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Flow was a little all over the place today. Some buckets at 1 gallon plus, others near dry. That's not so unusual for my bush as I have a wide variety of tree sizes and the ones down low near the creek tend to flow early, while others are not so active. The south side of big trees had the most sap. Makes sense along side my thoughts about snow keeping the ground gold.
Let's see what tomorrow holds.
Sam
I'm thinking yesterday would not have been a good day as it never got below 35 at night.
Emptied some buckets and ended up with about 25 gallons that I collected and left some on the trees. I didn't feel like empting 1 quart per bucket on this low ones. It will start eventually.
Got stuff in bound to tap another 15 or 20 trees. I may end up around 70 taps this year. If it's quick I'd like to catch what I can.
Sam
pulled 25 gallons toiday...couple more days like that and I can start the sweetening.
I got somewhere around the same today. Also threw 10 more taps in and probably add 10 more tomorrow. I think I'm somewhere around 65 taps right now. If it really starts to run I will be buried. For the moment that does not appear to be an issue :(
Sam
Just finished up emptying buckets. A little closer to 50 gallons between last night and today. I'm planning to finish up prep Friday afternoon and start boiling on Saturday.
Sam
Wind was an issue today. This evening I went and collected buckets that were blown all over the place.
Sam
I leave some sap in my buckets to prevent that if its going to be windy. Hard to do when there is little to no sap of course
the downside to that is that if the sap in the bucket freezes. In that event I let them sit in the house for a day to thaw out. I will probably have to warm some sap to pump into the holding tank in order to thaw that out for boiling this weekend.
yep...froze solid....so now Ima have to warm up some sap and dumop it into my buckets to loosen the ice blocks so I can thaw THOSE and dump that warm sap into my holding tank to thaw out THAT ice
maybe boil sunday
well I spent yesterday thawing out my buckets in the house enough that the blocks could be dumped into a pot over a burner and then pumping the warmed sap into the tank to thaw out the iceberg in there only to have temps dip into the 20s last night. I'm kind afraid to go look see if it refroze :)
on the plus side I collected 15 gallons just from yesterday which bodes well for when the weather turns again. Hopefully the 100 gals in the tank is still wet enough to boil today.
ok...went thru about 90 gallons in a little less than 8 hours, so 10-12 gph I figure. Not bad for a 1/2 pint. The blower made all the difference but ye gods does this thing eat wood! I burned 40% of what I put up. The 50 gallon batches will take less of course but any kind of decent sap year means I have to cut and split another amount at least equal to whatever I had put up. Also, pallets. My stack temps ranged between 900-1000. Too much heat may be getting out the stack so I'm going to add a layer of brick in the back to force it closer to the pan.
And my digital thermometer bit it. Couldn't handle the steam. It was brand new, too. Gonna have to see what others use. I can't use a threaded analog as the connection is out of the sap....unless I screw it in and then bend the stem down.
The only other thing is my door needs insulating badly....the pvc pipe connecting the fan to the exhaust pipe won't hold up under that heat. Gotta change that out for metal.
I should be able to start drawing/finishing wednesday.
Spent a bunch of time on evaporator maintenance that I was not planning on. Didn't get to boil, but, not too worried as temps are so low everything shoudl stay fresh until next weekend. I am trying to pick up a new 275 gallon tote to hold sap in as I am running out of tank space. Nest weekend is going to be a lot of serious boiling as I try and catch up.
Sam
Tried to empty the buckets last night as I will be out of town for a few days, but, they were rock solid and would not give up their sapsickles. I swapped buckets that were full with less full buckets so there was additional capacity on the better flowing trees. From the looks of the weather I should be able to empty them all out when I get back in at midnight so that they can keep flowing for the end of the week.
Sam
Pulled 50 gallons tonight...but I'm not going to boil til saturday...I have ice in the tank to hold the cool.
