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Finished to boil 0ver 65 gallons of sap yesterday to end up with only 1 gallon of finished syrup. There is no sugar in the sap so far. However, the quality of it is fantastic! Very light and smooth flavor. Was also easy to filter. Hope the sugar content will go up.
Dave, that's a lot of sap! I'm sure the syrup is delicious. I have finally caught up with the sap in my containers and cheated a little this morning - I put 'nearup' over my buttermilk crumpets at breakfast. I couldn't wait until it was the proper brix. It was wonderful. First of the season.
The wind is vicious here today so I'm not sure what the sap collection will be like. There is ice in the buckets so that ought to recharge the trees.
The taps were on the slow side today, not surprising considering today's windy conditions. Collected 41.75L of sap with sugar content of 2% - 3%. In general it seemed that sugar, on average, was down a quarter point today across the board. I started boiling the sap just before dinner and should be finished up within the hour. I'll bring it onto the stove and add it to yesterday's 'nearup'. That will then be the yield from boiling of 224L of sap. I think that's the most I've ever boiled within a 24 hour period, and already about 45L more than my entire first year. Yeah, let's not talk too much about 2012. It was a great year to learn because the sap volume never got away from you, but beyond that.......well.....
My sugar was down about a quarter point too. Sounds like weather will be good tomorrow so should be a good day.
Well, my brix tester doesn't work on sap, so I've no idea what I'm at. I boiled for about 4 hours yesterday, and then started boiling without taking the ash out of my arch (dumb idea), so my temps were off during the 10 hours I boiled today. Add to that the fact I forgot to adjust my float box, so was trying to boil some 4" in the arch...and all and all I was feeling pretty dumb today...;-] That said, I had 20 gallons more sap tonight than I did this morning...so I guess the trees were running all day (wasn't expecting any sap today.) 29F now and all indications it will be another good sap running day tomorrow. I decided to shut it down early tonight and get ready for a good day tomorrow...float box adjusted and I have to remove the ash in the morning, but I got a full stack of wood ready to go in early.
As an aside, I am running on low vac this year with a Guzzler and Booster Tank. I can't tell if its giving me anything more than I would get on gravity. The vacuum appears to stay low (e.g. 10") until the secondaries warm up enough to release sap, then the vac goes up (I got to 16" today). I gotta believe that any vac is better than none, but these things to be as much smoke and mirrors as fact.
The taps are dripping big time today. All my propane tanks have been refilled in anticipation. *fingers crossed*
Taps are dripping nicely. Kids collected 70L from 50 taps (yeah, we're up to 50 now) before lunch and I can see the buckets filling up again.
Busy cleaning my pans to get ready for the next boil later this week. I tried the soap trick on the pans before my first boil and I think I might not have put enough soap on some parts of the pans. Ugh. Sprayed some baking soda solution last night to let it sit. Scraping is going a little easier today.
*Fingers and toes crossed for everyone for a great week*
Just got in, it was not as good as I was hoping I only got about 3 gallons on 14 taps. The rest of the week looks like it will be closed down.
Got 65L from 18 taps. A respectable showing, but thought I might be inundated given how quickly the Norway was dripping all day. Sugar content is excellent. Got readings from 2.5 to 3.75 with a slight sugar increase in the evening collection vs. this morning's collection. I've got plenty of sap to boil and keep me busy tomorrow while I'm also finishing off my pots of 'nearup' into the real thing. BTW, the best sugar of the day was, in fact, my Norway at 3.75% which gave me 7L today.
I can't believe what I did.... :cry:
I had just finished getting the perfect brix for my syrup using my hydrotherm, when my elbow knocked over the hydrotherm's cup which was full of syrup. The only good news is that the hydrotherm was not in the cup at the time.
Fast forward a full hour later and I'm still trying to clean up the syrup which is all over the floor, the island, the cupboards, the stove........ everywhere except inside a bottle where it should have been. :mad: What a mess.