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In what is known around here as the Bortles zone! Which means as your syrup is being drawn off the temp doesnt get higher than .3 above the setpoint. The rig is running pretty good at that time. Phrase comes from Father and Son!
https://i.imgur.com/BL3I7tL.jpg
The old King rig just coasting along.
https://i.imgur.com/VB1OMmB.jpg
Making some darker syrup:
https://i.imgur.com/IRnaM6S.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/xnw1S4s.jpg
Hope your syrup is great! Keep on boiling!
Regards,
Chris
I pulled buckets Saturday morning and did some playing with the RO while I boiled off the last 10 gallons. Ran though twice and ended up with around 6%. Made a nice little batch for maple BBQ sauce. Ended up with about 3 gallons total. The RO definitely helped keep me on track this year.
Ryne, Folks,
Have stuck a fork in it for the season. Lines all rinsed and draining in the bush. Will pick up the containers in a day or so. Have the evaporator and steam away filled with vinegar water solution and a small fire. Weather is way too warm for too long. Dumped 200 gallons of sap yesterday as I moved through the roadside sugarbush. Most all of it was cloudy and gray, just after a day or so.
Syrup sales are brisk. And we have been invited to Asbury Woods Nature center for their Maple Weekend April 2 and 3 from 10-4. Should be a good time.
Hope things are good in in the Sugarbush!
Keep on boiling!
Regards,
Chris
Folks,
Cheryl and I picked up the sap containers and bases.
Drained the evaporator after heating with the vinegar in the pans and steam away.
Yesterday Great grandson Cooper had a good time helping with the evaporator clean up! The water was only luke warm as he was playing with the scoops and stainless stuff. I had just started the fire to warm the full pans.
https://youtu.be/prQ7OfYWpbk
Several visitors came to the sugarhouse and the Maple kitchen today. Canned another 10 gallons of Amber Rich this morning and made a batch of Maple mustard this afternoon.
Cold weekend weather coming. Sap may run again? We will see! Several local sugarmakers are ready to make some additional syrup!
Regards,
Chris
Folks,
Several local sugarhouse are still making syrup. Darker but good flavor. Also heard that there may have been some metabolic flavors detected in some of this later syrup. I guess I continue to learn things: You can hear the peepers every night until you get a warm rain and then the season is done. Man I need to brush up on this peeper thing and the weather. Our family records indicate they were making syrup about 200 years ago and they never passed that down to me!!
So I sanitized, scrubbed and rinsed the sap containers today and have them draining and drying in the sugarhouse. Boy is it nice to have the sugarhouse open without as many items in it!
Our weekend at Asbury Woods in Erie was awesome. Many visitors sampled our maple syrup and value added products and they took most of it home with them!:) We tried our hand at making maple coated popcorn. Learned some things: Like sift out the unpopped kernels before coating the popcorn. I made a sive and kernel catcher that made that job easy.
https://i.imgur.com/Z0a7PuN.jpg
Next will be to pick up the tubing in the sugarbush that has been rinsed and is drip drying/ draining. A dry warm day makes that project go much easier. about 30 rolls of the short run tubing and drops will be brought back to the sugarhouse. I will color code the roles to indicate which third of the sugarbush they go in. The rolls will be hung in the sugarhouse rafters until next season.
Hope things are good in maple land!
Keep boiling (if you are still in the game) Or you can go to other sugarhouses and visit!
Regards,
Chris
Chris, The 100 year old adage in my family is that you can make good syrup for 2 weeks after you hear the first "frogs" if you have the right "syrup weather". It's been pretty spot on and why I held out till this past week and weekends run. Made some real good tasting dark syrup here on the west end of Lake Erie. I'm pulling taps tonight.
Ed, Folks,
Well you would have been spot on with that prediction this year. There was some additional syrup to be made this season. We wrapped up a little early. Things to do and had two big maple events for us. So we were very busy. Sure feels good to be done, with every thing put away for the season. Now to make some maple products for our great customers! Just doing prototype development work on a somewhat new maple product this afternoon too. Got to keep moving and moving maple!
Regards,
Chris
And what's the name of the condition when the temperature exceeds the 0.3 rise?Quote:
Originally Posted by Sugarmaker
Ken,
That would be how i normally make syrup. Hard for me to stay in the zone with wood fire and 5 foot syrup pan. Haven't come up with a name for that yet:)
Happy Easter!
Regards,
Chris
Maple folks,
Yes still here and making syrup too. We set up the roadside sugar bush in late January, and tapped February 5th. We have boiled almost every day with good to very good runs on our gravity 625 taps. Syrup class was right at the golden/ amber line. We made 85 about 95 gallons of that. Ast night we went from amber to dark as we finished another 12 gallons.
Weather has warmed and stopped sap flow today. Looks like another day or so and we will be back at it.
We are pleased with the quantity and quality of the syrup too.
So far one of the best seasons in 20 years. Over 5% of our normal season made in 10 days with 9 boils!
I have pictures just need to load them.
Off topic:
The 1932 Ford dump truck has a new rebuilt engine installed an is running good!
Regards,
Chris