Substantial gains from substantial upgrades

My wife and I bought a house in 2017 that'd had a sugarhouse built in 2013. All I knew about real syrup was that it's delicious and the only real pancake/oatmeal topping for me, but I figured it out pretty quick the first year because I'm obsessive and I think that unused tools tend to fall into disrepair. I kept the DIY 3x4' arch that was down here, binned the leaded pan in favor of TIG-welded flat pans ($350/each, OKHardware) and rocked that setup 2018-2022, starting at 50 taps on gravity and slowly building towards 140. Mostly midsize trees, a few giant suckers, some that are barely tappable. I made varied amounts of syrup, I think 14.3 gal in the best year off around 650-700 gals of sap.

This was my setup last year
https://i.imgur.com/VJzTO2i.jpg

This year I put in all new mainline (had been using old, used ones), all new taplines, a sap guzzler diaphram pump and upgraded to this D&G Sportster that someone on here steered to to last summer

https://i.imgur.com/57OPGks.png

I got sick last week and could not boil every day and despite turning vacuum off as well, I still managed to overflow my 240gal stainless tank. Fortunately there's still stacks of snow on the ground, but I've already boiled 800gals, finished off 12-13gals of syrup with a bunch floating in the pans, and I think that I am unfortunately going to hit a combination of burnout and firewood shortage before I run out of sap; the end of next week we have a snap into the 60s for 4 days that may well end the season anyway, but I got my butt kicked by illnesses and got behind at work and just can't blast through 100gals a day for another week ;)

Also, while the stuff does tend to sell itself pretty easily, there's a limit to my interest because boxing and shipping stuff takes time (good luck moving this around here; I do my best biz south of the mason dixon and west of the mississippi, using myriad discord and other social media markets).

We use about 5gal a year as a family, so, we're more than set.

The new rig blasts through a lot more sap, is much more efficient on wood, and the resulting syrup is more clear.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk!!

Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear you're feeling better. Being sick is never fun, but especially unfortunate during sugaring season.

Sounds like a small RO might be in your future. Where you located in Vermont?

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Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins

Thanks for sharing. Glad to hear you're feeling better. Being sick is never fun, but especially unfortunate during sugaring season.

Sounds like a small RO might be in your future. Where you located in Vermont?

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We are near Lincoln, up at about 1500'. Many sugarworks nearby!

CDL has a couple RO units; I might look at DIY. Their $1k unit is smaller than my needs, the $2k one would certainly do it and then some but I need to price out DIY etc. I may punt on that for a year, too, spent a lot this year, clearly, it's impacting my synthesizer budget!

Because some people think 32oz is a ludicrous quantity, I bottled up a bunch of 12oz bottles today. This amuses me because it seems comically small; as a family, we use about 5 gallons a year (and basically no other sugars, aside from very specific cooking and baking).

https://i.imgur.com/Kujgt3K.png

Based on the light colored bottle in your picture, you might want to perfect your filtering. I used to suggest filter presses, but I watched a video today and now I'm a believer of vacuum filters, they do the job and cost less.

I remember a brief conversation with you on marketplace about your old setup! Nice post.

Nice setup. As Dave pointed out, take a look at a vacuum filter. I have one and it works really well. Also, look at ROs made by The RO Bucket. Carl puts together some really nice setups that are very affordable with fantastic customer support. I have been using the RB25 for the last 2 years and really like it. In the future may consider upgrading to the single post RO setup.
https://www.therobucket.com/

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Originally Posted by linearb

Because some people think 32oz is a ludicrous quantity, I bottled up a bunch of 12oz bottles today.

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Had the same issue here, we have mostly sold quarts and last year the market that sells our syrup said their customers were interested in pints, and that they would sell better. The people that buy direct at the shack, buy several gallons at a time, because they use syrup. I guess the folks that buy it at the market are thinking of it to use at a single meal, or maybe as a gift. I know when we sit down to eat (6 adults) a quart disappears pretty quick.

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Originally Posted by darkmachine

Had the same issue here, we have mostly sold quarts and last year the market that sells our syrup said their customers were interested in pints, and that they would sell better. The people that buy direct at the shack, buy several gallons at a time, because they use syrup. I guess the folks that buy it at the market are thinking of it to use at a single meal, or maybe as a gift. I know when we sit down to eat (6 adults) a quart disappears pretty quick.

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It's really interesting to see how that varies. We bottled about 2/3 in plastic last year and another 1/3 in glass. The people that bought direct just got plastic, sometimes up to several gallons at a time.
I went and did a small producers market over the summer and sold every stitch of glass we had there. I'm pretty sure people only bought plastic because that is what was left.