Gathering whatever is out there tomorrow. Yeah it might be done
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Gathering whatever is out there tomorrow. Yeah it might be done
I’m hoping for a few more runs, we have snow on the ground again, so it looks promising, although the 14 day forecast doesn’t.....
Had a small run yesterday will be headed out to collect and boil soon. Could get a bit of a run today as temps climb back up after last night but the long term is not looking great for me area either. Keep our fingers crossed that we will get a few more runs for 2020
1st year with a RO for me... I am very pleased with its performance.... Almost too good... Boiled down about 1000 L of 10% concentrate on the weekend... Maybe 7 hours on Saturday and a couple hours on Sunday..... No 24 hour shifts and got a good sleep each night, which is great... but I just didn't quite get my fill of the sugar shack, yet.. I typically "move in" there for a few days at a time.... Guessing we'll have one more boil this year, but it will be quick if I run it through the RO. I guess I will need to tap more trees next year...:rolleyes:
PS - I didn't even get to help with the bottling this year, so far..... Which is typically my job... Both of my boys are home from work, due to Covid shutdowns.... They helped my wife clean the bottling all up before I got home from work, yesterday...
So yesterday’s total was 80g ish for my 120 taps. That’s .67gpt. We needed a few more degrees of heat. Today things have unfrozen early and looks like it might be a good day if they continue all day to run. I’ll post how today was as I transferred all my sap storages at around 6 am
Well I collected about 100g from yesterday till around 12 this afternoon. I’ll take it
decent flow today, but looks slow until maybe friday, or next tuesday, then looks OK for a few days......fingers crossed!
Forecast here doesn't show anything below zero for over a week.... and then only down to -1. Anyone seeing signs of budding? With a full week of positive temperatures on the way,....?
RO'd 800L last night... I'm noticing the sap getting darker... Hope I'm wrong, but I fear this weekend may be the end of it for me...... Hope there's a decent jag of sap flow between today and tomorrow.
Very strange hobby I have to admit , 3 days of perfect sap weather-1/-2 at night plus 5 ish during the day and very little sap flow . Started to think that maybe my holes were getting old and starting to dry out. To test that idea I drilled a few new holes and hung a couple pails just to test , nope fresh holes still had next to no sap . Ohhh well maybe tomorrow.
I am getting yellowish sap from a few buckets, but most is still clear. Strangely, I have a couple trees that have two buckets each, one producing clear, the other yellow...
Nothing below zero in the 14 day forecast now, we may be done for this year.
Well lads and ladies my season is done. For whatever reason it started off great and finished horribly but....I’m happy. I love making and sharing syrup. I these parts I’m known as the maple man. Godspeed.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/202...f51f47d6dc.jpg
The weekend freezes gave me around 1100 Imperial gallons of sap. Some trees have either quit, slowed way down or a few gave me overflowing buckets. Sap is not clear for the most part. Making really yummy Very Dark syrup. So we gathered Tuesday and Wednesday, well some of the crazy trees still want to run in the heat with no freezes. Almost 16 yesterday. That's the hottest I've been in the shanty this year. Going to gather the dribbles today. Shanty drinking tree is not so clear anymore, but really sweet to drink! No more freezes in sight.
Is it over? Wednesday and Thursday nights are both forecast to dip to freezing, but today's buckets had some clear, some cloudy, some yellow, orange, pink and almost greenish sap, and lots of moths....plus I noticed that the birch sap was running. Does the sap ever run clear again with colder weather after this starts, or are we all finished for 2020?
Looks like the season is done. Located North Oliphant and did final boil 675 litres of sap and 16 litres of dark amber.
Ran some drop lines and single/double buckets - total taps 135.
Overall season 2112 litres of sap and 42 litres of syrup.
I collected for the last time, on Friday and boiled on Saturday... Trees had pretty much shut down... and sap was getting cloudy...
The attached photo shows how our last boiling day started out... Full tote of permeate and part tote of concentrate flipped on its way to the shack... Narrow wheel-based dump trailer fell into a rut on one side.... Totes slid to the side and flipped it... Nobody hurt. Lost some permeate, but not a drop of concentrate lost... Quite a start to the day.
Attachment 21346
Certainly wasn't the best year for yield for me. I'm glad I increased my taps this year. to 165 on a 12v diaphragm pump system and 25 on 3/16 gravity..
Started out at about 2.5% and ended off at 1.5%
Just over 100L of syrup produced.
In review, a few of my changes and successes for this season were...
1. Got RO system working... Been daydreaming about this for a couple years... Now I can remove 75%-80% of the water in less than 1/2 the time I can boil at.
2. Dropped my syrup pan by 1.5" and put a second float box between the pans.... This worked well... Less problems with syrup level dropping in the syrup pan... Going to raise my Flue Pan for next year, giving just a little more head pressure to the float box.
3. Increased fitting, valve and tubing sizes throughout my evaporator system... No more problems with flow restrictions.
4. Installed a 3/4" mainline in the bush, rather than several 3/16" runs.... This will accommodate further runs with more taps... Better vacuum levels upstream.. and I will spend less money, replacing small lines each year.
5. Put 6" of drainage stone on top of the mud, inside and around the shack... Much nicer working conditions for boiling.
6. Put a Tecumseh engine on a bale elevator for firewood processing... (which we hardly need now, with the RO working)
7. Added 1" of ceramic blanket insulation behind firebrick and in door or arch. (can actually stand beside the arch without melting my jeans)
8. Changed syrup pan flow to enter at front, lateral dividers and draw at rear... This works great... (and the only configuration I hadn't tried yet.)
