Thanks, I will give that a try. I have three more to do, tubing to be added at the end of the lines, to go into the buckets.Quote:
Originally Posted by 30AcreWoods
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Thanks, I will give that a try. I have three more to do, tubing to be added at the end of the lines, to go into the buckets.Quote:
Originally Posted by 30AcreWoods
Thanks, I will avoid garlic or pickle buckets, lol.
The settling actually works.
I think in the 29 batches I made over the two years, in the second year, batch 11, which was a large batch, while lifting a clogged pre filter, in error all of the filters briefly lifted, allowing sugar sand to go past all of the filters.
In hindsight I should have filtered the batch again, but I didn’t. I bottled the batch and each bottle and jar had some sugar sand in it. But I just carefully poured off the pure syrup out of the bottle. I think once you get close to the sediment, using your idea of using one pre filter could help eliminate any wayward pieces of sugar sand.
I will be going by CDL tomorrow and may price a few things out. Ultimately I will spend some new money, but will try and use what I have and simplify things.
I keep thinking back to my neighbour’s who have been making maple syrup for generations and they have never used a hydrometer, don’t measure gph of their evaporator, never time when they add wood and every once in a while they will stand up and add a piece. They make good tasting syrup, just for the needs of their family.
I am sure I will still find a way to make it more hectic, I am sure I will make more syrup than planned, but I will try to become more low key.
Last year I tapped some trees at Christmas when had a warm spell, just to share the experience with the Grandkids. Not the most productive time to tap, but was priceless time with the Grandkids. My Grandson still has the bottle of syrup that I gave him, that we made, still unopened on his shelf.
This season is not going to be a real sugar season for me, but I plan on making some syrup. Ideally between 25 and 30 L. My boiling capacity is limited and if I go into full production, I might be able to boil close to 4 gallons an hour. I will be using two turkey fryers, an open fire with two steam pans above it, and an induction stove.
Last year, defying all logic, the trees I tapped at Christmas were still flowing when I shut down in April.
Seeing how this is just a wild card season, I thought I would have some early fun again and I might tap some trees this Thursday. If I end up making up one litre of syrup, making more, it will be a success.
This is a strong super El Niño year, and I think there will be several warm spells and who knows the early season tapping may add up.
I used the tip today, where I had a thermos of hot water, which I dipped the tubing into it, to soften it up, and I added the tubing ends to the three lines to go from the end connector fitting to the three five gallon pails. Last year I had two 45 gallon drums there, so I will have to collect more often if need be.
I will tap tomorrow with a five day warm spell starting. I will need the night time temperatures to drop a hair more to keep the sap flowing over the five days.
This will be a back to basics endeavour with a combination of cheesecloth and settling to remove most of the sugar sand and a thermometer, spoon drip, and appearance to nail down, when it turns to syrup. It will not be the class of syrup I made in the past, but it will be syrup, and I will have fun making it.
For this early in the season I will just use a turkey fryer and an induction stove for boiling, finishing and bottling.
It is crazy, but should be fun.
Tapped today, we will see tomorrow how it runs.
A month or so ago, checking the lines, one line was down and an animal had cut the line in several places and while on the ground in several other places. I never had any animal problems before. I had expected squirrel gnawing, but did not expect them to cut right through and drop the line.
Having sold all of my tools, I no longer have the tools to repair the line. For that line, I just tied the line to a tree and lost about 7 taps above where I tied it off.
Today I discovered another line down because of an animal chew. Not positive it is a squirrel, but it makes sense.
Next year, if I tap, I may just put drops into buckets, as I will not need any special tools to do that.
The last two years, I was all in, this year just making do, does not feel totally right. I will reaccess at the end of the season.
I am boiling today, not sexy using two inductions stoves and a turkey fryer, but it is working. There are no high volumes, but I should be able to make 2-3 bottles of syrup during this warm spell.
I will need the night time temps to drop a little, right now the forecast has changed and they are a little above freezing. Today will likely be my biggest collection day.
My turkey fryer arrived just in time from Fed Ex, just as I was starting to boil with the two induction stoves.
Still some unknowns ahead with nailing down when the sap is exactly syrup with the use of a thermometer, spoon drip test and experience from last year, and the filtering using cheesecloth and the settling technique.
December 15 and I am boiling, much better than sitting around doing nothing. This time of year all of the outdoor chores are done and the lake has not frozen yet to go ice fishing.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0feh...GHUyQDINH-GLMQ
Collected 13 gallons today and have it close to be boiled down.
The ironic thing is I will likely will have used electricity and propane worth as much or more, than if I simply bought the syrup in the store. Fortunately I do not have to pay myself for the ten hours today gathering and boiling it. That doesn’t count the capital costs of buying the turkey fryer, a new pot and thermometer and other things.
