Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

Hoping to hit 5lbs/tap today in Bakersfield, Our average over the past 6 years has been about 6.5lbs/tap. Seems pretty unlikely this season. We just didn't get any of the early runs, no frost in in the ground but super deep snow here this year. Snow is mostly gone now and the ground is actually quite dry.
Like Spud, we are always colder than what is forecast, hoping that can limp us along.
Never been happier to have this land and this work to keep me occupied and employed (and sane?)
Hope everyone is well.

AMEN!! same feeling here!!

Running very good in our Jericho woods while our westford woods is not running well. Westford woods face East and warm up quicker so not sure what’s going on. Good freeze in both woods last Night, partial freeze in Jericho but not Westford two nights ago. Sap at 1 brix in Jericho.

Dr Tim what is the evaporation rate of your hyper brix rig? Thanks

Sap is running 240 gph and sugar has gone up to 1.6. My East facing trees are not running very much. My south and west trees are the bulk of my sap now.

Spud

Sap is running 524 gallons a hour as we speak. Strangely enough my north woods broke free first this morning. :confused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by WestfordSugarworks

Dr Tim what is the evaporation rate of your hyper brix rig? Thanks

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We were making ~100+ gal of syrup/hr last year, so evaporating about 150 gal/hr (evaporation rate) on a 4' x 12' evaporator (4' backpan, 8' frontpan). Total processing rate (evap + drawoff) was thus around 250 gal/hr. Because we were going into the backpan so cold (concentrate at about 25 deg F), that partition of the pan hardly ever got to a boil. This year we changed the heat loop in the backpan hood over to a concentrate preheater, so I suspect once we calculate the new rate it'll be quite a bit higher. Won't crunch those numbers until after the season, but I know it's been more of struggle keeping up with the filtering this year, so I suspect the reason is that we've exceeded our filtering capacity rate by a good bit. Bigger filter press in the plans for next season. We typically produce about 10-14 barrels per boil. Right now we get 3-4 barrels per press -- would be nice to only have to break the press down once a day. We're at 6 boils right now...maybe 1 more + the boil out of the pans.

Good solid freeze here overnight and sap is running quite well now they everything is thawed. My woods face west primarily with a very steep mtn. to our east so can take a while to really thaw a good portion of the woods.

I also agree that this is an especially good year to be a sugarmaker....

I'm definitely close to the end here...

Sap is running well in Underhill. Gonna need more barrels. :D

Last boil of the year for me today. Between splitting daycare duties with the wife and our work weeks I have just about run out of time. Should end up with another 20 gallons to bottle. I exceeded my goal for this year and learned a lot on the new rig. Now onto the to-do list for next year...


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Last boil today in Northfield. Sap is running 15-20 gph off 215 taps. Sugar is <1%. Only got 2% in early March. Mostly getting 1.5% sap or less. Time to clean up and move on to other projects. Just over 60 gallons.