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Not a bad start to the season. 1/3 of the way to our production goals and here it is just March 1. I've been lax in testing sugar content, but last night we were pulling off a gallon of syrup for every 38 gallons of sap. Opened the draw off 10 min after startup and it remained open till shutdown 5 hours later. Wow!
A slow and steady run yesterday. Vacuum at about 26.5" Hg. Our new electric releaser sure struggles to handle that. No big sap gusher, but we made about 100 gal of syrup by 7:30pm -- total about 10% of a crop so far. Sugar content has been about 2.0-2.2%. Looks like everything is shut down here for about a week, so time to catch up on a few other things.
Exciting couple of days here. Sunday the sap was running well and pulled in about 300 gal. before it froze up. I don't think I have ever seen the sap go from running hard to completely stopped so quickly. Temp. dropped very quickly and bottomed out at about 22. Forecast only called for a low of 38 so I figured I had enough space in tanks to get through until after work Monday. That was wrong. I awoke Monday at 6 to find one tank overflowing and sap running hard. We had very strong south winds when the warm from came through and I awoke several times to metal roofing blowing off wood piles, and tarps on building materials flapping. Temp. went from 22 to 51 in less than 1 hour. Crazy.
Anyway I switched tanks and went off to work to return home at 3 and find my third bulk tank overflowing. Quickly turned on the ro and spent 4 hours processing at least 1200 gals. Sugar content has been good and was up to 2.4 yesterday. I have no idea how much sap I lost but could have been a good bit based on how hard it was running. I have been a bit surprised by how well the sap has run when the trees thaw. We have lots of water moving down off the mountain, and very little frost in ground so I guess I had better be more prepared for BIG SAP.
A friend came over and we boiled together with him running the arch and me keeping an eye on ro, pans, canner and press. We ended up boiling about 200 gal. of concentrate (never had a chance to check %) and made 32 gal. of GD. Once again, great flavor. Everything has been working well so far. I still have about 30 taps to put in to be up to a little over 750 for the season and am hoping to finish that today.
I am a little concerned about what the long range weather models are spitting out right now with the possibility of some very warm weather next week. Not much agreement on how warm so I guess we will wait and see, but I can't help but have flashbacks to Summer in March in 2012. It does look like we will be froze up for several days until it runs again, so back to work on the house.
Hey Dr.Tim whats the issue with the electric releaser you have? Do they not operate well under high vacuum? I was thinking of buying a few for next season. What are the Pro's and Con's? ThanksQuote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
Spud
Vacuum pump at our small bush is an old Deleval 777 and had been sounding funny for a little while. I think we tried to run it too hard. We had it pulling 24.5" and that was all it needed to seize up on us Sunday at 2pm. So dad checked craigslist, found a used 777 at a good price near Watertown, New York, and headed out to get it. He returned at 1Am Monday and we did all we could to get it hooked up but didn't have the right material so we called it quits at 3:30 Am. He worked all day Monday to get it hooked up and finally did get it going at 3pm. Bad part- spent $500 and lots of labor to replace a pump that would have worked fine if we hadn't abused it. Probably missed out on 1,000 gallons of sap. Good part- learned new things about how pumps work and now we have an oil reclaimer attached to our pump. Hopefully we can pull higher vacuum with it.
We found a hole in our back pan and broke our vacuum pump within one week. But hopefully now we are going to smooth out. Made 2 barrels so far and I think 40,000 gallons of sap or so have been trucked from our big bush.
Also a little nervous about the temps for next week. I guess no sense in worrying about it. Won't be able to do anything about it.
Good luck all.
