We just got back from collecting and we got 500 gallons from 400 taps. So now is the true test to see how well my evaporator performs.
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We just got back from collecting and we got 500 gallons from 400 taps. So now is the true test to see how well my evaporator performs.
Glad to hear things are strating to run for you James I hope your first true test gose well, We finaly got our first decent run this seaon sap finaly ran for 5 hours today and we colected 130 gallons, I hope tomorows run gets better, this time last year at this time we had made 15 gallons and sofar this year only 2 gallons...
I tried to get to bush again, there was six inches of snow on top of two feet
of water/slush. Need to cross a large low area to get there. I got so stuck
with four wheeler, it bottomed out and all wheels were spinning. Neighbour
pulled me out with a log skidder.It is getting late, and best thing I can do
is leave all my equipment in the shed until next year.I only do this for fun
anyway, and right now it's not fun. Meanwhile ,I will watch this site, as I
always did, picking up what I can, and putting in my two cents if needed.
Good luck to all.
Record collection yesterday:
We had 205 gallons collected yesterday by dinner time and the evap and RO were tripping along great.
At some time after 1:00 AM is checked the radar weather and the rains seemed 100% and the front was between London and Kitchener. All those buckets and some without lids. Most were still running strong at the last collection before dinner. With the warm weather forecast I figure we likely nearing the end.
Started a salvage run at 2:00 AM and finished at 4:00 AM with a total collection for the day at 330 gallons.
Cheesegenie: Bad news. I feel for you.
Well - I got back to 200 gals of sap, 4 tired boys, and one very soggy morning today. I boil outside, but with 200 gals ahead of me I started this morning anyway. I'm losing some to snow and rain, but still making progress. At 5-8 gals per hour on 15 min firings, I have a lot of hours ahead of me this weekend and not much sleep.
we have lots of snow and have the same problem with slush under the snow.
I am not getting that great of sap quantity but it is still at 3.5%. it is our forth collection of ~70 gallons for 107 taps. if the sugar content stays this high i will have a good year even if i don't get that much sap.
This year has not been a fun year to collect by hand, hard walking with two five gallon pails in two to three feet of snow.
Mark
We had a record day yesterday and made 10% of what would constitute a "normal" year's production in a single boil! Now if we could only get 7 or 8 more of those days in a row....
Good luck to all and pray for a deep freeze!
James; how did you make out with all that sap?
i am still boiling and have made 33 liters so far and we got about 300 gallons left to boil.
Can you put out a conversion chart for gallons to liters? I know it is more like 3.75l to a gallon but not sure. Thanks
James,
What kind of gph are you getting out of your evaporator??
Well it the 2nd day and another 130 gallons of sap no record run but we will take it, the fields are getting verry soft the mud is up 2' deep now but the lake we had is gone, will start to boil at 7am, it will make for a fun day temp to go up to mid 50's tomorow still have 20" of snow in the bush, with any luck we will get 2 more weeks for sap. All the best to you guys down south.
I just did my first run with the filter press and new canner and by the time I was liking my fingers from the spills going into the bottles I didn't like the flavour and stopped bottling.
The last stuff I boiled yesterday was darker than everything else but would still grade as light. So I decided to go through the learning curve with the filter press on the darker stuff.
It was sweet enough but had a semi-metalic flavour and a V E R Y long lasting aftertaste. Salt and vinegar potato chips finally killed it an hour after the syrup.
I had cleaned the filter press meticulously but I was still afraid the taste was coming from it, so I went to an unfiltered pail and it was bad too.
So my best guess is that it's over and I got some buddy stuff. The run today should have been great but it was disappointing.
I hope I'm wrong but it looks like it's over around here.
Took a couple of gallons of fresh sap off the trees last night. Did not filter or put through the RO, just into the kitchen and boiled in a stainless pot.
Got a dry sensation on the roof of my mouth and an aftertaste. Nothing to do with what was happening in the sugar shack. Mild but I think its the beginning of the buddy stuff.
Anyone else getting this ???
Its 3.785 so I have made 8.71 gallons.Quote:
Originally Posted by TapME
I get about 20 gph but that is with wet wood cause my tarp tore apart the other day.Quote:
Originally Posted by WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER
Brent I collected another 100 gallons the other day and it has no buddy taste and it is a nice medium.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent
The end is getting near up hear we only collected 30 gallons yesterday but Friday and Saturday where good runs and we made 5 gallons this weekend. Still got 220 gallons to boil off thank God we put in the extra 100 taps this year we should make half of what we did last year.
