Not liking this.

Tried to post this morning but it didn't work for some reason. Finished tapping Sunday morning(2-12-23), 66 taps, for a total of 178 taps. Have made 19 gallons of syrup so far. On Tuesday ( 2-14-23) I was having some problems with the front pan. It would make syrup in the center 2 sections but not have syrup in the outer section where you draw syrup from. At one point i burned the pan a little bit but caught it before a disaster. When I quit boiling that night I saw a burned patch on the bottom of the pan. Wednesday morning I drained the pan and also noticed a layer of sugar sand baked to the bottom of the pan. The sand was in the first section and had the bottom over 3/4 covered . I scraped and sanded the burn and sand and got the pan all cleaned. On Thursday I boiled with no problems. I am curios why the buildup of sugar sand and why it baked itself to the pan. I reverse the flow daily which is suppose to prevent sugar sand buildup. Any suggestions. Happy sugaring. May your buckets run full!!

We ran hard for 1 week, made 90 gal. quit running 2/14, started back up tonight running good. Weather reports are all over the place. Still not liking this

We put in 23 taps on Saturday, February 18, a combination of hanging buckets, and tubes running to ground buckets. We are in the Thumb. Collected a little over 10 gallons of sap the next morning. Hanging buckets seems to be doing better than the ground buckets. Not sure why. Our sugar bush is 1 1/2 hours away so we will be checking the taps again on Tuesday. Temps are dropping down to mid 30s this week for a high. I wonder how that will slow the flow?

We gathered 165 gallons recently: 34 on Thursday and 131 yesterday. We processed it all yesterday night. Made for some interesting times in the sugar shack with the first boil and the slightly new setup. "Where's the big ladle?!" "Ah, do we have any defoamer?" We also found out our RO isn't quite processing sap like last year. We stored it in preservative but we'll give it a wash today.

I use canola oil with good success for a defoamer. I put it into a plastic squeeze bottle like you would use for ketchup. That way I can just let it go one drop at a time.

We do something very similar, safflower oil in a small squeeze bottle. I mistakenly thought we would be ok without it on the first boil. Needless to say, my wife put safflower and canola oil (thought we would give it a try) on the grocery shopping list today. Thankfully no mess in the shack but had some moments of panic!

This snowstorm is going to slow me down this weekend. We only boil on the weekends. Our sugarbush is in the Thumb and we have to drive there. Should have a good collection up there though. It certainly has been an interesting year.