I'll start by saying that my opinion is that releasers are the weak link in the system regardless of what brand or style. We used mechanical releasers for years, and they work, but aren't really designed to handle high vacuum. So they essentially slammed around when operating above about 24" Hg, and to be sure they worked we would have them all serviced each year.Quote:
Originally Posted by spud
Last year we tried a different style of mechanical releaser and were not real happy with it. So this year we went with an electric releaser. Supposedly electric releasers have less pulses of backflow -- so we though that we'd give it a try. In some of our surveys, use of an electric releaser was associated (correlated) with higher yields (~10%), but that is a correlation only (which doesn't mean that is what necessary causes the higher yields...it might just be that people using electric releasers are doing other things right too). In any case, two major styles of electric releaser....those with the pump on the inside and those with the pump on the outside. ANY air leak in the line going to the pump will cause the pump to fail, so given our high vacuum (26"+ Hg), we figured we'd go with a submersible pump on the inside of the tank. What appears to be happening is that as the lines flush out on the first hard runs, or after a hard freeze when ice scours the mainline, the debris from the lines causes the screen protecting the pump to clog. It takes very little to clog it due to the low margin we have with our high vacuum and elevation, which means we're stuck breaking down the releaser and cleaning it each time. Otherwise the pump fails to keep up with the flow and the sap goes up the vacuum line and shuts off the moisture trap, stopping the vacuum and stopping the flow. Definitely a real PITA, and the real problem is what happens if this occurs at night when we're gone? Still working on a solution to that one....not sure there is a real good answer.
Anybody know how much debris a submersible well pump can handle? We're tempted to take off the screen and see what happens....maybe get a spare pump to have just in case Most of the stuff we see is the skin of very fine floaters....maybe dime to quarter size, but very thin. Plugs up the screen pretty fast, but I'm betting the impeller will make short work of it and chop it to tiny bits very fast.
All going well here in Shaftsbury. We are at just under 40 Gallons which is about 45% of LY. New filter press is key. Second membrane on they Deer Run RO is saving our tail. Just left the vacuum pump and it was dunking ping every 3 min. Boiling again tomorrow before a couple day break.
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Dr. Tim, is it the sump style or the deep well? I was worried about debris in my deep well style, and spoke to a well driller about it and she said it could take 1/4 inch gravel. So needless to say I took the screens off. The main problem I have with ice is it tripping the sensors when there is no liquid to pump. The pumps do have a hard time in high vacuum some days both pumps run 6-8 hours non stop, I have introduced small air leaks in the releaser just so the pumps could keep up. They do need baby sitting for the morning surge, hand on the knife valve, ready to stop it from leaving the chamber.
I made 6 gallons of golden on Monday. Was cleaning up yesterday and realized it was Leap Year Golden. Is this a new marketing strategy?Attachment 13465
Spud and DR. Tim,
I replaced a mechanical double releaser on my 2,100 taps in Jericho last year. My CDL vertical has the exact issue as Dr. Tim describes. The submersible pump screen will clog up with some bio-slime and slow down the pump out, and if the slime is bad enough at the start of the season, shut off the vacuum by tripping the electric moisture trap. I don't like taking the screen off the pump, so I am in the process of making a stainless steel cone pre fitler for the base of the pump. ( a lot of small hole drilling is the SS) 7" in diameter and 12" high. large enough to allow sap to remain around the pump screen if the pre-filter fails, but keep any junk off the pump screen. From what I can see in the releaser, the debris pretty much floats around the base of the pump and not up too far.
Otherwise, the releaser works extremely well. Sunday afternoon, the woods were at 27.75" at the last 1" main line, 2,500' away from the sap shed. The pump out is very smooth and does not disrupt the vacuum at all.
The only draw back of the 18" x 48" vertical that I have is cleaning. It is a little difficult to wash and scrub the releaser. Knowing what I know about the cleaning now, I might have looked at a horizontal,
with cleaning being the only reason.
Joe
There should never be anything in your lines that would hurt the pump. I have been in wastewater for 29 years and you would be amazed at what a pump will pass unless it is a positive displacement pump. You would be more amazed at what actually goes down the sewer!
Thanks Dr. Tim and J. Hutchins for the information. It sounds like I should keep using my mechanical releasers for now. Ever since I put my releasers in a heated room I have never had a problem with them. I spray my releasers everyday when they are working. I use the food grade silicone spray that CDL sells. I run 28 inches at both releasers and never had an issue yet. So is this not common?Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
Spud
Given our experience with releasers over the past few years, I'd say, ....if it ain't broke, don't fix it.Quote:
Originally Posted by spud
Another exciting night here with heavy winds blowing roofing, stainless barrels, and anything else not tied down all over the place. I'm sick of this weather... I don't think the forecasters have a good handle on what the models are saying.
