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Over 16,000 gallons of sap collected the last 3 days - I don't know if the RO, the evaporator, our tractor driver or the sugarmakers are more tired! It didn't freeze last night so we didn't expect to boil today - and we were surprised by some tanks that were almost overflowing this morning! Close to 4,000 gallons of sap later we were making beautiful light syrup that was verging on extra-light!!! Crazy. We've barely made any amber yet and we have so many orders for it. A good problem to have.
Batch 13: 76 litres.. Made 2125 ml of syrup.. sugar content 2.4
bwahahaha. THose are awesome names. I had more than my fair share of sisters. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Lespetras
Wednesday was my best day, 50 litres of sap, the Thursday 30 litres. Friday I only got 15 litre and it was brown ( syrup colored) I am assuming that means my season is over? We dumped it and have 150 litres now in the freezer to boil on Sunday, day off!)
That was just stained rain water that ran into your bucket maple75. Good call on dumping it because you only make clouds, not syrup, when you boil it. That doesn't mean your season is over, it just means it rained. :) Have fun boiling on Sunday!Quote:
Originally Posted by maple75
Congratulations. This first year newbie is still befuddled by the random effect of Mother Nature. Here in southern Northumberland County (almost on Lake Ontario), I haven't collected anything from my buckets since April 6th. Yet, not that far northeast and northwest of me, people seem to be collecting still. Then, in spite of no freeze-up overnight, ennismaple gets flooded.Quote:
Originally Posted by ennismaple
There has to be more to this than a relationship to freezing. In ennismaple's case, perhaps it's the vacuum system, but that doesn't explain others who are on buckets like me, and have been harvesting. http://i58.tinypic.com/23m4lko.jpg
Hi there 67,Quote:
Originally Posted by 67HEAVEN
Yes, we are on buckets like yourself, first year for us too... And we have still been getting small amounts of sap in south frontenac, not too far from you. Today however, this has drastically slowed down.. Like only very small amounts of sap... Now I know I've said this a few times in posts already and had a confirmation from locals and Bruce L. But apparently the north facing trees produce for quite a bit longer after the others stop.. Perhaps you do not have any north facing trees?
Anyhow wanted to share a picture of our canned stock... Minus the frozen stuff... Much of our stash has been gifted away... But we are proud of our hard work!
Attachment 11680
Lesley
What a gorgeous photo of your efforts Lesley. I'm a real fan of the classic Crown jars with the glass top. Lovely. :)
You're right 67, there's more to it than meets the eye when it comes to trees giving up sap or not. And I know not what it is. :rolleyes:
I am in the process of pulling my buckets today. None are producing any sap - didn't expect it to, as the weather has not been cooperative. The wind yesterday effectively shut down any hope of getting more sap.
Yet, I have 1 lone tree with 2 taps in it dripping happily away. This tree is south-facing in the bush. But there are 3 other trees right around it that are not dripping. Why it's dripping when everybody else is not beats the heck out of me. The only reason I can come up with is that it is my leaning pisa tree. As in this tree is sideways about 35 degrees. :lol:
Well, got to hop off now and load up the fire for my last 75L of sap + whatever my leaning pisa gives me today. Today will be my last boil. I am ending my season - got to move on to my other projects. My husband has just bought some chicken coop plans and we'll have to get a start on that.
Wow, almost caught up with my trees, and they're still quietly dripping away, but greatly slowed down...and the owner of the virgin bush actually groaned when I turned up with her share of batch #3!! She plans to give a lot of it away, which is fine by me :-)
Looking at getting another 4l of syrup tonight from the remnants of the tsunami day when I got 50l. I wish the run this year were more like last year, with one moderately big run every few days, as opposed to getting walloped with one huge run and then it just drops off quickly.
Made an important discovery today...finished syrup with heavy nitre in it will refilter quite nicely at room temp. I had some nitre hills in a 250ml jar of virgin batch #4 (haven't delivered that yet ;-) and just set up a piece of clean T-shirt and funnel, clean jar, dumped in the nitre-laden syrup and it did its thing perfectly, I got out about 99% of the nitre this way (think I still see a teeny bit at the bottom).
And...for a personal best...have yet to produce a batch, from either bush, this year that has crystallized! So, glad that I'm finally getting the hang of this sugaring thing.
And that's my next project. Seeing I've got stupid amounts of home bush syrup eating up all the space in my fridge, I'm going to properly heat-seal one 2l jar from each big batch and store it in a cupboard. Most of the rest will live in the fridge and probably be traded/given away, but I do plan to try sugarmaking this year. Apparently you can get a pound of sugar from just 2 cups finished syrup.
And yep Lesley, getting to work on the pics after supper, just confirm with me that you got that pic I sent you so I know there's no issues with email.
ETA: I am getting rid of my blue plastic spiles, all 30 of them. Totally useless, replaced 3/4 of them and the remaining few pull out with a light tug, and they all leaked like ****. Apart from very minor sap leakage from a few holes, have NONE of those problems with metal spiles, so keeping them, though will see if I can get em tapered down to 5/16ths.
Anyway either come and get them or pay shipping. PM me if you want them.