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Started the day with 340L and figured I'd get another 200, at least, from today's run. So, I started to boil. All my valves were frozen along with some of the sap in my barrels. What a pain. I ended up boiling just what I started with. No real run of any sort today. But what a beautiful day (I boil outside). Here's hoping for a good run tomorrow.
Steve.
Got about 100 gallons today from 240 on vac (with some startup leaks -~ 20") and 50 or so buckets. The releaser was still tripping regularly when we left. Just shut the vac of now, 9:00PM. I'll bet theres another 25 to 50 gallons out there.
Did we do a dumb thing. It was time to re-seed the hay field so we ploughed last fall. Now we have no stability in the mud. We may be in deep ka ka until the frost is out of the ground.
Got to get the evap finished. Warm weather mid week will spoil the sap.
Well it really run today. From thursday night to saturday we collected about 30 gallons from 105 buckets. Just today we hit 55-60 gallons and we tapped another 25. Hoping tommorow turns out even better than today and we'll be busy boiling on our 2x5 all night.
Friday we got the vacuum up to 20" Hg on our 2 largest bushes. A lot of walking in 2 hours to check 2100 taps! We spent the evening getting the sugar camp organized and I plowed roads to our tanks for a few hours. There's so much ice at the bottom of the snow the only thing that's saving us are the tractor chains!
Saturday we got the remaining 1160 taps in, got the vacuum running and walked those bushes for leaks too. By the end of the day we were bagged. With 2 crews tapping we got the 700+ tap bush done in 2 hours!
Yesterday we gathered everything that had run Thursday to Sunday (about 2600 gallons), fired up the RO and lit an inferno in the Force 5. It took a few hours to get the pans sweetened but then the runoffs came pretty regular. We ended up with a 35 gallon drum of very nice light. By the end of the night I was getting tired and didn't care about efficiency so I poured the primary air to the fire and the entire arch was a massive ball of flames. I could hardly keep the foam beneath the drip rails and it's the only time I've seen sparks coming from the stack on the Force 5! It's nice to finally see some results from all our hard work over the past off-season.
The sap ran OK this afternoon once it warmed up. Should be a good week! There's gonna be a fog hanging over Bennett Lake even on sunny days!!!
even though I will never require a rig like yours, I do like going to the Lapierre video and watching that thing crank. it is impressive
Hey MudnMaple,
I am just south of ya on Pleasant Lane. Got 30 Gal sap from 37 buckets today. Whats your location?
Wino
I'm south of St.Thomas (just north of Lake Erie). I now have 45 taps in.
I think my taps are generally running very slowly (slower than I would have expected, but it's my first year). I got maybe 10 gallons from 45 taps yesterday and it got up to 4 C. A couple of my trees gave me more than half of that!
I'm using 5/16" health spiles and I wonder if that has something to do with it? I have 5 of the 7/16" plastic spiles and they seem to be running much faster, but they're also in bigger trees. I also used a regular 5/16" bit and I don't know if I have a good hole and fit (there's some leaking). Maybe also it's because I'm on a NE slope and the major sap is yet to come?
Anyway, I boiled down about 7 litres of syrup on Sunday. Fun!
Hopefully today I get lots of sap and I can boil again tomorrow maybe.
Chris
Chris
Tests have shown that the smaller spouts have very little impact on sap flow. It is very difficult to measure. Tree size, crown developement, moisture in the soil, sunlight hitting the tree etc etc, not to mention that apparently otherwise identical trees, side by side in the middle of a field can have different flows and different sugar contents.
Just take what you get and have fun.
Sap is running here in northern ontario sault ste marie erea . put in 10 taps today but allready i tapped 6 taps 3 days ago , this is my fisr year and hope for a good one ,, lol i have 16 taps i ran out of buckets if i can get my hands on more ill tap up to 30 not much but great for a starter.. any of you guys having a good run ???
As a guy that grew up in Spring Valley (Murray Road)it's hard to believe there can be 2 other guys from that small an area on here.
I had a great run yesterday... about 80 gallons from the 108 taps. If you consider it was only above zero for a few hours.. .that seems pretty good. It was pouring out of the pipe when I was back there around 5.
Guessing today should be a BIGSAP warning for us, sun is shining... I'm thinking holding tanks are overflowing.