Yeesh
I ended up making 1.5 L of syrup today. I have zero idea of the Brix. I made it the best I could and it tastes great. My wife loved it and seeing how what I make stays in our household, that is all that counts.
I need the temperature tonight to drop below freezing. The Forecast is 0° /32°.
I am boiling again today.
While on my morning walk it occurred to me, that if I had my old divided pan, I would not have boiled at all with such a low volume of sap.
If I had to do it all over again, knowing what I know now, and being a hobbyist, and realizing that sometimes less is more, I would have purchased a barrel evaporator with either a large single pan or more likely two steam pans. It makes boiling of smaller batches much more feasible.
Just making it for home use, yesterday’s use of a cheesecloth for a filter and a thermometer, spoon drip test and appearance is good enough to make a tasty syrup to go on pancakes on the home. I actually use most of my syrup with my morning oatmeal. I just use a splash of syrup with blueberries to make it tasty.
Looking at the Saptapapp heat flow map. I might be the only crazy one tapping and making syrup.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/034z...gMU3iEQJesrbTA
Collected just under 9 gallons and made just under a L of syrup.
I realize the cheesecloth gets the bigger pieces of nitre, but last Spring my DYI vacuum filter left it crystal clear when I bottled it, now I can see it is cloudy, but settles clear the next morning.
Night time temps will be above zero, so I am not expecting any new flow until Wednesday, but then I might have five days of flows.
I went for my morning walk and checked the pails when I went by and was surprised to see a little sap flowing, as temperatures were above zero for over a day and the previous night, the temperatures went barely below zero.
No sap flow expected until Wednesday, but there should be some good days right to Boxing Day. It will shut down after that. For how long we will see.
I might end up with 7 L before New Years, which is a 1/4 of what I hope to get by the end of the season. Who knows if the taps staymopend like last year and there are a few warm spells during winter, I might end up with considerably more.
I might try and set up my fire pit boil this week as well.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/01bZ...Xd13__snhHR_5Q
I was thinking the same thing last year when I upgraded from my steam pans to a built pan. Deciding to have my nee pan the same size as 2 steam pans worked well for small batches. With the new evaporator I built this fall I will have the pan and one steam pan. I can put water in the steam pan instead of sap if I'm doing a small batch.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingpure
I agree. Steam pans and smaller flat pans can really give the hobbyist flexibility. Obviously if volume is your target, you need larger pans and evaporators, but if you have fewer taps, I think hobbyist should be very happy that they have the right tool for the job with the smaller pans and evaporators.
I will check the pails later tonight in the rain just to see what flowed. Next boil will be in the afternoon Wednesday.
I expected the sap to flow today but it did not. Next sap flow day will be Saturday, with 6 possible sap flow days, but the forecasted overnight temps have to drop a little.
So far I had been boiling with my two induction stoves and a turkey fryer. If flows ever get strong, I have access to a second turkey fryer, but the plan was also to boil over my fire bowl, with my old steam pans. I thought I would give it a try today with the 2.5 gallons of sap I had collected the other day.
It actually worked quite well. In the attached pictures you will see one with two pans and one with four. The two center pans had sap and the other two, meant to be warm up pans had water.
The two sap pans boiled pretty good and the two warm up pans did warm up and one was giving off steam. That will add 2 gph to my boiling capacity when I need it.
It used much, much less wood than my monster evaporator did last year, but for obvious reasons.
The one lesson learnt is to spend a little time leveling out the support rods.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/062c...HSv9pjil35msxw
https://share.icloud.com/photos/071k...5diSW7wUx0_Omw
I wasn’t happy with the sugar sand in my finished product. Although I could simply pour off the syrup into another container when I planned to consume it and just leave the nitre behind, it just wasn’t something I liked, especially because the high standards I had last year.
I was in the neighbourhood of CDL, which is an hour and a half drive away, and picked up a cone filter with a number of cone prefilters. Tomorrow I will rig something up to hold it in place. My next boil will be Saturday or Sunday. The forecast keeps changes this coming Christmas weekend, but sap will run.
I use cone filters for my filtering. The stand I made is with a piece of plywood with a hole in the middle to slip the filter through. I put 4 finishing nails partially set to hook the filter ribs from. The plywood has 4 legs long enough that my pot fits under the stand to collect the filtered syrup.
Thanks. I will work on it tomorrow.
My primary cone filter has four loops at the top, so I can see how you supported it.
Edit: I did make a stand for it as you described using plywood. Mine is a little fugly, but is functional.
We will have six days with temperatures above freezing, but night time lows may be above freezing, I am not sure how much sap will actually run in that time.
My lines run and face east, but are also on the north side of a slope, so they do not get a lot of sun, especially this time of year with the sun not high in the sky and daylight hours close to the lowest of the season. I will get some sap and will boil whatever I get and will make syrup, one bottle at a time.
