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Jason,Quote:
Originally Posted by heus
Looking forward to having you stop by. That is one thing I enjoy: going to other's sugarhouse's, visiting and or helping a little. BTW. I was boiling on your old rig today. Bob made at least 5 gallons with it this afternoon. The A&A rigs are good I boiled on their pans for 15 years.
Regards,
Chris
I get it. At just over 200 taps; this is manageable. A normal boil is 4 hours spent loading wood into the arch, checking temps throughout the pan with temp probes and drawing off about every 45 minutes.
The highest tech device is the Marchland temp monitor. One for the stack and two for the syrup pan. Makes no noise at all. After that it’s a preheater in a steam hood. All add up to making good product- none make a sound. Loudest thing in there is an occasional Neil Young or Grand Funk Railroad track, via Blue tooth, playing off my phone....and the occasional snap of a pull tab...it’s all good.
Hey I know where your coming from, considering the exact move my self and for nearly all the same reasons.
I understand too, in fact I recently only had 225 gal of 2% sap to boil and I didn't even use the RO. I also didn't run the H.P AOF/AUF, I just opened the draft door and listened, and enjoyed the time. It was so quite, both the RO and the HP blower are loud.
Now I don't plan to do that when I have a lot of sap, but it was relaxing and reminiscent of simpler times. I did still use the auto draw, which is more relaxing than monitoring the temp all the time.
Welcome to my world heues.Attachment 18436Attachment 18437Attachment 18438Attachment 18439
Just revisiting my thread from last spring. Although the bulk sap selling is still a possibility, I think I am going to keep my evaporator and boil next year. I have worked out a deal with a fellow maple trader. He is getting my oil fired arch and I am getting his wood fired arch. I have sold my 600 RO and filter press. I am thinking that I will cut back from 1000 taps on vac to around 200 or so on vac. Make just enough to keep my retail customers and family happy. My 200 taps will be only the best sugar maples in my woods, and mostly all can run on gravity if for some reason my vacuum is not working. Hopefully I can get my average sugar content up to 2% from the terrible average of 1.3-1.4% when I tapped lots of telephone pole sugar maples. One regret is selling my filter press, though. I may be looking for a short bank one in the near future.
Not gonna lie, I am getting pleasure from seeing my tubing come down in my woods. Never really got used to its appearance. Excited to use my new toy (2019 Kawasaki Mule Pro MX) to gather sap this coming season. Going to pick up my 2x7 evaporator at A&A Metal Shop in a couple of weeks. Ordered a 9" CDL vacuum filter. Looking forward to seeing how well it works. I guess I am one of the few that went from high tech (ro, filter press, vacuum, fuel oil fired, etc) back to low tech. Call my crazy but I am excited about maple again.
Jason,
Change is good! Keeps things fresh! We are not far away from syrup season too. Looking forward to your updates!
Regards,
Chris
You're not crazy Jason, you're going to make some really good tasting old-fashioned syrup again...that's what you're going to do. I never got to your level of tech and have always been wood fired, but after only a year with vacuum, air injection and an RO, I'm also beginning to think about doing a 180 before it's too late.Quote:
Originally Posted by heus
Chris and John, Its going to be weird going back to boiling raw sap. Good luck in your seasons.