Spring Harvest Maple Farm - 2009

[Amber Gold]

The plan is to start tapping Thursday morning. Taking the morning off and working the rest of the day from home so I can keep an eye on things. I have some more minor line work to do and have about 350 taps already setup so I’ll tackle those first. Then over the weekend I’ll install some more laterals/drops and build another sap ladder to hopefully reach my 500 tap goal. I still need to get the tanks cleaned and the releaser plumbed, but I’ll take care of that tomorrow night. Test fired the evaporator over the weekend and it ran good, just need to work out some bugs.

Hoping to boil over the weekend and make some syrup. I haven’t had syrup in almost a month and I think I’m going through withdrawals… I have all new tubing and fittings. Will the first run produce quality syrup or will I need to wait a couple of runs?

Best of luck to everybody and bring on the BIGSAP.

[tuckermtn]

Josh- give a call if you need evap. help... and for some reason our 130 tap bush ran the best its ever run the very first day we tapped it- without vacuum - go figure...

[Amber Gold]

Thanks...will do. Hoping to have enough to boil this weekend so I'll likely be giving you a call then.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday morning I got my tanks and releaser setup and was pulling 18” at the pump and 17” at the releaser with everything closed. I then started off taping my 1300’ mainline w/ 250’ branch line and finished that mid afternoon. For now that’s tapped out with approximately 150 taps. I can probably get another 40 taps with some long laterals. Once I got back to the releaser it was reading 1.5”. Walked back through my lines and found the camlock fittings from Bascom’s need to be extremely tight to hold vacuum because the OD of the barb is the same as the ID of pipe so the hose clamps are doing all of the clamping and sealing. The 200’ branch line was used and I found 6-7 old tap holes in the bottom of the pipe I had missed when I was installing fittings. I sealed those up with electrical tape for now and got back to the releaser and was pulling 16”. I then moved onto my 900’ mainline and put in about another 150. There’s still more laterals that I need to put drops on which will get me another 50+ and another short section of mainline with a sap ladder that’ll get me another 50-75. After finished tapping that mainline I was still pulling 16-17” at the releaser so that’s good. I think at this point I’m around 300 taps installed and should be able to get another 180, hopefully by the end of the weekend.

I have more lateral and tapping work to be completed this weekend and hopefully will be boiling Saturday night. I collected about 30 gallons last night and at noon my wife reported that I had about 80 gallons in the tank so today should be a good day.

[Amber Gold]

I collected another 120 gallons yesterday and looking at the tank this morning there's another 100-120 in there again. I should get some more today once it thaws out so I'll be boiling this afternoon.

[Mac]

Josh,
happy to hear it... still sloooow here in the lakes region... haven't check yet but maybe it ran last night... got to mid 40's here in Ossipee last night.

[jtthibodeau]

The story is the same here. I had high expectations for yesterday but, the run never amounted to much at all other than a few buckets around the open yard. Here's hoping today will be better. Then again, the weather is only calling for a high of 35. At least there's sunshine today.

Good luck everyone.....

[Amber Gold]

It was a good weekend overall. I found another half bag of spout reducers so my total on Thursday was actually 250. Yesterday I did put out another 100 so I am up to 350+/-. I got one sap ladder working and it’s pretty neat watching them do their thing. I found some more leaks and am only dropping 0.5” between the pump and releaser. I still have some more lateral work to do and another short sap ladder, but I still expect to reach 450+/- and will put out about 20 buckets. I hope to have it completed this weekend.

Yesterday the taps were running good. Unfortunately it all ended up on the ground. I started the day with 100 gallons in the tanks and ended the day with 100 gallons. With the way they were running I bet I lost at least 150 gallons of sap, not including what I may have lost that night. Not very happy about that. When I connected my two tanks I must’ve loosened the bung fitting because it had a solid leak around the fitting. The tanks are in a wet area so it wasn’t noticeable on the ground. Chalk it up to a learning experience.

Boiled about 250 gallons last night, 50 of which just went to fill the pans. I’ve got a noticeable gradient in the pan, just not close to syrup yet. With the sap I lost I would’ve been eating pancakes this morning. Really happy with the evaporator, except for all the sap that’s on the floor. The evap. really rips with that blower on it and it’s sending sap out over the side and onto the floor. I’ll need to come up with something to fix that. Also need to come up with a better method of shutting down. Ended stopping too early and flooding my pans too much to get all the sap out of my head tank.

Glad to see things are cooling down. I don’t have the time because of work to collect and boil. It looks like it’s going to warm up again next weekend.

[Dill]

So your using both of those tanks?

[Amber Gold]

No. I was going to but can't figure out a good way to fix the broken one that I'd feel confident in and the other one has a pretty good smell. It's been airing out for a while and has only gotten marginally better. I'll look into it when I have more time. Currently using (2) 150-gallon plastic stock tanks plumbed together. Doesn't give me much capacity, but it works for now.

[Amber Gold]

Collected a surpising 50-75 gallons yesterday and didn't turn the pump out until almost 2pm. It was actually running pretty good by the end of the day. Fixed the leaking bung fitting (I hope) and will find out today if I'm making a trip to TSC for a new fitting.