Back in town and emptied most fo my buckets this morning. had a few issues and needed to get into work so some buckets will just have to sit full and overflow today. I hate to lose sap but, I can't pay the bills with syrup and I can buy syrup if I NEEDED to, so I'm at my desk. :(
sam
BTW, do NOT get those alleged "cast iron" grates from TSC. Last year they warped like crazy so I had to invert them every boil. My first boil this year has apparently incinerated most of one of them. I had to spend 2 hours yesterday cutting up some 2X2 square tubing for an emergency grate. I read else thread they would stand up to the heat, only I haven't turned them diamond side up. We'll see if these hold up or if I have to spend seripus $$$ for a real grate.
The ground must still be frigging cold under all this snow. With Temps today well above freezing, but no sun flow was pretty much stopped. Oh well, I'm finally ready to boil. 200 plus gallons in barrels and it even precut my pallets. Hopefully I can crank through it all tomorrow. Best I've seen is about 17 gph, so it's going to be a long day.
sam
boiled 40 gals yesterday, took -2 gals off...do another 50 today and finish in the kitchen tomorrow night
50 gals today, took another 4 gals of pre finished
finish inside the next two nights...hoping for four gallons
My arch has settled off level so I just went ahead and batched it yesterday. Ran through about 150 gallons of sap and have about 7 gallons to finish off on the turkey fryer. Hoping for 4 or so gallons of finished syrup.
Yesterday's boil went pretty well, but, I have a few tweaks to make so things will speed up a little bit.
Sam
pulled 52 gallons tonight, left 10-12 out in the buckets.....getting hard to keep up :lol:
I pulled off 75 -80 gallons last night. Another day like that and I'll be at capacity again. I may have to get some night boils started, especially if it's going to rain on Saturday.
Sam
Well yesterday did not flow like Monday day, but, there was a bit of sap to collect. Today has promise, now I just need to hope the weather starts looking better for Saturday and Sunday as I pretty much need 2 days to boil the sap I have.
Sam
It never got below freezing night before last. Last night and tonight should provide for decent runs for today and tomorrow. But...it's SAP and has its own mind.
Last night my BIL and I finished 1/2 of the 4 gallons I had pulled and ended up with just under 1 gallon of product, which means that I need to wait until my digital thermometer in the pan is at 219 vs 217 (may be a cpl degrees off true) when pulling going forward. I am leary about waving my brittle hydrometer around near the stove which is why I am not using that as a guide (maybe next year after laying in a couple spares).
I will finish the rest tonight in anticipation of a similar amount.
Pull tonight and tomorrow night,then boil friday night and saturday. More WOOD!
between Monday and last night I've gathered 130 gallons so it'll be a long weekend boiling. Finished the rest of what I'd drawn and made, again, just less than a gallon. I'm definitely drawing too soon. This years crop is lighter in color than prior years, probably because of not batch boiling but it tastes amazing.
I'm so gravity lining that fricking hill.
so I boiled 50 gals last night and never got near to drawing....I may have to clean my pan. I had to rebalance my pan and I seem to have lost the gradient, too.
and in yet another small setback, a couple of firebricks got loose from the walls so I have to patch THAT before continuing. I still have 20 gallons in the tank and prolly another sixty in the buckets to pull so IF I can find some firebrick mortar I can patch the walls and use this oppo to get a pan cleaning in (last few pulls have been very dark). This will probably be my last pull of the season (running out of wood....AGAIN) which would put me close to 400 gallons. I don't think I'm going to get much over 8 gallons of syrup but we will see.
I boiled 200 + yesterday and finished up at about 2am. Not sure the syrup output, but, I shoudl have that fingured pout this evening.
Eustis,
The COOP in Ipswich has fire place cement. The other option is to just skip the bricks. I had a few come loose and restacked what I could and tossed the rest.
Sam
Thanks sam....I have a place in Lawrence where I get my firebrick. I'm wondering if the splits are too skinny to stay put and I should go with fulls for next year.
What size is your evap?
