Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

Round two anyone, I must say it is awesome to see this thread still going. Thank you to all the Vermont sugar makers. Hope your season turned out well. Mine was less the sub par. But next is only 10 months away. I havnt thrown in the towel yet going to try to make some more B grade this week. I have made a lot of improvement this year and its all functioning well. I added a filter press first and for most, I don't no how I ever got by with out this in the past. Then I bought a smokey lake outdraw off, which is pretty handy and takes a little pressure off. I also picked up a new vacuum setup for this year, which took up most of my time finding and fixing leaks. LOL I think I just found my last leak last weekend. I also just picked up a new to me RO machine. I didn't get to use it this year, but I cant wait to use it next... I finally feel like I have made some head way here in this sugaring passion and cant wait to see what it turns into.

See you at the sugaring open house

PARKER MAPLE

My place reached 32 by 8pm tonight, and I am going for broke. Hoping for a good run over the next 3-4 days to see what I can cook up out of it all. I have some sap in my buckets and collection barrels from the last 3 days that I checked out today. It never reached 70 here, and it is slightly cloudy, and just a little off taste. It will freeze up in the buckets until Thursday, and we will see what it all turns out combined with the fresh sap. I never got anything below dark amber (barely that), and hoping for some B, or "very dark". Maybe this will do it.

tanks washed, pump on hoping for good sap tomorrow.

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Originally Posted by wiam

Have not got to C yet. Last night it came back up to dark amber

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I take that back. I did not draw when I boiled tonight but it does not look like B

We got 4 inches of snow last night and it is 15 degrees. Yesterday I dumped 3002:lol: gallons of sap and cleaned the tanks. We are hoping that today or Thursday will give us big sap and the quality will be better. Keeping my fingers crossed. Would love to have another week of big runs and a few extra dollars in my pocket. My apple trees will be here on the 26th of this month. Got 150 more going in the ground. The buds are not out in my woods yet so I hope things will work out. Good luck everyone that is still going. Its just getting fun now.

Spud

I have to do some repairs to my new vac. shed as the wind blew it over yesterday. The pump was still running some how. I hope it is ok. I will know this morning. This has been a year of alot of headaches. Depression is starting to set in.

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Originally Posted by Flat Lander Sugaring

You would be getting close to 12000 a day of your sugaring supplier would get you the electric motor he said he ordered 2 weeks ago and a ordering confermation number .

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i wonder if the supplier is the same that I have had so many problems with....... I just thought slow shipping, no tracking #'s, "lost packages" was just a New York thing

I'm just over the river from St Johnsbury and I did the same thing last night. Dumped the buckets and washed tanks and we got down to 17 degrees. My trees have only been tapped about 3-4 weeks, so I'm hoping for at least some commercial.

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Originally Posted by PerryW

I'm just over the river from St Johnsbury and I did the same thing last night. Dumped the buckets and washed tanks and we got down to 17 degrees. My trees have only been tapped about 3-4 weeks, so I'm hoping for at least some commercial.

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What was the sugar content of the last good sap you collected? The last run here went from 1.3 to 1 and the previous freeze didn't bring it up.

In 25 years of sugaring, I have never bothered checking sugar content, but my last boil (last saturday) seemed like it was around 40-50 to 1.

The little time it ran yesterday, i got about 2000 gallons and today should be really good. The sap looks alot better now than the bermuda heat wave we had a few days ago. At 1 dumping location yesterday it ran a gallon a tap in 4 hours.

Randy,

Did you boil this new sap and if so how is the taste? How did it run through the press?

Spud

I am going to boil today. In that warm weather i t wouldnt filter. I think it will today.

Boiled last night never boiled ropy syrup. Never will again pan has black burn spots all over the bottom, not worth it to me. Made 10 gal of mersh.
Collected 120 gal today on 400 taps, we are going to gather tomorrow finishboff at night call it a season. GMP is really putting the screws to us so going to cut our losses for the year and try to figure out for next year.

I know what you mean with green mountain power. Our house bill last month was $350. Greed.

If you don't like the bill, don't use the power!! Remember--Cash or candles!!!

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Originally Posted by Randy Brutkoski

I know what you mean with green mountain power. Our house bill last month was $350. Greed.

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If you would unplug your heart shaped vibrating bed and the disco lights your bill would go down.:lol:

Spud

That stuff in my bedroom is only 110, it shouldnt really make that much of a difference.

Enjoying see your guys updates in VT and WI that are still making syrup. Makes the time until I start again shorter. LOL. Keep on going and keep updates coming!

Randy---Leaving it on all day makes a difference!! I can just imagine Randy strutting around that bed, dressed like John Travolta, with with the disco ball spinning, playing old BeeGees tunes!! YUK!!!

My last electric bill was 3400$ and I don't mind paying it. I can only Imagine what it would cost to run everything on a big diesel generator. Cost of doing business. I can see if your hobbying and you get a big bill it would suck. Theron

I can't believe how much money you guys are paying for electric. I have one pump shed that has a 10HP pump, a 7.5 hp pump and a 1000GPH RO with an electric heater to keep it from freezing. The pumps run 24/7. The electric bill last month for that shed was $550.00. Maybe it is because we are closer to the coal fired power plants?

Mike, I believe there are pics floating around of you sporting your best polyester too. Talk about scary!

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Originally Posted by Flat Lander Sugaring

Boiled last night never boiled ropy syrup. Never will again pan has black burn spots all over the bottom, not worth it to me. Made 10 gal of mersh.
Collected 120 gal today on 400 taps, we are going to gather tomorrow finishboff at night call it a season. GMP is really putting the screws to us so going to cut our losses for the year and try to figure out for next year.