It looks like it's going to be a good weekend and week.

[jtthibodeau]

Sounds pretty good, Josh. Here in Weare, it has been only been a tease. My earliest trees are around the house on gravity. These 25 taps sitting in the sun, have only spit out 10 to 12 gallons so far, with nothing much from the wood lot. Here's hoping today will bring the start of Big Sapping.

Good luck to everyone this weekend.....

[Mac_Muz]

Mac, are you in or near Ossipee? Anyway I hung bucket 9 yesterday on a new tree I found near the house, leaving the cover off till late dusk. That amounted to about 1/2 cup of sap.

One other bucket had about that much, and the rest had zippo..

Today I have over cast and so don't have high expectations.

I don't know if I should wait to hang the rest of what will be 23 buckets or wait more. I like to see the drill hole spit sap no sooner than the bit is pulled out, and so far only one tree did that and then it froze up leaving ice in the spout.

It seems like something should happen soon, but when?

I am just south of Tamworth Villiage off Hollow Hill Road. All the trees are new this year never been tapped before, and are located all over the place in the woods and some by a swamp. I need a sled with a bin, and snow shoes for every one. I may tap some Road trees just to compare, but these trees were far from good last year.

I don't know if being on the road side where town plows and a road grader pushing snow on these trees is bad for them or not. So the idea if i do it is to test road side trees compared to real in the woods trees.

[Amber Gold]

Been having good runs. If I remember correctly I collected 100 or so gallons Friday after work. Went back Saturday morning and had another 200. Went back Saturday night at 8pm and had another 200. Saps definitely running. Managed to put out 15 or so buckets. One tree I tapped with two buckets came up completely dry. It looked like a red and is in good health and got nothing. Got another 30 or so taps in on the upper mainline and built a 3' sap ladder to get it into my mainline down to the tank. Fixed some vacuum leaks and found some more that I'll need to take care of.

Started boiling around 9pm, about 3 hours later than I was planning on. Trying to get a jump start on all the sap I need to process. Didn't get a good boil going till about 10-10:30 and called it quits at 2pm. Managed to boil down about 175 gallons. Things are working well, just need to tweek some things. I'll have plenty of sap to boil Sunday to make improvements. It's still 40 out and I'm wondering how much sap I'll have in my tanks in the morning.

Hope things are thawing out over in Weare and up north.

[Amber Gold]

So far this season collection is working out fantastic and am having good results...processing is a different story.

Another good day of collection. Collected another 275 gallons over the night and all day today. Just emptied them out and they were still trickling. Thought I'd give the pump a rest so I turned it off. Not sure if I'll turn it on tomorrow. Have to keep my eye on temps.

Had a scare on the vac. pump this weekend. Got a little sap in the vac line yesterday afternoon just about up to the sugar house so I built a moisture trap. Woke up Sunday morning and heard some more sap in my vac. line in the same spot. Didn't worry about it because I had the moisture trap. Went to the hardware store about 10am to get some fittings came back and heard the vac. pump making a horrible racket from about 40' feet away. Ran into the sugar house and saw 0" and turned it right off. Checked things over, ATF fluid looked fine, so I turned it back on. Started right up and pulled fine vac. levels. Not sure what happened, but it scared the crap out of me. Thought for sure I had sucked in sap and cooked it.

I'm all tapped out for the year. Tap count is either around 350 or 450. Not sure if I bought 500 spout reducers or 600, but I have about 150 left. Still some more to add, maybe another 50, but not going to get to it this year.

Boiled today from about 12:30 to 9:30 (startup to shutdown) and managed to boil off 250-275 gallons of sap, which yields a rate of about 30 gph, more than half of what I should be getting. About 1.5 hours of that I was installing lights in the sugar house and getting help firing, but the numbers should've worked out better than that. Not sure what's going on, if it's me or the evap, but if this continues I'm hosed becuase there's no way I can keep up with the taps I have with this kind of boil rate. Have to figure something out. Today I was supposed to process all the sap I had collected, but I still have about 550 gallons to process. At this rate it's going to be a long week.

Also managed my first sale. An old-timer who used to sugar years ago stopped in and bought a gallon of syrup. Saw the article and had to come over. Also got a call from somebody interested in wholesale syrup who saw the article. Will need to follow up with him. This newspaper article is working out very well. Glad to have this surprise opportunity.

[Amber Gold]

It ran haaaard yesterday. Didn't start running till 10'ish and had the 300 gal tank filled by 5:30 and still going. Don't know what I've gotten overnight. I did leave the vac. on.

Got my evaporator running better, but not perfect yet. Was able to process about 200-250 gallons last night and produced about 5 gallons of syrup. Will be bottling that up today. Came out Grade A Dark, but this stuff has been sitting since Saturday. My first batch on Sunday came out just shy of Medium. I'll be boiling Sunday and Monday's collection today so hopefully it'll lighten. Need to check sugar content to see if I'm doing any better than the 1.8% I was getting earlier this season

[tuckermtn]

Josh- how are your evaporation rates doing? any improvements? What was your total hall for the 3/10-11 run?

