February Journal THE COUNTDOWN!!!

Things not to do at the beginning of a maple season:
- Don't let your dad drop a brand new syrup pan off the endgate of his truck
- Don't believe that the releaser you bought used will work fine
- Don't expect that the natural gas burners you put in your arch and "tested" with water will boil sap at an acceptable rate.

Short story is, right now I'm screwed. Syrup pan is dented but will work. Releaser sticks have to post that under vac forum, and I can only boil at 45 gal an hour. I really really wish I'd cut wood for this year just to be safe.

Mapleack dont feel bad Im just dumb enought to put 800 on a 2x6 with a max of 40 gph. I think I just might understand your pain or atleast Im gonna. Good luck

i ran into a big prob today two of my 300 gallon storage tanks are frosen in a pond of some kind i got to bring in the cat 315 trackhoe tomorow to bust them free it may be a little over kill but it is what we have at the shop

3rdgen, at least you'll have a hot enough fire to make syrup. Right now I dont.

Well I'm snowedin for real today. Up to the top of the auger shield on the snow blower and still sifting down and 28 degrees f. It feels like sugar snow but on the wrong end of the season. I hope that doesn't portend anything.
Now I'll wish I had hustled more and got more things done while the walking was easy.

PS If any of you are in WV and you see a male walking around with a big stupid sign on your back, it would be me. It was an absolute nightmare boiling yesterday that I hope to never repeat. I usually can have nearly all the evaporator boiling in about 5 minutes and for some reason yesterday(oh, yes, I am stupid, just about forgot), I couldn't even get the fire started. Before that, I coud not get any sap to flow thru the preheater and I am still baffled by why I can't get sap to flow thru it as it still only flows at 50%. After that, I reversed the flow about 7:30 and ran to store to get something to eat for the guy helping me and came back a few minutes later and the front pan was scorching from 1.5 inches of liquid to 1/4". Seems this idiot(me) that has the sign on his back forgot to pull the plug out of the other side of the syrup pan. Ending up blocking off the syrup pan and boiling for about 3 more hours with the flue pan only running and chasing the junk out of the syrup pan with condensate. For the last 1.5 hours, I scrubbed on the syrup pan while the flue pan was running full blast with well water running continually thru the pan. I always check the level in the evaporator every few minutes, but Roger was watching temps and not checking the level. Either way, managed to get the syrup pan scrubbed out clean while not slowing down the flue pan. Not the worst 1.5 gallons of syrup that came out of it, but not very tasty. LOL. Should be able to load it up with filter aide and blend it later in the season. Still got to figure out why the preheater won't flow. I was putting more ceramic blanket up in my attic area around the trusses this fall and somehow a small piece my have fell in the inlet pipe and partially blocked it off. I have sugarhouse all sealed off and in 5 years, never even had a mouse inside it, so I can't understand why the preheater won't flow as I normally keep it sealed off year around but may not have had it sealed off for part of this year.

Oh, well, hopefully that was all the screw ups for this year. Just watch out for me and don't get too close, I am dangerous.

Brandon- You guys are making me feel better about myself. I thought I was the only one that screwed up all the time. Theron

There must be something in the sap this year, my first boil i too had a hard time getting the fire going, the water meter wasnt working, worked fine on the test boil though, then on my second boil, as i walked in the shack i see the floor is wet, i must of not shut the valve between the fron and back pan off completly, so the front pan was flooded and it was running out the inlet hole. so mine not be as bad as others but still stinks though.

hmm flooded basement, hurricane force winds. All of the tarps on the sugar wood are scattered around the neighborhood. Man this is a nice feburary. I had to break out the big tractor to try and dig drainage around the house. Only succeed in tearing up the lawn.

The great slush storm of 2010 has been a pain, but it isn't going to keep us from boiling tomorrow. We haven't been getting much sap, but we can still send some steam up to heaven.