My evap is 2 x 3.5'. I've pushed it as far as I can with rates in the 18gph range when I am really cranking. Next year i'll probably go to 2 x 5 and use arch board and some new super low profile insulation.
sam
do you have air over and under? that seems a phenomenal rate to me....I thought I was doing good when I was getting 10-12 (now Im about 8 with the niter build up).
Just air under. I jumped up to a bigger blower this weekend and it helped out a ton. I absolutely tearing through wood though. I also think that burning pallets helps, as the wood is a decent mix of soft and had, very dry, and shaped well burning.
When I have a decent boil I cannot see into the pans because of the steam.
Sam
how much more CFM? I gotta think the act of cutting up pallets is very time consuming, just COLLECTING them.
this week will probably be it for me
I just ask the guys in the shop to put pallets aside for me instead of in the dumpster. I skip pallets that have big spaces between slats as the yield is very low. To cut them I take the splitter, fence, blAde guard etc.. off of a crappy table saw and just slide it through on either side of the stringers. Then I cut the the stringers with my HF chop saw. Much faster than the years I cut them with a circular saw.
I'm done after this week as well. Sugaring wears me out.
Sam
so I patched up the firebrick with more refractory, cured and fired it, rejiggered my AUF to use an old gutter elbow vs the 90 PVC which wasn't standing up to the heat from the door, and cleaned the pan. Finished just under 2 gallons last night, with 5 gallons of concentrate and maybe 50 gallons of sap that I will finish boiling today and that will be that for 2015.
Lessons learned:
Stop Underwooding!!
take off at 219 on the therm vs 217
not every maple needs to be tapped
I should have about 370 gallons collected, with 7-8 gallons of syrup.
Next season's goals.....3/16 gravity system on The Hill, a new pallet woodshed/windbreak chock fill of hardwood, and a methodology of sap hauling with a craftsman tractor
Well, that's pretty much a wrap around here. I'm not quote sure on numbers, but, it looks like I've bottled up about 6.5 gallons and another 1 - 1.5 gallons once I finish off this last batch tonight or tomorrow.
I am starting to collect wood now to build a shack in the offseason. I want to start doing this inside so I can go boil for a few hours every few nights instead of standing in front of an arch for 14 hours once a week. We get a number of 8' pallets with dimensional 2x4 runners, so those will be my framing and I may use pallets, or at least pallet board for my sheathing. In my town you can built an out building under 200 sqft without a permit so this should not be a big deal. I will pour a small slab for the arch to sit on.
I am also planning to build a new arch that will go from 2 x 3.5 to 2x5 or so with a flue pan and syrup pan. I think I have learned enough from arch 1.0 that I can build something that will give me similar performance to a commercial rig. Now I just need to see if i can weld well enough to build my own pan.
sam
all done in westfield shut pumps down yesterday and boiled off the last 300+ gals of buddie sap another great season
Well, it's the 2016 wood-gathering season and the sugar shack calls to me as I load up my new woodshed. I had to re-mortar the firebricks (AGAIN) and I added another layer to the wall to make less space under the back of the pan. While doingthat I discovered my stove had settled enough to throw the leveling off so I need to re-level again. I don't have a lot of room to work under the stack and I'm wondering if it's just simpler to level the top of the stove so the pan sits level. Some welding needs to be done as some of the top seams are opening up and hopefully that's done next weekend. I also want to weld some flat strips on the edge of the door to seal the door seam. I may also add some archboard to the inside of the door but I'm worried my logs will destroy it when I close the door.
This year I'm laying two lengths of 3/16 tubing down the hill and feed them into a 55 gallon barrel I will outfit with a spigot. From there I will run a length of PVC pipe to my driveway where it will dump into a 35 gallon holding tank I'm carrying in my trailer and use my tractor to haul it up the driveway. I'm getting too **** old to hump 5 gallon buckets up that hill.
I figure to load the tractor tires with a saltwater mix for ballast and add some tire chains. Hopefully that will be enough and I won't need to buy a used ATV.
That's this years improvement, at any rate.