[Amber Gold]

Eric, I've been busy trying to get things better and surface for air. Do you run your evap. using the floats at the min. depth setting? It seems pretty deep compared to what other people run.

Well where I left off was Tuesday my wife pumped 200 gallons out of the tank. They were full and overflowing by the next morning. I really need to get a bigger tank down there. I pumped another 200 gallons out and started boiling my 300 feed tank around 12:30. I think by that point I had my feed tank full, a spare 150 and 100 gallon tank at the sugar house, and the truck tank full. I boiled from 12:30-9:30 and got through 275 gallons of sap. Evaporation rate did improve to 33 gph. Still sucks. Sugar content is still 1.8% and made 8 gallons of dark amber, which I bottle up. The stuff I made over the weekend was lighter than I thought (0.5 light) so I'll need to make a heavy batch to mix it in with.

Yesterday I collected another 200 gallons and that was with the vacuum pump not being turned on till about 2:00. I've got a 3-4" vac. leak I need to find. Still pulling 15" at the releaser.

Stupid me left 75 gallons in the feed tank and had my shut-off valve freeze. Got it partially thawed after I had my evap running and boiling down the pans. Shut the evap. down and thawed the line out again. Got the evap running again only to have it freeze again. After the 3rd or 4th time I gave up and called it a night. Still made about 1.5 gallons of grade B with good flavor and bottle that up for myself with a couple if quarts for sale. I think I lost a grade because of the startup and shutdown. I think after this season I'm going to move the valve inside the sugarhouse and switch to copper so I can really put the heat to it if needed. Before I started it up, I opened cleanout hatch in the back of the evaporator and removed the vermiculite up to second baffle. Not sure why I didn't think about this earlier, but when I did get it running good, it did seem like there was quite a bit more steam in the sugarhouse, and boil seemed better further into the pan. The "talking" boil is still about the same distance. Definitely running better, but didn't have it running hot long enough to make a determination on evaporation rates.

I still have my extra tanks full and 200 gallon truck tank full, and I'm sure the releaser tank is close to full as well.

Tonight I'm going to pull my syrup pan off and knock out some of the wall and try to get more space into the front pan. Shooting for 18". I'll try it out tonight and if I like it I'll stick with it, if not, my dad should be coming over tomorrow and he can give me a handle pulling it apart, rebricking, and putting it back together. Cross my fingers. Feed tank's empty so freezing shouldn't be a concern once I get it fully thawed out.

I'm realizing this journal is going to be a good resource after the season to correlate sap flows with weather, and when in the season I had my best sap runs.

[tuckermtn]

Josh- I was running the front float in the top hole the other night and the flu pan float on the second and third hole depending on time of boil...

-Eric

[PerryW]

If you have power in your sugarhouse, you can put a 100 watt lightbulb pointing at the valve (but NOT touching it). This usually keeps the valve and drain area of your feed pipe thawed in cold weather.

I will usually also disconnect the feed pipe from the evap and make sure it's completely drained if I'm expecting a hard freeze and I have more sap to boil.

[Amber Gold]

Made some changes to the evaporator. Both ramps are wide open and plenty of room to breath now and it's not any better. Tomorrow morning I'm going to take it apart and rebrick it per Leader's directions. If that doesn't work then I'm clueless on which direction to head after that. I was able to boil down a 75 gallons, and pulled off most of a gallon and almost had another when I shutdown. I still have the 150 gallon stock tank full, truck tank full, and about 200 gallons in the releaser tank. If I get the evap. running properly I'll have a busy weekend making syrup.

I figured about 6 chord of wood for this season and I'm almost 1/2 way through it and I've made about 15 gallons. At this rate I'm going to need to get a lot more wood.


The third hole seems pretty deep. That must be about 2.5". Why do you run it so deep?

Perry, do you put your feed line valve down by the evaporator? Mine's just outside the tank. I'm starting to think inside would be better. It'd keep it out of the wind and a little warmer and I'd easliy be able to confirm the valve's open.

[PerryW]

Nope, the valve is as close to the tank as possible to keep the amount of frozen pipe to a minimum.

I have a 300 gallon stock tank which is pushed up right against the gable end of my sugarhouse (and under a roof). I cut a hole in the tank bottom and installed a sink drain and elbow at the tank end closest to the sugar house, so the valve is just inside the sugarhouse wall.

(you can just see the galv tank under the roof)

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y235/perryW/SawmillMumberHouseSmall.jpg

Of course my sugar house is not any warmer that outside as it is not airtight.

[hurdmaple]

nice pic perry. I like your drain idea for the storage tank will keep it in mind.

[Russell Lampron]

Perry I like your sawmill. I have a pile of hemlock logs that I could use that on here.

[Amber Gold]

Perry, nice pic. The sink drain is a good idea. It probably sits more flush than the bung fitting I used. You can also use the screen to keep any ice out of your feed line.

Those look like pretty tight quarters for a 3x10.