Boiling again today. I am not getting a lot of sap as the nighttime temps are above zero. A 7 day warm spell, but too warm, producing a very rare green Christmas.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/04aY...IUgCX66PyG2HNA
Made 1.25 L today. Not all shown in the picture. It was Golden syrup.
The new cone filter worked really well and the syrup was very clear.
Earlier in the day we had pancakes with my Grandkids and we had the syrup I made earlier in December. Everyone loved it.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/036-...OgxTAiQ8qBq7cA
That might be it until we get another warm spell, which may come in the second half of January.
I am not making a lot of syrup, but I am making syrup. We will see how long the taps flow for. If like last year they stay open into April that will be bonus, if they shut down, I have many other trees I can tap on my property and have drops into buckets.
I had a hair over 3 gallons of sap that I had collected since my last boil. I did not know when my next one was going to be, so I decided I would reduce it down to nearup, but in the end made syrup with it. About 300 ml. What Brix it is, I have no idea.
My daughter and Grandkids are up, so I brought them the hot syrup, and they at first tasted it by the spoonful, then by the shot glass. They all loved it, thought it tasted amazing, and felt it was a nice treat. My wife loved it too.
Boiling small scale has it’s advantages. 😜
That's really cool!
3 gallons of sap is plenty to finish on a tiny scale if one is in the mood. The smallest I ever finished was 1 gallon of sap into 4 oz of syrup... just enough to fill my smaller hydrometer cup (from tapmytrees) although I didn't have a hydrometer or cup at the time.
How is the cone filter working out? I still can't figure out why people have trouble with them, to the point where I wonder if I'm missing something...
Just used mine yesterday because I took the last of my "nearup" from April 2023 from the freezer and made a couple gallons syrup in the kitchen, which went through the filter in one pass with two prefilters. I did end up pouring the remaining syrup from the first prefilter into the second, and later from that into the orlon, but ultimately the syrup all went through and the niter did not.
I have not used the cone filter a lot, but when I have used it, it was easy to use, not too slow and made very clear syrup. Did my old DYI vacuum filter work faster, yes, but for the volumes I am doing, the cone filter works just fine and the final product is just as clear.
I might get a little sap flow on Tuesday. Another degree or two warmer would help. Maybe some on Wednesday.
We are having a green New Year here which is not something I have seen since moving here. The lake was wide open today, but should freeze over sometime this week.
I might try ice fishing and boiling sap next to the tip ups, in March in my fire bowl, just for the fun of it. We will see what the ice is like then.
Today was above freezing and so will tomorrow be above freezing, but not enough for my east facing slope with a north facing slant to it, to thaw and start running.
We have no snow here at all, very strange for January 2nd, but that will change tomorrow and it will start to get cold tomorrow night. I am not sure when the next warm spell will be. Could be as late as March, but I think ther should be some El Nina thaws during the next two months.
It has been fun so far making some syrup and I have been able to experiment with my new small scale operation. The Fire Bowl evaporator with two boiling pans and two warm up pans worked better than I expected and did not use a lot of wood compared to the “beast” last year.
I know what I will get from the two turkey fryers and the two induction stoves. I will try and use the fire bowl as much as possible instead of the turkey fryers to save on propane costs. I have lots of wood.
The cone filter was a nice addition and I can make a good clear product.
So far I have been winging the finishing, using just a thermometer and gut feel. I have no idea what my Brix are, but it is sure tasty. My family loves it. It is a little liberating.
I have no idea if my existing taps will still flow in March and April, like last year, but I have lots of other trees I can tap, if need be.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0c3w...Ga9IoOTGNUk6VQ
We received 60” (150 cms) of snow this week in three days. This coming week, we may have a few days of sap flow. Our ice hut did not make it onto the ice yet because the ice just recently froze over, so it got snow covered, while waiting on land.
I snowshoed up my lines today. It was tough in the deep snow on a steep incline. There were several places where my lines were down in the snow. In almost all of the cases it is because a near by sapling had bent over because of the weight of the snow. I was able to get all of the lines back in place.
I hope the sap does run. I don’t expect a lot, but that suits my smaller operation. I tapped the trees on December 14th.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/01a1...GV5-81-Q4RcWdQ
https://share.icloud.com/photos/060c...03B0OrwMlsfY_Q
I'm curious why you don't want to use a hydrometer to check for the right density. If it's for your own consumption, of course you can do as you please. But if it's just the volume of syrup that is your concern, you only need a tiny amount, maybe a quarter to a half a cup of syrup, to check the density.
GO
I use a hydrometer to check my density. After checking I pour it back in the pot so I have no loss there.Quote:
Originally Posted by berkshires
Hey. Ive got a question about your Christmas miracle syrup. Did it taste like first run stuff? Butter and marshmallow? Or was there a different flavour all together.