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I will dump all my sap and pull the taps tomorrow.

Test boil on the stove was bad. Never bad odor from boiling, but syrup had no maple flavor whatsoever, and was a bit unpleasant, even for me. Second opinion conformed. After cooling, the syrup poured like it was a bit ropey as well.

Jeremy, energy prices in the NE are expensive in general.

Had a thought this morning as a friend was sending me pics of his tour of Goodrich's operation: VT is kind of like Texas, everything's bigger. Cool pics...quite the operation.

Boiled crystal clear sap today and it was garbage. Made 2 barrels . Tomorow morning i will boil up the last 3000 gallons and call it a year. The sap is still running real hard. At 1 bush i got 2 gallons per tap yesterday and the same today,

The sap came in hard starting yesterday afternoon and was still coming in strong (although at around 1.2% or so) when we finished up tonight so we could head to work. We gathered the buckets for the last time and the sap was testing around 2.6% although there definitely is some budding going on. We decided to dump the nasty sap in one of our storage tanks yesterday before the sap started running again and this morning we dumped and cleaned out everything in our evaporator as it had become quite nasty. We only had time to re-sweeten the pans tonight and draw off around 20 gallons of commercial grade syrup. We didn't run it through the press since we knew we wouldn't have much and wouldn't have the time to clean it up before having to leave. We should have around 5500 gallons of sap in the morning which we'll try to boil and hopefully get through the press, tomorrow might be it for us...

I shipped 7500 gallons today. Sap should run all night and then freeze tomorrow night again. The sap is clearing up but still cloudy and testing 1.2%. I was told the syrup boiled ok and filtered ok but the taste is nothing to write home about. I hope for another few days.

Spud

My sap cleared up yesterday. Commercial at first then came back to B. Flavor was off at first and then got better.

Looks like we're all in the same boat in these parts. putting 2500 gallons through the RO as I type, boiling in a few hours. Yesterday's syrup was B flavor, lighter color. Blend it with something to give it some color and it's OK!

As business owners and people who sells products, when they know a GMP employee walks through the door charge them double what you would charge a normal customer and see if they like it! Especially the CEO,cfo, etc
Donuts should be tripled in price!

I would be pretty happy with GMP. I'll trade you my WEC (Washington Electric) for your GMP anyday. WEC has some of the highest rates in the state, and they want an arm and a leg to install new service. they want 4K for 300 ' over head. It's 1950 for 1 pole, and 200 per guide wire. ASk GMP what they charge. Like 1300 a pole and they are negotiable on new service installs.

WEC Charges me a "member ship" fee. GMP doesn't charge a member fee. That's right, WEC charges a fee to be apart of their over priced club. Again, I'd take GMP anyday. WEC has motivated me to seek renewable energy. Paying them makes my skin crawl.

If you can tell I really like WEC.

Ben

The sap unloaded yesterday. I'd guess I collected near 6-7,000 gal since 10 AM yesterday on 2300 taps.

had probably best 24 hours sap run of the season from noon yesterday to noon today. got 500 gallons of sap and made 11 gallons. 10% had dried up but one bucket ran 4.75 gallons in 22 hours.

Went from commercial yesterday to Grade B, then Grade A Dark Amber today. Tomorrow looks good. up to 72% crop w/ 87 gallons .

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Originally Posted by Randy Brutkoski

Boiled crystal clear sap today and it was garbage. Made 2 barrels . Tomorow morning i will boil up the last 3000 gallons and call it a year. The sap is still running real hard. At 1 bush i got 2 gallons per tap yesterday and the same today,

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Nobody likes a quitter😄😄

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Originally Posted by Scribner's Mountain Maple

I would be pretty happy with GMP. I'll trade you my WEC (Washington Electric) for your GMP anyday. WEC has some of the highest rates in the state, and they want an arm and a leg to install new service. they want 4K for 300 ' over head. It's 1950 for 1 pole, and 200 per guide wire. ASk GMP what they charge. Like 1300 a pole and they are negotiable on new service installs.

WEC Charges me a "member ship" fee. GMP doesn't charge a member fee. That's right, WEC charges a fee to be apart of their over priced club. Again, I'd take GMP anyday. WEC has motivated me to seek renewable energy. Paying them makes my skin crawl.

If you can tell I really like WEC.

Ben

The sap unloaded yesterday. I'd guess I collected near 6-7,000 gal since 10 AM yesterday on 2300 taps.

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I would like to second that!

We made an additional 110 gallons today. Nice medium color but the flavor is off. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

We are all done here in williston , sap ran good and hard after the freeze , we boiled today and it would not filter at all so we pulled the plug and shut down . We made 700 gallons this year after 900 last year , a lot of that syrup came in a short time , 600 gallons from 3/30 -4/14 and that's all Mother Nature could give us. Till next year !!

Our biggest day ever. 40 gallons. But some was catch up from yesterday. Dark Amber but flavor was starting to turn. Not sure how much longer.

Well ,i tried to boil down the rest i had at my sugarhouse but it didnt go so well. Syrup hit temperature but wouldnt even get close to density and it spiked to 226 degrees and it wasnt even close. So i pulled the plug. Sap is still cranking and the sugar was still around 1.6%. Just a wierd year in all. Very bad year with finishing up at 1920 gallons. Made 3100 last year with 900 less taps.

Pulled the plug- plenty of nice clear sap.....that tested at under 1%. RO'd all day to make 30 gallons........that wouldn't filter and didn't taste top shelf. I don't sell in bulk, so don't have much of a market to keep making commercial unfiltered. Not a terrible year- within 100 gals of last year. I'll just buy 100 gallons more than last year.