[tuckermtn]

Josh- when I have the back float on the 2nd hole, 1/2 of my infeed pipe is showing- so maybe an inch over the flues. If I'm getting ready to shut down I put it on the third hole and it covers most of the pipe. the piece of wire on my float arm was replaced when I bought the evap so yours and mine may not corelate...

[Amber Gold]

Eric,

There must be something wrong with my float because at the first hole I'm running with the feed pipe completely covered about 1.75-2". If I put the wire on top of the float the sap level is about 1". I wonder why my float sits so low. The float floats so I don't think it's taking on water. Maybe I should bend the wire down and see if that helps.

[Amber Gold]

Things are looking better. Got my evaporator running the best yet yesterday afternoon. Got it good and hot. Things were really hopping and for some reason I noticed my sap float wasn’t keeping up with things and the level was dropping pretty quick. I wonder if it was because my tank was almost empty when this happened, but the bottom of the tank is about 3’ higher than the float. Not sure, but I noticed the level was getting pretty low so I pushed the float right down and got some sap into it. I tried running it without the blower for 2-3 hours and it didn’t run very good so I turned the blower on. I made some changes to my technique from Saturday and got the fire much hotter than before. I’m not sure what my evaporation rate was, but I didn’t have it running good till about 3:00-3:30 and I shut it down at 6:30. I’d like to think I’m in the 45-50 gph range now. I think the only thing holding me back is having perfectly dry wood. Everything’s tarp covered, but it still managed to get wet or damp. Will have to work on that for next season. I also managed to almost burn my syrup pan. It was fine running it low (1/2”) when it was boiling slow, but drawing off I started noticing a burning smell so shut the valve quickly and flooded the pan. I had a small burn spot, which I was able to get most out. Having a hard time getting it out of the crease in the pan where the solder is. I did notice I melted a drop of solder…hope it doesn’t leak. I’ll start running the pan a little deeper now.

Things are still running like crazy, but the sugar content’s down to 1.4%. Today I’m going to shutoff the line which has most of my reds on it and see if that makes a difference. The red’s are in a stream/minor wetland area and I’m wondering if it’s watering everything down. My other two lines are made up of big sugar maples and woods sugars. There are only a couple of reds on here. I did test the sugar content of some sugar maples I have on buckets where the reads are and they were only getting 1.7%. I have a big maple in my neighbors front yard that measured over 4% and 2 more over 3%. I ended up dumping 300 gallons of the 1.4% so I could start fresh today. I’ve also got 150 gallons left over from last week I’m going to dump. I boiled 200 gallons on Saturday and 225 gallons on Sunday and made about 7.5 gallons of syrup. Total collected sap over the weekend is 425 gallons and 300 gal dumped and X gallons on the ground and had X gallons overflow onto the ground as the releaser tank was full most of the weekend.

Everything I’ve made so far has come out Dark Amber with a day of Grade B. Still shooting for the elusive (for me) medium amber. I’ve got a batch from the beginning of the season that was close. Saturday’s batch of syrup was right on the line of a dark amber and Sunday batch was in the middle between med. and dark.

[KenWP]

Man I would love to have to much sap around here but I should be carefull as I might get what I wish for and then I won't sleep for a week.

[Amber Gold]

I shut my line off yesterday that had the reds and the sugar content didn't improve one bit. Still at 1.4%. Can I give my trees steriods or something to jack the sugar content up for next season? I read of all these other producers getting 2.5-3% and I'm jealous.

Even with the line down I still collected 200 gal of sap and boiled down about 100 gallons of it. Hit a wet patch of wood so couldn't get the fire going good and boiling rate was in the pits. I uncovered the entire pile and hoping this warm weather will dry it out. Looking at the rest of the wood it looks to be in pretty good shape.

Seeing as how my sugar content didn't change I'm going to put the other line back online and have sap coming out of my ears again.

I'm going to try and find some dry pallets this weekend and see what that does for my boiling rate.

Ken, I've found sleep to be a commodity during the season.

[KenWP]

Josh this is the first time in my life I ever burnt wood and I had wet wood last fall and froze to death in the house untill I got into the dry stuff and seen how warm it was. I have some trees with low sugar also and some that sit around 2% so i am looking at probbably 46 to 50 gallons to boil off per gallon. I am sure that once I start boiling it will actually be a bit more then that even. My wife is becoming a beleiver now that I will get enough sap to make syrup. Once my woods trees wake up look out evaporator.

[Dill]

Josh scrounge up some pallets and mix them in with the wet wood. It'll improve your burn rate or use some of your house wood. Right now I'm burning a mix of standing dead pine and pallets, that's a hot fire.
Every fall with the house I put off burning the "good wood" so its cold in Nov and then the 2nd week of dec without fail I'll break into the good stuff that's been sitting for a year or 2 and suddenly its so hot in the living room its almost unbearable.