On Saturday I started bottling a the latest batch and it was off flavour. I was concerned that filter press did not get cleaned well and was adding a metalic flavour, or that I had screwed up the cleaning and rinsing of the RO's or something else.
So Saturday and Sunday I drained the evap, cleaned it, and started a fresh load last night. At quitting time I thought I could smell and taste the "buddy" coming. Boiled a couple hours this morning and there is no doubt about it.
It's over around here.
The crowns of the trees from a distance have the redish hue to them. Up close the buds still seem small, but the damage has been done to the flavour.
The drip rate yesterday was pathetic. Some buckets were actually bone dry after 24 hours.
It's been quite an adventure. More thoughts later.
Well - I'm still alive although it is somewhat questionable how alive. Started boiling at 2pm on Friday and basically just kept going until 10 last night. The first 2 batches (60-70 gals sap apiece) yielded about 12 litres of nice light syrup, and the last batch from the last 100 gals of sap looks like it will end up about 12 litres of amber as there was no ice left in that tank. That batch is boiled down and sitting out on ice right now as I wasn't up for filtering and bottling last night. That'll put us about 55 litres overall - not a good showing for 100 trees. (US folks - for sugar bush math, 1 litre is basically 1 quart)
We last collected on Thursday night, I never went up to see if anything was running this weekend - had enough ahead of me anyway, but looking at the forecast I think we are done now. It sounds like warm temperatures all week, with no more cold nights. Still lots of snow in the woods and no sign of budding here so we could get some more runs but it doesn't seem like the weather will cooperate. I'll go collect what's in the buckets tonight and see if it's worth saving for one more batch.
Brent - how clear is your sap - if it is crystal clear and still tastes - then I think you're done. If it is hazy and tastes - new sap might not. Also - you might find one part of the bush is fine while another starts budding - maybe you can get another run or 2 out of some north facing trees. I'm always sad when it's over - despite finally being able to catch up on my sleep (and work).
Well we tapped on March 10 and so far have made 83 litres of sap from around 100 pails. Our syrup on sunday was a nice darker medium lighter amber. I'm really hoping for another good run so we can get our 100liters. the weather however doesn't look to promising...
We had a great weekend. Friday we didn't boil but we got almost 6" of wet snow. Sap ran OK Saturday but not well because it didn't freeze overnight. Made a good amount of syrup from Friday & Saturday's combined runs. Sunday we had a great day - not as good as Thursday but still excellent. We're up to 0.4 litres per tap and it froze last night so today should be another decent one. Still up to 2 feet of snow in the bush and a lot of our slopes are north facing so this hot spell this week might not shut us down. Syrup was light on Saturday but slid to a beautiful medium yesterday. I expect it'll be amber by week's end.
Ennis
Our stuff went from extra light to medium one day and to medium and buddy the next. I think I lost some medium that would have been OK because it went into a storage tank that got some buddy mixed on top.
Keep it segregated or buddy will get you.
Hope you get at least a few more days.
We pulled the buckets and taps today. Over half of the buckets were bone dry. North slope buckets were about 1/3 full but there were not many of them and they didn't smell right so we dumped and shut down.
Big Eddy
It ran crystal clear up to and including today... but only on the north slopes today. That area still had a foot of snow. But the few taps we had there smelled off ... not enough for a boil. Done.
Got about 25 gallons of extra light very mild tasting syrup and 10 gallons of what looks like it will grade as light. The next day the next batch was the same color but buddy.
The trees have the red/purple tinge to the tops but when you get close the buds still look small. Not swollen. It caught me by surprise how soon and fast it changed.
Well we collected another 200 gallons of 3% and is crystal clear so I kept the sap separate like you said Brent
Brent how much snow do you have in the bush right now.
James
only got snow on the north protected slopes. They have about a foot.
Our hay fields are green !!!!!
I'm going to dream about the 300 gallon plus day ... and screwing it with Friday's bad stuff.
Ah nope, I'm going to have nightmares about losing it.
Today's Agriphone from the Min of Ag thinks most of the Kawartha area is good for a few more days.
You're pretty close. Hang in.
