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Sap ran until late last night, but was stopped by 7am. Still good sugar at about 2%. Another 55 gal DR syrup today. Total over 1,300 gal, which is 0.30 gal/tap so far. Nice to have a day or two off with the cold. Great timing since I'm volunteering at the Vermont Odyssey of the Mind tournament tomorrow.
Joe you are drowning in sap, yet have had time to come out to the sugarhouse here ;) ? Hope to make it over your way before the end of the season but seems like we always have so much on to the to do list. Organic inspector is coming next Friday and hoping for the best!! Replaced all lights to shatterproof in sugarhouse and any related buildings and our woods are all set for Organic. Hopefully sugarhouse can pass muster. Boils have gotten to be real smoooth recently with a steady draw off only varying 1 or 2 tenths once we get a steady draw going. All pretty dark syrup made, AR or DR with no GD yet, but hoping for that after this freeze. All good flavor. Made the mistake of not running pump today, dad and I both went off to school/work and didn't turn on our Westford woods pump. Having a bunch of people from UVM out to the sugarhouse tomorrow morning.
Need to hold out, this week could be very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by VTfarmboy
We have boiled almost every night love high vac!! We are now sitting around 140 gal, over half of what we did last year. Ro working harder having to re-circulate to get to 10%. 2 30 gal trash barrels full of empties setting new one out tonight.
I heard bascoms bulk price 2.30-2.25- 2.20-1.90
Wood getting low, cut split today old pine that been down for a couple years.
Westford Will, one of the benefits of being retired. Yesterday, started pumping overnight sap from Jericho sap shed at 5:50 AM and got home at 10:45 last evening. Oil burner decided to have a one hour hick-up. Today the expensive commercial oil burner man is going to analyze and hopefully fix it. The Carlin 601 is 23 years old and it might be about time to replace it. I bought the evaporator in 2003 and the burner ran perfect until 2 years ago with no issues (and without being serviced, MY BAD) The repairs and service have cost me two or three hundred a year fro the past 2 years.
Another 1.1 gal of sap per tap again yesterday
Joe
I was happy to see the sugar content come up in the sap that came in yesterday after the freeze we had in the morning. It was down to 1.2 but back up to almost 2. Maybe it will be higher after this freeze up.
The sap that came in Thursday and overnight into Friday was getting a bit cloudy and slimy. The ice scoured the lines again yesterday morning, but by mid afternoon it was running clear. I am hopeful this means that our grade will come back up. I would like to make a bunch more AR as this is a very popular grade for me.
I did process everything I had by evening yesterday and ended up taking about 600 gal. to about 7 gal. of DR. Still great flavor.
I suspect I will have about another week of good quality sap here. It is supposed to get quite warm again by the end of next week and the days are getting longer. I see signs of buds down in the valley so it is only a matter of time.
Did a complete cleaning of my pans yesterday hoping that it could be a mid-season cleaning, or near so. They did need it. Just a 2x4 drop flu hobby pan with a 2x2 in front of that. I did clean the front pan twice already, because of some foaming, and it was in good shape. But, after boiling near 80 gallons of syrup the rear pan ready needed it.
Looks like a busy week ahead. Nice to have a break. Very cold nights, just a short time over freezing the next couple days. Forecasts look quite good for the week. Beyond that... who knows.
Today I will do some RO maintenance. I have processed over 5000 gallons to 8-10% so far with it. All my builds require fine tuning for the first year or two. Like debugging a program! What can I say... I like a challenge.
Sarah Lee and I are just waiting for this cold spell to end. Looks like Saturday we should see sap again. Once it does warm up it is showing the nights could still be below 32. I hope to get 3-4 more weeks of real good sap runs.
Spud
Strange day over here- cool, breezy and sunny................and the sap ran like crazy. Not a gusher, but a pretty solid day.
Turned out to be an ok day for me also. I got 3500 gallons today. Sugar was back up to 1.8%. Sap is a bit cloudy but I think it's going to clear up by weekend. Should see more sap tomorrow. I will not shut vacuum pumps off till the season is over. Rain and snow in the forecast so that's great. At least 3 more weeks of sugaring into area. Good luck everyone.
Spud
It didn't thaw out here until the afternoon and then the sap slowly started to pick up. It's still picking up a bit even though the sun is down and it's approaching freezing - obviously it will die down abruptly when the lines start to freeze.
I measured some sap right out of my releaser and it was at 2.1% - the last big run before the freezes I had was 2.0% so it's not much of an improvement in sugar content. I still have ice in my tank, and will let it freeze again tonight.