[Amber Gold]

I've got a 3-4 chord pile of mostly cherry I was thinking of breaking into. It's been drying since last summer...Tornado wood. Trying to get ahold of some pallets as well. Hate burning the good stuff though, but right now syrup's where it's at.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh,

When the sap is running you've got to do what it takes to get it boiled. Saving the wood for the house isn't going to make you any syrup. Are you getting caught up?

I think that I am going to be able to limp to the finish line with the RO this year. I have been playing with the pressures and rinsing it often and getting pretty good results.

[Amber Gold]

Russ, that's what I'm figuring, but cutting wood also takes away from boiling. I dumped some over the weekend just starting to fall behind now. I've got about 125 gallons in the feed tank and left another 100 gallons in the releaser tank last night. I'm thinking to get maximum efficiency out of my wood I'm going to start holding onto my sap and just do long boils on the weekend. With the wet wood it takes a while to get things going.

Looking at the sugaring wood pile and I've got maybe a chord left which will get me throught this weekend. I'll start cutting up my house wood and mixing that in. I'm getting 4-5 10' long pallets tonight and should get a couple of truck loads of standard pallets this weekend which will help matters.

Glad to hear you'll be able to limp along this year. I'm not sure if this 1.4% sap content is typicall for my woods, but I'm seeing an RO in my future. Russ, do you know anyone with a Lapierre 150gph RO looking to expand?

[Dill]

Josh if your doing pallets get a junk chain saw to cut just pallets. Or at the very least a junk bar/chain. Mixing the pallet wood in with the pine really hops up my fire. Also putting some wood in sideways and some inline with the firebox seems to bump up the btu output.

[Amber Gold]

Good idea. The junk chainsaw doesn't always run good though. It's pretty finicky.

I collected 200 gallons of sap yesterday and boiled down another 150-175 gallons. Made 2 gallons over 2 nights of boiling and it came out between medium and dark. My grades are coming out more consistent as I'm getting a better handle on things.

[Amber Gold]

I collected over another 200 gallons yesterday. Tanks still had 100 gal left in them from the previous day and they were overflowing when I got home. Sold 300 gallons of sap. I wasn't going to be able to keep up with it and with it being as warm as it is didn't want to hang on to it. Left the pump on last night so expecting a big run today...likely tanks overflowing again. Didn't boil last night, but did get wood ready to boil tonight and cut up some pallets. NH Wire is coming over tonight to take some photos.

This has been an interesting year. Tons of sap, but no sugar. Sugar content is now down to 1.2%...didn't think that was possible for sugar maples, but that's what I'm getting. I've noticed that sap has been cloudy for a few days. Not sure what that's a sign of, but it's still flowing good. Is it a sign my season's almost over...not sure. Hoping to at least get through maple weekend and be boiling sap, not water.

[Dill]

I've had some trees that have been producing bright yellow sap for a day and then back to clear. Nothing cloudy yet just pee yellow. Luckily those where all bucket trees. I did test the sugar in a yellow bucket and it was the same as clear. Odd, I tossed the yellow anyway. I got a good run yesterday also, hoping to boil this afternoon.

And of course the junk saw doesn't run well. Heres a hint do fix it up too much cause if it runs perfect you'll need a new excuse to keep the good saws.

[Amber Gold]

Haven't gotten the yellow...yet. I'll still keep boiling it...worst case I just make commercial. Not liking the 1.2% though...boiled 275 gal. monday and tuesday night and got 2 gallons of syrup. part of it went into running my syrup pan deeper, but still 2 gal for 8 hours of boiling isn't good.

I bought a Stihl MS310 a few months ago. I like it lot...not sure if it cuts better than my dad's 272XP, but it is lighter.

[Amber Gold]

Collected another 200 gallons yesterday…think there was more in the collection tank…afraid to check the sugar content. I don’t think the vac. pump has shut off all week.

I boiled about 230 gal. last night so I was boiling about 50 gph using a combination of pallet and wet/green wood and I made a little over 2 gallons of dark amber last night and another 1.5-2 gal of questionable stuff. As I was boiling I was watching the sap in the flue pan darken and realized that I needed to get the DA I already made bottle up so I didn’t lose grade with the darker stuff coming in. Turned out to be just a shade darker than DA, but the flavor is off. I’ll have to make some more and see where the flavor comes out. Season coming to an end??

Will this colder weather bring things back to good flavored syrup? Would be nice. I’d like to be making syrup through maple weekend. Sap’s cloudy now, but not yellow. How long will trees run to make commercial? Another week?

[KenWP]

Josh when does your season end down there most years. I found that even with my little evaporator that if I split my little firewood the boil picks up a lot. If I really push it I can get 5 gallons a hour from it and if I rest a bit it slows down to 3 real fast.

[Dill]

Ken we usually run into the first week of april, maybe the second week depending on the weather.