I did pull in a little sap this morning when it went above freezing for a few hours but it looks like it's freezing up now. I need to can a bunch of syrup for orders so going to work on that today.
The Goulds deep well submersible I am using in my electric releaser does not really have a screen. It does a have a plate with many larger holes (3/16") punched in it at the inlet of the pump. I have not had an issue with it. I have seen ice come down the lines and fill the releaser and keep the float up despite no liquid for the pump to move. I know some use a coarse ss screen in the releaser manifold to catch ice and keep it from filling the releaser.
YIKES! Is this for real?? I should know better than to give too much credence to the "10 day outlook" no matter which source it comes from......but.....HOLY CRAP!!!!! Next week looks to be a HUGE warm up with insufficient cold at night. :o
Next week looks kinda iffy... Accuweather is showing temps "might" get below freezing at night, weather.com is much warmer. I am hoping it stays a bit colder ... either way it will run next week for sure. I am ready for some boiling !
Attachment 13477Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
This is what my releaser looked like the other morning. There is a 1.25" wet line and a 1.5 " air line to the left above the screen. The screen does keep a lot of junk away from the pump. The pump I am using is the StaRite dominator and it has the fine screen that will plug up . Usually not a big problem after the lines clean up after the first run.
This has 1700 taps and a single pump which can get flooded with sap when lines are thawing and huge surges come quick. Two pumps with separate level control will be a future upgrade.
Why not box in your releaser and have some heat? Are you far from power?
Spud
ditch the screen, the slush will go right through, if it doesn't its too cold to have pumps on anyways and will likely be a very marginal day
I've got 27 years of working on submersibles, and they can take quite a bit. At least a Goulds is pretty tough. The stuff we see floating down the lines reminds me a lot of iron bacteria, or properly termed "iron polysacharide". We pulled lots of screens off because of this stuff. Although it was usually still quite permeable. On newer Goulds, I think the screens are built in, but one could cut them away I think.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
What brand pumps are they using in these releasers?
Some are using Sta Rite submersibles, or Goulds submersibles, but the really good units (like MES) use Goulds deep-well pumps. Mine is a 3ph and I use a VFD to control the pump motor.
I can say with nearly 100% certainty that the photo WMF posted is of a releaser in a heated space. The ice comes down the lines when they first start to thaw. If you leave your vac. pump on 24/7 you likely see this. If you let your lines thaw before turning on vac., you probably don't. Either way it can be a problem with an electric releaser with an internal pump, hence the screen in the manifold.
The screen is doing it's job (keeping the ice out of the releaser chamber where it can keep the float switch up) and the ice will melt quickly and things will resume as normal. I typically don't get enough ice to be an issue so I haven't been using a screen personally.
Question about the weather next week -- is "too warm" the same result as "too cold?" If we actually do get 3-5 days of 40-degree plus without freezing temps at night, what is the impact on the sap run? Thanks!!
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With buckets the sap will slowly stop running without a freeze, but it could keep going for a couple days. I have been pretty surprised on a few occasions with buckets.Quote:
Originally Posted by MJPJ Sugars
The bigger challenge with warm weather is keeping the sap from fermenting so the best bet is to process as quickly as possible.
Thanks!!!! -- JQQuote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
Looks like a good solid freeze through Sunday night. That might be what saves us since we have little to no snow for insulation. If the roots stay good and cold maybe they'll resist the urge to bud next week.
Unless the forecast is seriously wrong (if they are predicting temperatures far lower than we actually get), I can pretty well assure you that the trees (maples at least) will NOT break bud next week. Although the forecast is for air temps in the 50s (at least here in North-central VT), it is supposed to be cloudy and rain...which will help to keep things cooler. Maple trees will resist the urge to bud next week because they've been around a good long time and are far better adapted to the climate than we give them credit for.Quote:
Originally Posted by billyinvt
We've got a new MES releaser that we are pretty happy with. Stainless screen with small holes in the top barrel traps ice and most plastic and wood shavings. Some gets down to the bottom barrel but the pumps don't seem to pump them through. We are mostly happy with the releaser but there are a couple of small leaks in it right now, not sure if its our doing or MES's. Hard to tell if the leak is coming from the plumbing job or the releaser itself.
