a batch of candy. I followed the Cornell instructions on making candy, which meant cooking to a higher temp than I usually do, and then cooling the syrup down (which I don't usually do), this made a mess. I couldn't get the syrup through the trough fast enough...the second batch of candy, I met it in the middle. Didn't cook quite as high and didn't cool quite so low, and things went smoother. TBD if candy quality is better than my normal method. Cream making was a bit of a mess. The cream was setting up in the funnel faster than I could bottle it. Before, I'd occasionally have this issue, but it was terrible yesterday.

Yesterday, after making cream, we emptied the bourbon barrel...fantastic flavor! Very happy with the barrel ages syrups we're making. That was a bit of a mess too. Pumping 40+ gallons of cold syrup takes forever, and then when you get two cases into bottling and realize the syrup didn't filter...turns out the end plate was upside down. That set me back like 1.5 hrs. Glad I caught it though before I got too far into it.

However, it didn't make for a good weekend to get out in the woods. I know the sugar woods line has some leaks on it, but I just can't get out there. I'm still pulling 26", so that just sets it lower on my priority list.

[red maples]

I tried doing candy that way too. went to one of the classes he did at one of the bascom's open houses back before covid. and it was a mess. just jammed up the spout and almost bent the worm. and shut it off had to pull it apart quick because it was turning into concrete. that was a waste. so I just do like I always do. the burbon sounds fun though. been reading a bit on that. the infused syrups seem to be catching on as well. let me know how the sales go for that bourbon aged syrup.

sap flows have slowed here a bit too. not sure why except maybe snow ice around the base of the trees blocking the roots... I am not sure there have been some colder cloudy days too. atmospheric pressure? this is a very low pressure system coming in to curious to see how things progress. but weary of how long this season will go I would be I will run out of freezing nights before long.

[Amber Gold]

Spent the end of last week pushing hard to get ready for maple weekend. Although Sunday was cold/windy, the weather was great for the weekend. I’ll take cold/windy over rain/snow…people still show up. From Wednesday through Friday evening, we collected ~1200 gal of sap, which is enough to run the RO all day and make syrup. Saturday’s run wasn’t much, so we had to pump raw sap directly to the head tank to have enough to boil for the day. Since the process changed, we completely flooded the flue pan and had to drain it down to run the RO. Overall, very happy with the weekend. Everything basically went well.

Sap flow last week/weekend wasn’t what I thought it should be. Temps seemed like they were perfect for sugaring, but sap flow as 0.5-0.75 gpt…not sure what gives. I thought mid-20’s/mid-40’s was perfect sugaring weather…guess not. Hopefully, things turn around and gets better.

Production wise, we’re about halfway through the season. We’re 12,000+ gal, and I figure an average year should be 20,000 to 25,000 gal. If sap flow picks up, and we can go into April, we should do alright this season, even considering the February sap we missed.

[Amber Gold]

Sap flow picked up yesterday. Collected ~0.75gpt. SSC down to 1.3%.

I relocated one of my cameras, so I can remotely monitor the tank level. The display on the ultrasonic tank level sensor is unreadable, so useless to me.

[jrgagne99]

1.3% already... oof. Good luck with the rest of the season!

[Amber Gold]

Thanks JR. The biggest downside to 1.3% sap is trucking it. The RO machine doesn't care what it is. So long as the sap runs, and we're making good syrup, we'll keep going.

Hauled most of a truckload home yesterday. Trees are just running OK. Vac. crept up to 27". No freeze last night, and a rain event coming in, so maybe that'll get the trees running better??

[Amber Gold]

Sap flow is still about 0.75gpt. Trees just aren't running well. Boiled off about 1500 gal over the previous two days and made about 20 gal of syrup. We're well into a dark now. Grade dropped a lot since the end of last week.

I got to the woods yesterday not long after the releaser pump stopped kicking on. When the electrodes get a film on them, they don't work properly. Just a quick scrub and all good. A good thing that came out of it is I found a couple vac. leaks in the pump shed I didn't know about.

However, I got a surprise back at the RO room. I turned the RO back on and noticed sparks coming out of the plug. Shut it off and found the plug was melted because it was overdrawing on one leg. My guess it was a bad connection within the plug. Rewired the RO directly to the breaker to get me by for the night, and it ran fine. I'm going to rewire it tomorrow using a 60-amp non-fusible disconnect...hard connections, so no plug to worry about.

Yesterday was full of surpises (one almost really bad), but things worked out in the end.

[red maples]

I had an issue with my RO as well. when I first tried to start it up this year it would click and had a few sparks out of the plug as well. so I quickly stopped it. then noticed that there was a pretty good not corrosion but just a film or tarnish of the copper plugs wasn't making a good connection so got a little fine sandpaper and polished it up and it was good to go!!!

[Amber Gold]

I'm wondering if I had something similar going on. I'd recommend swapping out the plug setup for a 60-amp A/C disconnect. They're $18 from Lowes and then you have a terminal connection and eliminate a failure point. If you need to move the RO beyond the extension cord, it only takes a few minutes to disconnect from the box.

After fixing the electrical issue, not I'm dealing with a low pressure issue. Before filter is ~40psi, after filter is ~18psi, so the RO is shutting off because of low pressure. I'm not sure why there's 20psi of pressure drop, and that's with no filter in the housing. Still working with H2O to figure this out

Sap flow still stinks (which is kinda good since the RO isn't running), but I haven't been able to process since Thursday night.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday, I got the RO running again. Since the before filter pressure reading is fine, I connected that line to the pressure switch. I processed about 1700 gal of sap and made 20+ gal of syrup.

We're at about 16,000 gal of sap collected this season, and SSC is at 1.1%. Still shooting for 20-25k, but I doubt we'll get there with how things are running. Since the middle of last week, we've been getting about 1/3gpt, so it's taking a few days to get enough sap to boil. Temp's have been favorable, so I don't get it. I think last year was similar, and we just limped along after maple weekend until the mersh came.

[red maples]

yeah not getting much sap here either. not getting much at all I am creeping up on 8 weeks since I first started tapping. I think most of your sap is coming from your sugar maples.

[Amber Gold]

I think you're right about the sugars. My line that's mostly sugars is flowing about as much as all the other lines combined.

[Amber Gold]

Still kinda going here, maybe. Not sure. I was planning to boil tonight, but a long road trip for work got me home late. Going to boil tomorrow night and see how it goes.

I thought I understood what gets the trees to run well, but they haven't since maple weekend even though the weather seems to be favorable (at least I think so), the trees haven't budded, there's still snow on the ground, etc...IDK.

[Amber Gold]

Our syrup season is over. The last sap hauled from the woods was on 4/4 with SSC at 1.0%.

Saturday, we hustled and got all the taps pulled, and that night, we boiled off the pans and started cleanup. This Saturday, we’ll roll-up the lines that get taken down and demo the pump shed…it needs to be rebuilt. Also, I’m hoping to have the sugarhouse cleaned up and put away as well.

Season summary to follow.