[Amber Gold]

Had a good weekend. The questionable stuff from Thursday turned out to be good flavored Grade B so I kept that. It tastes much better once filtered. I made about 9.5 gallons over Thursday’s Grade B and Saturday. It’s a lot of work for only 9.5 gallons, but it’s what I have. Boiled down Friday’s and most of Saturday’s run during Saturday. Total boiled was 385 gal over 7 hours. Brings my average evaporation rate up to 55 gph using a mixture of pallet wood and wet/green stuff. Sunday I boiled down another 450 gallons in 9 hours (50 gph) burning pallet wood and wet/green wood. Could of done better but didn’t get off to a good start because I couldn’t get setup before I started the evaporator because some customers showed up just as I was getting home and wanted to see the evaporator run, so the first couple of hours I was trying to run the evaporator, get wood in, and talk to customers so the evaporator wasn’t running to it’s full potential. Also had to spend and hour bottling up what I had produced on Saturday so I wasn’t able to keep the evap. going at capacity. Got a couple boxes of broken up pallet wood. That stuff is like throwing gasoline on there…never seen it boil so hard. Not sure what the evap. rate was, but it was screaming. Going to get more for this weekend. I usually run the flue pan at an 1”, but for some reason with the pallet wood in there the float wouldn’t keep up and almost burned my pan, had to do an emergency flood…close call and will start running it deeper in the future when just the good stuff’s thrown in.

Noticed a lot of buildup on my collection and truck tanks so I cleaned those out yesterday afternoon. I’m hoping I’ll get back into producing DA again. The beginning part of this week looks good…not sure about the end. Hopefully we still get decent runs so I can boil all day for maple weekend. I made the mistake of saying I’ll be open from 8-5 Saturday and Sunday…wishing now I made it from 10-5 or 12-5 to make sure I have enough sap to boil. Not going to be too exciting if the evap. isn’t running.

Put the va. pump on this morning. Curious to see if I'll get anything. It's going to be about 30, but it's all south facing to it may still run.

[Dill]

I knew you had a wood problem. And I agree Pallet wood burns hot, really really hot.

[Amber Gold]

I think at the beginning it was more than a wood problem. After I rebricked it, it did run better with the same wood. I would like to move the down ramp further back and see if I can get it to boil better in the back of the pan.

I have an access hatch in teh back of the arch so you can clean the rear of the flues. There's a little bit of a gap so you can look inside the arch down the flues. It's pretty awesome watching the fire go through the flues. Surprisingly once it gets up there it seems to stay up there until the end.

[Amber Gold]

I collected and boiled 200 gallons last night and made about 5.5 gal of grade B syrup. The sap after cleaning the tanks was still cloudy, but not as bad. I could see a difference in the flue pan and syrup with the last 50 gallons I boiled. Wasn’t enough to get another drawoff, but I’m willing to bet it was back up to Grade A. Another boil where I averaged 50 gph and that wasn’t keeping up with it the whole time because I was bottling in the middle of it.
The 300 gallon collection tank was overflowing at 4pm so my wife collected 200 gallons and will probably go down and empty it tonight. I won’t get a chance to boil it tonight, but hopefully will tomorrow. Hopefully I don’t get too backed up tomorrow night.
I want to make sure I have about 8-900 gallons on hand to boil over the weekend for maple weekend. What’s everybody’s opinion on sap flow the rest of the week and this weekend? Trying to determine how much I should be boiling this week to make sure I’ll have enough for this weekend. On a day it runs I’ll get 2-300 gallons per day so if it’s going to run every day till the weekend then I’ll just need to carryover Friday’s run.

A neighbor stopped in over the weekend and bought a gallon of syrup and also said he cut down 4 pine trees and asked me if I wanted them. I said sure and showed him where to dump them. Got home today to a pile of wood and he even cut them to 30" length. Can't beat having free wood delivered and cut to size.

[Russell Lampron]

If your are planning to boil for 6 or 7 hours a day during the open house you only need 300 gallons for each day. With the customers and distractions you won't be able to maintain the 50gph rate anyways and could get by with less. If you think you are getting back up to grade A boil it now. You can boil water on the weekend if you have too.

[Amber Gold]

Royally messed up today. Turned the vac. pump on this morning, saw the gauge go up and thought all was good. My wife just called and told me there's no vac. at the releaser. Realized yesterday when I was draining my moisture trap I was messing with the valve at the top and must've inadvertantly left it off and didn't realize it. So the vac. never made it beyond the moisture trap. Entire days production lost. I'll get the 50 gal that collected in the tank and whatever ended up in the lines today when I get home and turn the valve back on. Can't believe it.

[KenWP]

Josh only people that are actually doing anything can make mistakes. Sort of if you stand still and nothing happend then nothing happens. I finally figured out how come I don't get sap from a lot of my trees. They are still froze up and some are tapped on the wrong side.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh don't feel too bad. Monday I forgot to change a valve for my RO from wash back to concentrate.Two hours later all that was left of 600 gallons of 2.2% was 200 gallons of permeate. The rest was pumped out of the drain pipe onto the ground.

[PerryW]

Everybody has done it. A couple years ago, I put 200 gallons in my gathering tank with the valve open. Since the truck was parked downhill, I didn't notice it, so I lost it all on the way home.

[Amber Gold]

Russ, that hurts. There's about 15 gal of syrup into the ground. Ouch. I only lost probably 300 gal of 1.2% (I hope it's still that high)...not quite as bad.