I'm not investing too much in the forecasts at this point. They have been having a hard time with the models due to several factors and anything beyond a few days is low probability. I do think warmer than average is likely as has been the pattern this winter.
I do predict a pretty serious sap run early next week as that has been the case here so far this season. The trees are ready with plenty of water in the ground.
While I too doubt the trees will bud very quickly, I do plan to be able to process sap quickly next week.
I have had some issues with the fitting the wires for the pump go through into the releaser. It leaked last season so I took it all apart this winter and got it back together tight. I do have a leaky check valve on the pump out line and that will cause some weird symptoms especially if it is not consistent. If you can, get it up to vac. and then turn everything off so you can really listen for leaks. If it is at the releaser you will hear it, if it is check valve, you will see bubbles coming back pump out line.Quote:
Originally Posted by WestfordSugarworks
Good to hear the positive aspects, as my PWS average February temperature of 24.7 degrees was very close to my 2012 February average of 27.2. Compare that with the record February last year of 11 degrees... I do expect an early end this year with the above normal temps, but we also had an early start. I had my first run late January, and boiled Feb 1st, so I have had a good start, half my sap volume of last year already.Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
There is indication we will have a cooling trend after this coming run, and lowering nighttime temps the following weekend or therafter.
This is the best thing I have heard all day..Quote:
Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins
Hm I haven't checked out to see if those are leaking also. I hope not. thanks for the tips. We had leaky check valves on the pump line but we got that all fixed. We detected this leak using the method you described. I believe our leak is at the gasket where the vacuum pump line enters the top barrel. I'll attack it with silicone tomorrow morning and hopefully we can get good and tight for these runs.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeneralStark
You mean at the uni-seal? Mine was leaking on a uni-seal at the pump out line. I took it out and found the hole cut-out was rough and uneven. I sanded it with 100 grit sandpaper, reheated the uniseal in hot water, and put a small bead of silicone around the lip where it meets the outside of the releaser. I've had no problems since.Quote:
Originally Posted by WestfordSugarworks
Neil
i was told last week that trees were budding in argyl NY area, i laughed out loud and was like no way!!!!
after this warm week people better have their %@%# ready its going to start running every day, long range puts it into April.
Finally got tank valve thawed yesterday. Boiled with new rig. Not enough to draw. Still playing with nozzles.
Been working on new house mostly. We're into the final details at this point. I made a few minor modifications in the sugarhouse to some plumbing, all my taps are in, I'm well rested and am ready for the BIGSAP coming this week. Time to fill some barrels!
I did a complete walk threw of both big bushes this morning. Then returned at 1 and turned on the vac pump. Sap is running in at a pretty good clip and pulling 22.5" I have a leak somewhere. Last weeks wind storm took down a few lines and I'm sure pulled somethings apart. Tomorrow starts the big run I believe, full speed ahead everyone. The majority of our syrup I think will be made in the next two weeks.
Good luck
pM
I have been dealing with some kind of death flu. My whole family has been sick for days. I lost my taste for Sarah Lee Pound cake. My pumps are on and I can only hope my vacuum will be at 27 when the lines thaw. I don't see big sap coming to me tomorrow but Tuesday it should start running real good. I hope by then I will feel good enough to reunite with Sarah Lee and get the job done. This is not the end but only the beginning. I plan to keep pumps on till April 20. You gotta believe. Good luck everyone.
Spud
Feel better Spud.
Looks like its gonna be a busy week. We are replacing all lighting in the sugarhouse, RO room, tank room, with shatterproof lighting in order to get certified Organic.
Check out this http://www.mapleguild.com/ It's Sweet Tree's website. Look at number 4 'Steam Crafting' under the 'Our Process' Tab.. it says
"Most people boil their sap at high heat, which makes syrup with a burnt caramel flavor. Not us. Our unique steam-based processing makes it lighter and more elegant to the taste buds."
Lol.
Went out and tapped 25 more for good measure today. Sap will start running a little tomorrow, and Tuesday-Wednesday should be huge.