January Journal

Sitting here watching Pawn Stars with nothing to do and thought when was the date that I tapped in last year so I pulled out my logbook.

I tap my trees 1/22/10 they ran for 1 week before the big freeze up in Feb. The BIG FREEZE lasted for about 3 weeks and I noted that I started getting sap again 2/19/10. The trees ran about 2 weeks and I pulled them 3/12/10.

So I had 4 weeks of sap flowing last year. The sap averaged about 1.25%, man that was terriable! If I included the 1 gal that I lost to the stove I made just over 5 gals! compared to the 10 gals in 2009 and they were all on buckets!

So I am thinking about the weather that we are having and how this Jan is like a real normal Jan. We have not had a single warm spell yet. And I have not had a single day that I have sat and wondered if I shouldn't be out tapping trees. So come Feb we should get our 1st warm up and I am hoping that it will be a sign of a normal year weather wise. For use down here a normal year weather wise we start getting above temps in the beginning of Feb and it sure looks like that I may just get them!!!

Worked in the sugarhouse tonight on my new to me evaperator. Taking a little break in the woods this week to get the evap up and going. Head tank very high but got a good fix on it. Figuring out the plumbing on the evap and think I have a handle on it now. Trying to run the numbers and cant remember what Jerry told me the whole rig will hold. Im thinking maybe 400 gallons total with the piggy maybe Im all wet on that but Im thinking something like that. Im running the numbers in my head and if I do a 6000 gallon first boil and run the ro's to 8% Ill have 1500 gallons of concentrate. but if theres the better part of 4 or 500 of liquid I boil for two hours. Wonder If Ill draw syrup off 6000 gallons. Seems like a guy would. Need some input from Big Jer I guess. Once the pans are sweet I should be all normall and just draw what a guy would think your should. Have to wait and see. If nothing else I should be sweet enough off one tanker trailer that all should stay fine in the evap. Evaperator very heavy. Leveled it tonight and it was a bear. Ready to plumb up head tank tomarrow night then Ive got to run the high pressure fan duct work to the piggy back and should be just about ready to try it. Think Im going to name my new Rig Little Chernoble after the nuclear Reactor in Russia. Seems appropriate. Gotta make syrup faster than the 3 by 10. If it doesnt Im going to bummed. Theron

[QUOTE=ennismaple;127636]
Afterwards we asked Rejean about using our auto-runoff and got a great tip from him that should allow for more frequent draw-offs of syrup. For those of you who haven't met Rejean he's a wealth of technical knowledge.

Ennismaple - well, now you have to share. How do we improve the performance of our auto draw?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by red maples

we could get 0-12 inches of snow on wed/thurs. so now I am almost ready I have a little more to go I'll do it tomorrow!!! :(

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Ha we're at 0-22. Now that's a range.
Hopefully getting at least the frame of a woodshed tacked onto the SH today.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by danno

Ennismaple - well, now you have to share. How do we improve the performance of our auto draw?

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He said that we should be using the Microtherm Temperature Probe Holder (see page 25 of this year's Lapierre catalogue) instead of the pre-drilled hole for the probe that's in the side of the syrup pan. This should allow us to find the sweet spot on the pan where we can get multiple, small runoffs per minute instead of larger batches of syrup every 5 minutes. Rejean said that when he designed the auto draw-off the probe was supposed to be mounted vertically and that the fixed position of the probe hole in the pan is at a cold spot in the pan and allowed for little to no adjustment, meaning we lose control of the syrup density and run the risk of scorching the pan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PATheron

Worked in the sugarhouse tonight on my new to me evaperator. Taking a little break in the woods this week to get the evap up and going. Head tank very high but got a good fix on it. Figuring out the plumbing on the evap and think I have a handle on it now. Trying to run the numbers and cant remember what Jerry told me the whole rig will hold. Im thinking maybe 400 gallons total with the piggy maybe Im all wet on that but Im thinking something like that. Im running the numbers in my head and if I do a 6000 gallon first boil and run the ro's to 8% Ill have 1500 gallons of concentrate. but if theres the better part of 4 or 500 of liquid I boil for two hours. Wonder If Ill draw syrup off 6000 gallons. Seems like a guy would. Need some input from Big Jer I guess. Once the pans are sweet I should be all normall and just draw what a guy would think your should. Have to wait and see. If nothing else I should be sweet enough off one tanker trailer that all should stay fine in the evap. Evaperator very heavy. Leveled it tonight and it was a bear. Ready to plumb up head tank tomarrow night then Ive got to run the high pressure fan duct work to the piggy back and should be just about ready to try it. Think Im going to name my new Rig Little Chernoble after the nuclear Reactor in Russia. Seems appropriate. Gotta make syrup faster than the 3 by 10. If it doesnt Im going to bummed. Theron

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Just a suggestion, What you might want to do is RO to 12-14% to fill the pan and then Ro the rest to 8% that way you will be that much closer to sweetening those pans. At 8% I draw off 45 gal per hour with the help off a steamaway. Also 1500 gal of concentrate at 8%=roughly 150 gal of syrup. That should help you figure your numbers.

Theron, ole boy.

Just concentrate sap to 20%, boil on the evaporator, and if you make syrup you do and if you don't, you don't. I guarantee sometime syrup will come off the old nuclear reactivator. When I get done slapping you around this weekend, you will have it right. Then you and the Buxton buck killer can hash out what you will do next.

Installed two more windows for more natural light. Tomorrow the stove goes in. I'm getting close to being ready.:D

Jerry- Got the feed lines plumbed up tonight. Looking good. 20% In Little Chernoble? Ill be fumbling with filter papers and syrup be running all over the floor. I cant make money less I get it in the barrells. You have me make 20% stuff dad will be slapping both of us. Now this is the question. Its 1.25 inch coming off the piggy back to the float box on the flue pan. I was going to reduce it to 3/4 becouse like you say only going to run a pencil stream then I got to thinking when my head tank is empty Im going to want to open up the output valve on the piggy back and run it into the float box on the flue pan to match the boil rate of the rig untill the piggy is empty. That will get the less sweet stuff up there boiled in every night. Will 3/4 feed the rig or do I put in the 1.25? Ill probly boil week stuff once and we'll be back to pushing the envelope. Things scary lookin. Theron

i thought i,de share a pic of my head tank and plumbing..i do need to add some valves in the lines.

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/medium/headtank2011.jpg

delbert