Perry, I've wondered if that was ever going to happen to me this season. Drain the tank, leave the valve open, and go back and fill it up and forget about it.

Ken, you can't tap the wrong side of a tree. They all flow...at least when they're not frozen.

[PerryW]

three things:

1) If you're gonna spill sap, at least it had lousy sugar content!

2) Better to spill sap than spill syrup.

3) Better to spill sap than burn your pans

Also, agreed. You can't tap the wrong side of the tree. Some years, the south side runs better, some years the north side runs better.

[Amber Gold]

I'm finally an official sugarmaker. I burnt my syrup pan today. Yesterday I ran out of sap so I drained my flue pan and ran the concentrate through my syrup pan while I had water running into my flue pan. I also ran out of wood so I was burning crap green/wet wood. There was also a lot of people over so the fire wasn't staying very hot so I couldn't tell that I was making syrup in the middle channels until I smelled burnt syrup. I immediately dumped sap in it, but it still burnt pretty good. The worst part is now I have a 1/4" deep channel in both middle channels and melted some solder, which I'm not too worried about. Sucks to end the season this way, but at least it's the end of the season.

I had a good weekend. A lot of people showed up and I sold out of most of my syrup. I sold just over 25 gallons. The Grade B was a big hit and sold almost all of it. I sold a lot of 1 gallon jugs earlier this season, but only sold 1 all weekend. I found the 1/2 gal, qts, and pints were a big hit; the gallon and 1/2 pints not so much.

Now I've got money to spend to buy more equipment, although unfortunately it may be going into a new syrup pan if I can't salvage this one.

My stack gauge finally came in on Friday and I found the way I typically run it to get 50 gph I run about 1400F. Friday night a friend stopped in and really showed my how to really run an evaporator and was getting it over 60 gph using green/wet wood mixed in with pallet wood. Also found to get these numbers I need a stack temp of 1450-1500 or greater. I'm pretty sure if I run this next year as is with dry pine I'll be getting better than 70 gph. We also confirmed the blower is plenty big enough and I'm getting plenty of draft. A bigger blower may help, but the one I have is working pretty good.

Thursday through Friday I had good runs. Friday night I boiled the 350 gallons I had collected on Wednesday and finished that up in about 6 hours. Between Thursday and Friday I collected another 500 gallons and boiled that down Saturday in 9.5 hours, 52 gph average. I'm very surprised to have averaged that because there were plenty of times during the day where it was barely boiling with some slower times where I'd get it running reall good. Glad to see I'm getting good numbers now.

[Mark-NH]

Josh, with the flow shut off from flue to syrup pan there is nothing pushing the syrup to the end of the line. That's why you made syrup in the middle channels. Hope the pan is salvagable.

[KenWP]

I have trees that never gave me a drop that I fianlly tapped on the other side of the tree and they run and the other side hasn't a drop. I also have trees that haven't done a thing what so ever. they are sitting out in the open on bare ground now and still nothing. Looks like the seasons over here according the the weather man.

[Amber Gold]

Well my season is now at a close. I may get a couple more runs, but I’m not going to do anything with it. This has been a good year overall and I learned a lot…definitely couldn’t have done what I did, at the scale I did it, without the help of the Mapletrader site and its members.

I learned a lot this year. I’d say one piece of advice to someone else starting out is to have someone show you how to run a wood-fired evaporator before the season starts so you’re not starting the season trying to figure things out. Running an evap. is completely different than anything else. The best I was able to do was over 60 gph burning mostly green wood and that was the final weekend.

Also don’t underestimate storage. There were plenty of times where I lost sap at the collection tank because it was overflowing, and that’s with my wife emptying it out midday on the big runs. I also fell short on storage at the sugar house. There were times where work was busy and I couldn’t boil when I needed to and had to hold on to it. I’m going to get a much larger stock tank for a collection tank. I’m pretty sure I tapped about 450 trees and have another 50 or so I can get with more work this summer so I’m figuring over 500 gallon tank. Also figuring on a 600+ gal milk bulk tank for insulated sap storage at the sugar house. The insulation will help the sap to last longer…maybe even hook up the refrigeration lines to it to keep it cold. This couple with my 300 gal feed tank will at least give me a couple of days storage at the sugar house.

Don’t underestimate wood consumption, and make sure it’s dry, dry, dry. One of the biggest pains this year was burning wet/green wood, and running out of wood. Tarps don’t work, no matter how good you cover them over the wood still gets wet.. I burned over 7 chord of wood to produce over 40 gallons of syrup. I did notice at the beginning of the year I was burning a lot more wood per gallon of sap boiled than at the end of the year. I am going to plan on 10 chord for next season to make sure I have enough. Also either going to build a woodshed addition or get a quonset hut. Either way it will by dry.

Big canners are nice. It allows you to boil all day without having to worry about canning mid-day and trying to run the evap. while canning. I did it a few times and couldn’t do either one properly.

