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sap ran fairly well here yesterday. not quite 1gpt. but sugar went from 2% up to 2.5% which I don't get too often. I had a first boiling last night. Our first draw lasted 3 1/2 hours. stopped for 20 minutes and went another 2 1/2 hours. We've never come close to that before. made our first AR this year as well. things should pick up a bit the next few days.
Good run yesterday with about 1.25 gal/tap. Had to search out a few disconnected drops to get the vac back up to 27", but not too bad. Still on snowshoes to get around in the woods.
I shipped 4300 gallons this morning at 2.2%. Sap is only running 200 GPH but should run all night. Sap is now testing 2.0% so it's dropping.
Spud
Made another 35 gal. AR from sap collected the last three days. Puts me at about 315 for the season so far and no end in sight.... Probably about 1500 gal. but hard to say exactly given the ice in the tank. Sap flow slowed way down once it clouded up this afternoon....
Just under 1 GPT at 4pm, and test dropped to 1.7.
Still 35 out at midnight, so will be curious to see if the natural vacuum keeps it running tonight.
Expecting 50’s the next 4 days, with only a couple of borderline freezes.
Concentrated Monday and Tuesday. Boiled today. Started morning with 600+ gal of 37 Brix concentrate (at 23 deg F) and over 6,000 sap at 2.4 Brix in the tanks. Just finished boiling, but RO still running. Made 375 gal of mostly Golden/Delicate. No niter, easy filtering. Total of 1,320 gal so far on 4,925 taps. Will probably have another 250 gal concentrate in the bulk tank tonite before the RO shuts off. Will likely just concentrate again tomorrow and boil on Friday.
The run from yesterday through mid-morning produced over 9,250 gal of sap in 26 hrs. One of the better runs we've ever seen...and good sugar content and excellent sap quality. A few more weeks of this and we'll need more barrels.
I would never make syrup again without a refrigerated bulk tank. Totally separated the RO and evaporation processes and made work-flow MUCH better.
Dr. Tim, could you give an estimate for per gallon cost of a refrigerated tank like the one you have? I definitely like the idea of transitioning to high brix sometime in the future. Also love the idea of having fewer boils while boiling more sap at one time. The money is made in the woods and if you can concentrate labor out walking lines during these big warm spells and then wait till a cold spell to boil, you'll make a lot more money in the end.
Also how many gallons of syrup per hour have you been drawing off your rig?
My cold/West side woke-up last night, and started out-producing the sunny-side that has been carrying the bulk of the sap this last week.
An unpleasant first today — dead squirrel in a bucket.
Chasing lots of leaks also.....Averaging 1 gpt or so per day, nothing too exciting after the freeze we just endured, hoping some of my big trees frozen still or I'm a bit worried about gpt production levels being somewhat low, of course 18-20 degree nights with 36 degree days aren't that handy either, now we get the warmth but lose the freezing nights!!- can't win. I know the flow into the releaser isn't what it was a few weeks ago, and color is closer to dark from light Amber. Hoping for a few more good runs, trees sensing spring here in the Champlain valley I believe.
About 1 gpt in the last 24 hours here. It didn't really run much until the sun came out this afternoon. Still lots of snow in the woods and not much in the way of signs of spring though I did hear a Robin today for the first time in 2018. Going to wait until Friday to boil as I don't expect sap flow to be too dramatic given the lack of freezing.
Been sugaring for over two months now and no sign of it letting up in the near term. At .42 gpt for the season so far.