My plan 2022/23

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Originally Posted by aamyotte

For the lid issue maybe put a couple of wooden spoons across the pot to create a gap to let more steam out while keeping the heat in to help with the boil.
The other thing to do would be to occasionally remove the lid and shake off the water droplets on the underside of the lid. It would be a shame to have them drop back in the pot having to reboil them.
Your syrup looks nice.

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Thanks.

I walked the three steep lines today. No trees or branches on them. There were two locations where the lines were in the snow. This was not because they were strung low, but rather the lines spanned a fairly lengthy area and the unprecedented for me, amount of snow on the lines, simply weighed them down.

Last night the temperature was supposed to drop down to -3/26.6 °, but it barely dropped below zero, so once again it did not recharge the sap flow very much. I will only get a few additional gallons at the end of the day.

Tomorrow I will contact my pan builder to see if he has a best guess of when my pan and base stack will be built.

Some steam gets out with lids on, but I am guessing plenty more condenses on the underside of the lid and drips back into the sap.. I wouldn't run any more than 2" of sap in the pot, and add boiling sap to it to maintain that depth.

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Originally Posted by wnybassman

Some steam gets out with lids on, but I am guessing plenty more condenses on the underside of the lid and drips back into the sap.. I wouldn't run any more than 2" of sap in the pot, and add boiling sap to it to maintain that depth.

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I certainly had more than two inches depth in the pots. I will try and keep them lower.

Thanks

I went to my step-son’s place for supper tonight and brought one of the bottles of 2023 sap for them to try. His wife opened it after supper and she tried it first. She really liked it. She said it was really maplely tasting. The “note” of maple she said was in the forefront. My stepson also agreed. They both really liked it.

The weather forecast for tomorrow, which was supposed to be a big sap flow day has totally changed. It may not go below freezing overnight and will only go slightly above freezing tomorrow, before turning cold for several weeks.

The forecast for the 7 days did not pan out as forecasted, but I did collect 26 gallons of sap and it was a lot of fun doing it and it certainly kept me busy. No sap was running today, so I pulled and cleaned all of my collection pails.

Right now I am boiling the last 6 gallons. I did all of the boiling with no lids and less sap in the pots, it seemed to help. Next time I will get a turkey fryer setup to have more heat to the pot and will likely upgrade one of my induction ranges as one definitely heats up the sap better than the other.

It will interesting boiling the sap down to syrup. 6 gallons of sap will only produce a half of a litre of syrup in the pot. Right now it is a medium sized pot, when it gets close I will transfer it to a small pot to half some depth to deal with. It may not end of being perfect syrup but we will consume it in the next week.

I have not heard back from my pan maker yet, but I hope I get everything, especially the base stack and base stack base in January. This will allow me to line up exactly where the hole in the roof should go and to install the base stack on the evaporator and through the metal roof. It will be cool to see the new divided pan and float box.

Heating up the sap this past week, it struck me how much heat it takes to heat up cold sap.

Right now my setup is to have cold sap from my feed tank go directly to my float box and into the divided pan.

Another option is to have a heating pan (as per the attached photo, I may not have named it correctly) that sits in the end of the divided pan that would heat the sap somewhat and also feed the pan based on how much you crack the valve.

Would you recommend a float box over this heated pan?

I know there are options where you could wrap stainless steel tubing around the stack, but the way everything is oriented now, I do not have that as a choice.

Thanks

https://share.icloud.com/photos/00aj...xxZUSkVgzm-JJg

Attachment 22691

That looks like the pre-heater pan I had on my Leader Half Pint.
An excellent idea vs pouring cold sap into your pan.
Should have a valve so you can let it drip in to keep your level at whatever you’re comfortable with.
The float box wouldn’t do much for you, if it’s getting cold sap.
Look up the Leader Half Pint, lots of us started with that rig - it was awesome.
Good luck this year.

Edit:
Because the heater box just drips into the pan, it doesn’t kill the boil.
Pouring a cup or more of cold sap will tend to do that and you’re always trying to get everything boiling again.

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Originally Posted by johnallin

That looks like the pre-heater pan I had on my Leader Half Pint.
An excellent idea vs pouring cold sap into your pan.
Should have a valve so you can let it drip in to keep your level at whatever you’re comfortable with.
The float box wouldn’t do much for you, if it’s getting cold sap.
Look up the Leader Half Pint, lots of us started with that rig - it was awesome.
Good luck this year.

Edit:
Because the heater box just drips into the pan, it doesn’t kill the boil.
Pouring a cup or more of cold sap will tend to do that and you’re always trying to get everything boiling again.

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How warm does the heater box get the sap? Like 100°?

Thanks

I boiled the 6 gallons into syrup. I got it to the right Brix according to my refractometer. I may have over filtered it and came short of the 500 ml I was hoping for.

It was the first golden syrup I have ever made. It certainly had a different taste than the amber syrup I normally make, and it was thinner than usual as well.

I think it came out golden because I did not boil it as long. My wife was not a fan of it tasting it off of a spoon, but it tasted great on the waffles. Tasting it off the spoon, it sort of had a metallic after taste to it, but I did not notice that with the waffles. There was no metal that got into it, so it is not from metal that it got the different taste from. It was just different and far different from the amber batch I made on New Year’s Day which had a strong note of maple.

We both prefer the taste of the amber syrup I usually make, although maybe this batch was not representative of golden syrup.

Overall a fun experience and a learning experience and a family experience.

The middle bottle of syrup is obviously the golden syrup made today in the attached picture.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/071F...iTmpe0x3aobBzg

Attachment 22692

Probably not 100, maybe 60?
Depends on how much you keep in there.
Still way better than dumping cold sap into a boiling pan as you’re only adding by the drop to match your evaporation rate.
You can do the same with any pan suspended in the steam or near a good heat source, and just dripping into the boil.