I love vacuum and don’t know if I’d want to run a tubing system without it. It allows so much more leniency when setting up mainline and tubing, it allows for sap ladders to get everything to one point, and also the increased sap production is another bonus. Also don’t know how people manage buckets. I think the 16 buckets I have is more than enough and wouldn’t want anymore. Even having those 16 they didn’t get collected more than 6 times and they stopped in 2 weeks.

Boiling 1.2% sap sucks. It’s almost like boiling water and 1.5 hours between draws is a long time.

During sugaring season you have no free time. If you’re not working you’re boiling, and if you’re not doing that then your modifying something, whether it is your sugarhouse setup or your woods.

I met some really nice people during the season. It was also great explaining to people how the process works. Most of the people that stopped in were local Barrington residents. The furthest was someone up from Maryland on a business trip. Next year I’d like do coordinate something with the school and do a show and tell with them.

Find a better way to get end the season in my evap so I don’t warp the pan next year.

I was a bit nervous about making good flavored syrup at the start of the season, especially when over half my crop ended up Grade B. I think I make good syrup, but I have a biased opinion. From the Grade B samples I was giving out it was flying off the table. I got lots of comments on how good the syrup was and some people commented it was the best syrup they ever had. That certainly makes you feel good about all the hard work you do. You put all this work into something you produce for 4 weeks and it’s nice to have it come out at good quality and it’s liked that much.

Probably more that I got out of this season, but these are the highlights.

[Amber Gold]

My trees are still running too, surprisingly. Between Sunday and Monday I got over 200 gallons of sap. I'm not going to be boiling any more this season and sold it.

I couldn't have done this without my wife. She was able to collect, wash filters and all the utensils, and do anything else that needed to get done while I was at work. It allowed me to come home and concentrate on making syrup.

[Dill]

I might be interested in some sap. Why aren't you boiling?
My trees are pretty much done.

[Amber Gold]

Boiled the sweet out on Sunday, burned my syrup pan on Sunday and needs to be repaired, and out of dry wood.

[Dill]

Well if you have sap give me a ring. The little rig is still sweetened, and the woods are too wet to start yanking out logs.

[Amber Gold]

Will do. I'm going to take the next 50 gallons and leave in my pan and try the fermentation cleaning process this season.

[Amber Gold]

Collected another 100 gallons yesterday and dumped it in my flue pan and covered it. Syrup pan leaks so I couldn't dump it in there. We'll see what it looks like in 3 weeks.

It got below freezing last night so it should run good today.

[Stickey]

Josh, it was nice to meet you guys on Sunday, thanks for letting us visit. Sorry to hear that things turned out so badly with your pan. I'll talk to my dad about taking a look at it for you.

[Amber Gold]

Stickey, I think it'll be fine once I get it cleaned up and the solder fixed. Fortunately the warp is down not up so I don't need to run it any deeper.

Collected another 200 gallons yesterday...it just won't stop. Really wishing I hadn't burned my pan. I've missed out on another 6 gallons of syrup this week.

[Amber Gold]

Another 275 gallons in the collection tank today...really regretting burning my pan.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh did you check the sugar content? I got 400 gallons of 1% yesterday.

[jtthibodeau]

Sorry to hear about your pan, Josh. It's not a lot of fun. And, still getting sap? I haven't see a drop in days and the snow is just about gone here. I'm in limbo as far as pulling taps and dumping buckets. Always thinking about making that last gallon of "90 weight".

[Amber Gold]

Sugar content's still reading 1.2%. Surprised.

Firm believer in vacuum. Anyone that doesn't have it is wasting money. If I was boiling I would've made another 10 gallons of syrup this week and would've paid for half of the pump and releaser, never mind all the extra sap I got during the season. Everybody else around me has been shut down for at least a week I think.

Thanks Jerry. It happens.

[maple sapper]

If you have sap and no way to make it usefull, let me know. I am not ready the throw in the towel yet. I made a few adjustments and want to try them out before the big cleaning starts. If you not to far I will come and get it. Thanks maple sapper

[Amber Gold]

Thanks, but I've already got a buyer. Trading cordwood for it.

[Amber Gold]

Started pulling taps today. Pulled taps on three of my mainlines and have removed 147 taps plus whatever is on the end of line rings...will need to count those up tomorrow. I have one mainline to go. Not optimistic of hitting the 450 I thought I had. Will have final tap count tomorrow when I finish pulling the last mainline.

[Amber Gold]

Total tap count is 358 taps...so I was off by a bag.

Total gallons of sap collected: 5975 gal

gal/tap = 16.6 pretty respectable so if I was boiling 2% over the season I would've made 0.38 gal of syrup per tap. I wonder if I'll get those sap flows next year.

I've got about 50-75 more taps I can get in this orchard. Plan for next year is to get up to 5-600 taps...need to find another orchard.

[Amber Gold]

Pretty much done with cleanup now. Got the lines sucked out and took down the seciton of mainline and lateral that needs to come out every year. Still need to clean the collection tanks and the sugarhouse and I'll be done with this year. Next weekend I start cutting wood.

I also found 10 more taps I hadn't pulled so my total for the season is 368.