We got a foot in my bush every were and about 4" on are fields.
Our part of Eastern Ontario is much further behind you guys. On my drive to the farm (north of Perth) last Friday there was a noticeable difference in the amount of snow that started about halfway between Kaladar and Sharbot Lake. We should get through this hot spell and still be OK when the cold stuff hits this coming weekend. I've never tasted buddy sap/syrup from our bush. Maybe we're lucky or just don't hang on long enough!
Ennis
you just have not lived till you take a mouthful expecting sweet and smooth and get something that tastes like a 50 50 mix of honey and battery acid.
You may get lucky this year. Good chance you'll get it before the holes dry up.
LOL!!! There's a life altering experience I can live without!
My mother said they were getting wet snow this morning so maybe we'll make it through this week. Our taps have been in for only 3 weeks and they're all on vacuum so they shouldn't dry up yet. I'm praying for more snow!
Ennis the colder temperatures are coming down to -6 tonight and snow here, we will try to send it your way. The wife and I hope things will start back up tomorrow grand total soar this year 12 gallons for 350 taps no records but lots of fun!
We think we have a new indicator for the end of season.
The peepers started in the ponds yesterday.
But our honey bees were in the forest with us Friday when we collected the first load of buddy sap.
We'll watch more closely for them next year.
By the way, all the colonies survived the winder.
Well - I collected Monday night - total of about 25 gallons off 100 trees, (after we dumped out all the cloudy buckets). It's sitting in the shed now out of the sun on the off chance we get some more before it goes all milky. I have 2 groups of trees, some exposed, some in the bush on a north slope. The latter were still running okay and clear. The rest were milky.
Forecast for the weekend is for cooler weather - I think I'll leave things out and see what happens. Last year we made more syrup the week AFTER I decided to pull the taps, than we did the rest of the season. We'd made the decision to pull, then had visitors stop by, so put it off for another week.
No sign of budding around here - so having budding in Caledon does surprise me. No peepers either, but the bees were out on the weekend. They were all over my syrup filter.
I've made enough for my own needs - but I could stand one more run.
My grandfather always said that when the peepers started you were only half done. Still lots of ice on the lake so we may hopefully pull through. The forecast keeps changing a lot but it would be nice to get another 4 or 5 days before it's over.
Well we made another 3 gallons last night and ran out of sap, nice little snow storm last night between mud and the snow made for a fun ride out of the bush, hope this means fresh sap today will see after work.:rolleyes:
I'm at about .4 of a litre per tap.
I need SAP!!!!! Just for peace of mind that it was worth it fighting through that snow.
Well the sap finally let go just in time for 20+ temp later this week and rain. Hope we can boil it all off in time. The new gravity feed system works like a charm it is averaging about 1 ¼ gallons per tap a day I think we will convert another 100 buckets to gravity later this spring, we made 4 ½ gallons yesterday and met last years total. With any luck we can make it to this weekend.
great news. I am seriously thinking about putting in a gravity system on a few areas here too. Got a big learning curve ahead all over again.
Well - I'm done. I dumped the last 35 gals of sap as it was getting a bit too cloudy for anything other than amber, and I pulled and washed my buckets yesterday. Of course - it froze overnight on Saturday and every tree was flowing as I was pulling them, but I'm out of town again for another 3 days and it is forecasted to hit 20c by the time I get back. We ended up with 60l out of 99 trees which is about average for us and way more than we use ourselves. I only sell to friends and family to cover expenses and anything extra goes into the equipment fund. Should put a few hundred in there this year.
My goal for next year is to triple my evaporation rate - so look for details on some home built pans. I'm going to give a flue pan a whirl and will share as I go. Oh - and to come up with a better bucket washing solution than an electric drill, wet clothes, and a sore back.
To those of you still going - may your nights be fridgid and your days be bright. And may the ants and moths stay out of your sap!
Well we finally thru in the towel on Sunday pull and washed all 250 buckets I will finish washing the gravity line tonight we made just over 140 liters not bad for nearly no season but it was a blast for the short run it was. We finished the day off with the annual end of season BBQ and birthday bash for my wife and my sister "both had to have been born in syrup season" I guess the sap did not run those year's. We had about 40 or 50 people show up for the after noon great fun was had by all. Well best of luck to any one hanging in there and still boiling.