My plan 2022/23

So we have received about a foot of wet snow, seems like more, and it sounds like more when you say we received 30 cms of snow. More snow this evening and overnight..

There was very little wind, so all of the trees were heavily laden with snow. Some branches broke, so I thought I would walk the lines on the steep hill, through the snow, to check on the lines and to start to make a path. I only found a small branch on one line. I also found a location where I might tap in a little nail into a non tapped tree, just to help hold a line up further off the ground. The lines look like they will be fine for staying above the snow, although the new lines are definitely lower than last year’s lines.

79 days until the Sugar Moon. There is a line in the second picture and obviously in the third picture.

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I go through the whole maple season in my head, thinking about how I will do each step and looking for disconnects and new ideas.

Last year with my steam pans, as I poured my last pan into a stainless steel pot, I had a fine mesh strainer on top of the pot to strain out any large particles. This year with the divided pan I will drawing off from the valve.

Like the gentleman in the picture from a You Tube video, I plan to catch the syrup in large stainless steel brew pot and like him have the syrup run through a cone filter to catch some initial particulates. I will still filter it through my DYI vacuum filter after I finish it.

I guess different people do it different ways, but is this an okay practice?

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That looks to be a finisher to me. The person may be completing a final filter. I use pre filters when I draw off the evaporator and into my container. Because when I take it into the house and complete the canning process it is put through the filter press.

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Originally Posted by Pdiamond

That looks to be a finisher to me. The person may be completing a final filter. I use pre filters when I draw off the evaporator and into my container. Because when I take it into the house and complete the canning process it is put through the filter press.

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I agree, it looked like a main filter, not a pre filter, but in the video he talked about filtering it more later. He may have used it because it held it’s shape using the clips.

https://youtu.be/yDCi50NdMFE

I would just use a pre filer using a stand to support it, just to catch any large particulate and maybe some sugar sand, then use my vacuum filter, for the real filtering, after I finished it.

Started thinking about the upcoming season this morning and it struck me I can save some trips hauling sap. I had bought a 35 gallon tank to go on my ATV, but at one collection location, on a good day, I could have close to 100 gallons of sap, which will be three trips. Last year I hauled sap on a trailer that I designed to hold 9 five gallon pails. It just occurred to me that it is not one of the other, it can be both. I can move about 70 gallons of sap each trip.

I also thought about the float box. I have never seen a float box in person and obviously have no experience with them. What I was thinking about was at night, after you shut the evaporator down and the temperature drops below freezing, does the sap that is in the float box freeze and does that harm the float box?

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Depending on how deep the sap is in the float box it could freeze solid, if if only an inch or 2 I would not think it would hurt anything except starting up and restricting flow. Another issue is having the sap in it go ropy if not brought to a boil and left too long. I have a drain on mine and after I flood the evaporator and get it all up to boiling, I drain out the float box and it refills from the boiling flu pan. I then dump what I drained out into the syrup pan.

My sugarhouse is on the colder side of my yard and the float box will freeze I have never had a problem with damage. There is plenty of room for expansion. Be sure you take out all the components when you are done for the night ie the float, arm etc. from the actual float box. What you will need to be mindful of is if you have a ball valve at the float and that freezes it will split and you will have a problem. (Ask me how I know). There are many ways to avoid this by drilling holes in the valve which has been covered on other threads or you may have a homerun shot from your head tank and it will not be an issue as long as you boil until the head tank is kicked. You will really like your new pan unfortunately judging by your thread you are more than hooked and I see a bigger operation in your future. I really enjoy your posts and can see the progression. I have a smokeylake 2X6 on my wish list but my 19X60 will have to do for now, things could be worse. I really wish I had a float box drain and I may have one put on before the season. I agree sap spoilage in the float box is a real issue late in the season in particular. Keep posting I can see your smile from NH!

Thanks for all of the float box advice!

Last year I had two different thermometers to help me with taking the temperature of the sap. I would use the SapTapApp to help me determine the boiling point of water and then would add 7° to that, to get me in the ball park where I would pull it off to finish the syrup later. I had a basic probe thermometer and a digital one. I mostly relied on the digital one.

This year with the new pan, I will be getting a true maple thermometer. The one where it shows 0-50 with 7 being syrup. My question is do you have to calibrate it each and every day in boiling water, prior to starting the boil? As I ask the question, I wonder how would you do that, with sap in the pan.

My guess is the 7° above boiling, in the perfect world, would give you 66 Brix sap and that you might have to get closer to 8° above to get 66.8-67 Brix syrup.

I had a fair amount of faith in my refractometer last year and I will be testing the sugar content with it and will dial it in (pun intended) with the temperature on the thermometer to know what temperature is close to the syrup Brix I want, before drawing it off.

My 0-50 thermometer is mounted at a downward angle and goes in above the syrup in the pan. It reaches down into the syrup, so it is easy to remove without any syrup running out of the pan. I remove mine daily and check the temp of boiling water, it does change.
With a 30+ gallon tank on the back of "my" ATV" [Kawasaki Bayou 220] I could not fill it. It would overload my ATV, and I could barley steer it, as the weight would come off the front wheels. The trailer might make it even worse with tongue weight. It did help me to add another small tank on the front rack. I solved that problem for this year by buying a Kubota RTV x1100c side by side for hauling the sap.

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Originally Posted by Z/MAN

My 0-50 thermometer is mounted at a downward angle and goes in above the syrup in the pan. It reaches down into the syrup, so it is easy to remove without any syrup running out of the pan. I remove mine daily and check the temp of boiling water, it does change.
With a 30+ gallon tank on the back of "my" ATV" [Kawasaki Bayou 220] I could not fill it. It would overload my ATV, and I could barley steer it, as the weight would come off the front wheels. The trailer might make it even worse with tongue weight. It did help me to add another small tank on the front rack. I solved that problem for this year by buying a Kubota RTV x1100c side by side for hauling the sap.

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Thanks and thanks. That answers the question regarding the thermometer and highlites a potential ATV problem.

I have a Honda Foreman 500. It has a solid rear axle and is meant to be a work machine. I did not think it’s would overload it, but because of your advice, I will only partially fill it and see how it performs. In hindsight, this summer when I practiced how to attach it to the ATV, I should have filled the tank with water and saw how the ATV performed. A friend has a similar tank on the back of his ATV, but it is larger and has tracs.

In the perfect world I would have purchased a 100 gallon horizontal tank for the bed of the truck, but they wanted almost $600 for it.

I know I can easily haul the 9, 5 gallon pails, in the trailer on their own, because I did that last year.

I had planned not to use the pails this year and just use pumps, because they added to the daily clean up work, but they will be handy for when ice forms in them overnight and I can take the ice out and they will be handy to pour into the 35 gallon feed tank. There will also be times I pump sap into the feed tank. Through trial and error with the new pan and RO, I will find the right balance.

76 days until the Sugar Moon!