9. At end of season boil, I kept the fire going while I chased the sap in the pans out with pure permeate. Had never tried this before... Other years, I would basically just shut down while I had a bit of sap left in the tank... and drain the pans afterwards to finish boiling on a propane cooker... This year, while feeding permeate in the back end, I actually drew off a couple gallons of finished syrup from my draw off, after I started introducing permeate..... and after shutting down, my syrup pan and float box had 55% concentrate to drain.. and the flue pan had 16%... Maybe everyone does it this way ?? If not, it works pretty good.
Big Thanks for all the helpful advice from everyone here... (Especially on the RO front, this year).....
And I wish everyone and their families health and happiness, as we endure this Covid situation.
Hmm... Last Post in this thread for 2020 and first one for 2021.
We are in a bit of a deep freeze here right now... (-16C / 3F) Hard to imagine sap flowing.... and I haven't started to prepare..
I better get at it... Wont be long.
Hope everyone is surviving the Covid Lockdown... No Doubt looking forward to spending some time outdoors in the bush..
Cheers
Attachment 21900
by the looks of the long range we might not be tapping until March this year. But never trust the weatherman, i will be almost 100% ready to go this weekend. Last year we gathered 380 gallons of Sap on Feb 23 .
We often plan to start tapping on Family Day long weekend but that won't be happening this year! The only sap that'll be running will be off the end of your nose! Not a lot of snow in the bush but it's been a cold 2021 so far so I'm assuming the frost will be fairly deep. Time to start thinking about getting ready...
Well we've decided to tap in next Monday which is about average for us. Of course all the snow we've had this week is going to make our manual collection MUCH more difficult! On plus side, the long range forecast appears to be very favourable for sap collection.
Howdy all y’all!
I debated tapping tomorrow but based on the forecast I will most likely tap next weekend.
My syrup last year was the best tasting ever! Hope everyone is safe and healthy.
Personally, I can’t wait to fire up the evaporator.
Where in Campbellville are you?Quote:
Originally Posted by Willen
Smokeshow, I sent you a PM.
So, +4 on Tuesday, +5 on Wednesday......then above freezing on the weekend again in the forecast - should I be tapping already???
Who has tapped already?
havent yet but looks like will be this weekend.
I started laying out lines yesterday and will be putting some taps in today. I’m sure I’ll have a drip 💧 happy sapping
Tapped my trees 4 days ago just started dripping today with plus 6 temp. Weekend looks promising I am super new to this but with our real cold winter will take a bit for trees to get moving and thawed out from what I read?
Yup it will be slow for me with these cold temps and knee high snow in the bush. I set up and tapped 2 lines so far 30 taps. Slow slow drip today but it all goes on the ground the first day for me. Although my lines were cleaned at the end of last season I still like to let them flush through a bit. We still have some cold day ahead so it’s going to be a bit in my area. Trying to hit the heavy flows with nice fresh tap holes this year as I’ve kinda tapped a bit early in the past. I still consider myself new after 5 years. Lol
Finished tapping this past Friday. Tough work with knee deep snow in the bush. Doubled my taps from last year to 300 this year. Heading north this weekend and hoping to see something in the buckets. And like Hkb82 I too will be dumping the first bit.
Being a novice, what's the purpose of dumping the first bit, and how much are we talking about?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugarmaker Dave
The end of last season I pump isopropyl alcohol into my taps and lines to disinfect. As mush as i drained most of it out when i tapped this season there will still be some residual. When the sap first flows it will flush the rest out which is why I will dump the first sap. Not talking a whole bunch here.
Hi! Those fellows are dumping the first bit because they use that first sap to flush their lines. That will not likely apply to someone like you who I assume doesn't run miles of tubing in your operation. :) Have a great season!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ocelotsden
I have been procrastinating a bit.... Not looking forward to the deep snow.. I will get out on the weekend... Never worked in snowshoes before, but I may this year. 3/4" mainline on Shurflow with about 125 taps last year. Bought supplies to double it. We'll see how it goes. Recently read the Vermont study on early tapping, where they found that early tapping did not have a significant effect on overall year's yield... This is settling my anxiety about not being tapped yet..:). Forecast shows a couple mild days coming up, but basically only an average of about +2 for the next week or two. I think it will all work out.
I put my 20 taps in on Tuesday when it went up to 8C. Haven't seen much in the bags, so you're ok so far.
Hi Karen,great to see you back! Hoping you have a great season. Haven’t tapped anything here yet,my better half under the weather with diverticulitis,hopefully may start tapping this weekend to clean out the lines. Don’t expect much for a while,lots of snow keeping the roots coldQuote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Hi Bruce. :) I only had a two week season last year due to Covid restrictions cutting off my access to propane. I couldn't be bothered setting up the wood evaporator, so just packed it in.
I'm hoping for a great season this year, despite the continued issues with lockdowns.
Heya Karen! Greetings from Eastern Ontario! So glad to see you back this season and ready to rock! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Yup like sugarmaker Dave said it’s to flush out anything left behind from last seasons cleanings. If your running buckets or bags just start collecting. Nice to see everybody is coming alive as we are getting closer to the flows. Hope you all have been doing good wile this covid mess runs ramped lol
Tapped today. 90 taps, 90 buckets and she was flowing! Used my old school mouth to test the sugar and jumpin Jesus was it sweet!
Good luck to all.
I ran another 40 on gravity lines today. Steady flow after 2pm. Again those 40 back to the ground but you can bet I was collecting of the lines I did the other day. We will see in the am how it was. I think I might go for 150 taps this year now that I’ve got my hands on some ke
Sorry Kent bottles. They were pretty hard to get for me at least this year.
Sweet - glad to hear you scored some bottles! For sure go for the 150 taps!