I have to admit, I only tried my hydrotherm once when I had it, and I found it very messy and went with my refractometer for all of the rest of my syrup. I have ordered another refractometer which should arrive tomorrow.Quote:
Originally Posted by berkshires
No one else around me was using a hydrometer, so I never got to see anyone use it first hand. Perhaps if I saw how to do it properly, I might have tried it again. The refractometer just worked for me really well. I learnt to have a few tests to truly nail down an “accurate” reading. All I know is the syrup tasted great and when I would test it after the fact it would give me my 66.9 Brix reading. I tested other people’s syrup that they shared with me and often their Brix was much lower.
It is hard to describe the taste, but my wife and daughter both said it tasted amazing. The last batch I made was golden and lighter, but still had a very sweet, smooth maple taste to it. We have actually consumed the first batch I made before Christmas, but still have not opened the last batch. We consumed the first batch as I did not have my new bottle caps yet, but I got them in time for the second batch.Quote:
Originally Posted by 4Walls
Hopefully over the next two weeks I will have a lot more.
12 of the next 14 days will have temperatures above freezing and I can see some sap flow happening on 8 of the 12 days.
This Thursday should be a good flow, we will see.
I can't figure her out but I guess the ground has finally thawed. This morning (50 deg) I was getting almost nothing, even though the night was warm. This afternoon, it finally let loose with good flow. Hope to have 40 or 50 gal sap out of 55 trees by morning - flowing about 2 to 3 gal/hr. Hope it keeps going. Tapped trees on 12/29 with a whopping total of 65 gal sap to date....All are on either high natural gravity or pump.
Well a kick in the groin for sap flow. The afternoon before the sap should have been flowing, the forecast changed. Although temperatures will be warmer than normal, they now will just be a hair above freezing and I see zero days for sap flow in the extended forecast. When will I learn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingpure
It warmed enough to collect 3 gallons of sap yesterday. Today the sap started running (not fast) before 11. If the temps could rise a degree or so more than forecasted and if the sun would appear, maybe I would have enough for a small boil.
In the meantime, I am ice fishing.
Collected 10 gallons this weekend, with temperatures not consistent with good flows. I will boil it tomorrow and make a litre of syrup. Might get more sap later this week.
Turned out I only had 8 gallons, but I boiled it this morning anyways. As I was getting close to finishing what I boiled down, I realized it felt warmer than they forecasted and sure enough I collected another 2 gallons. The first 8 gallons I boiled over my fire bowl. These last two I am currently boiling on my induction stove. I will finish and filter it tonight and hopefully fill two 500 ml bottles.
This afternoon while waiting for the sap to run, I was ice fishing. When I finished ice fishing, I collected the sap.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/033r...0-lTXMRRnVcSGA
Gary, how much ice have you got now. It sure seems like we have been up and down with temps to make ice around here.
Yesterday’s syrup I made was more amber than the last boil’s golden batch. I made just shy of a litre. What I am making is keeping up with my home use, with the Grandkids not around.
It looks like there will be more sap collection days over the next couple of weeks.
While making the syrup yesterday, I wondered why most hobbyist make maple syrup? Unless you are in it for the long haul, I doubt you make money or break even. So far in my three years, it would have been cheaper to go buy it, but I guess giving away more than 75% of what I make has something to do with that. Now that I am making less syrup, 90%+ will stay at home.
If you paid yourself for all of the hours you put in, you would be far in the hole, so there must be something else driving people to make syrup.
There is a certain satisfaction of making your own syrup, the accomplishment of making it and knowing the quality of the product you make. There is a satisfaction of doing work outside with the result of a finished product. This is similar to the satisfaction you get doing a hard days work doing a multitude of tasks.
I am still looking forward to the next sap flow. I am enjoying this slower pace and enjoying not be driven by any end goal, just being happy to make syrup until I do not want to make any more.
https://share.icloud.com/photos/0d1a...MimEvT6qrfYcsA
Our ice is very poor ice, but there is enough poor ice to make it safe in the spots that I have checked. We have an upper hard crust, then a gap before you hit the lower ice. In between is a slushy, almost air filled area, but the hard crust protects you from it. It is 80% white ice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pdiamond
Our lake was the latest that I have ever seen, to freeze over. It did not freeze over until January 5th. Before it had a chance to become safe ice, we received the 150 cms (60”j of snow in three days. That created a large slushy area, but then we had three days of pretty cold weather and that froze the upper crust.
I have been on the ice in my ATV in the areas I have checked, but I am not running on any areas I have not.
I won't speak for everyone, but I make syrup because I like making syrup! I've only been doing it nine years, so I guess I'm not in it for "long haul". I've never sold an ounce of syrup. If I want to keep doing it for the long haul, is that a requirement? LOL.Quote:
Originally Posted by Swingpure
I thought that was the point of a hobby - to do something you love!
GO