Northern Ontario 2024

I had a big boil two days ago and I am having another today. I am boiling 52 gallons I collected yesterday and I still have to collect today’s sap. I likely will be between 70 and 80 gallons to boil. Looks like another long day. I always like to finish and bottle on the same day as the boil. I know others do not do that. The sap is almost syrup when I pull it off the pan, so the finishing does not take that long.

The funny thing is with my two fire bowls, I actually boil faster than I was two years ago, but not anywhere near as fast as last year’s beast evaporator, which could boil at 13 gallons per hour. I call it a beast because it got very hot and consumed wood at a incredible rate.

Edit: As I was collecting, I reminded myself that this is a hobby and I do not need to have a long day. The 25 gallons I collected today, I can do tomorrow or it a few days.

I should have today’s boil, bottled by supper time.

Sap has been flowing fairly well. In the past week I have collected 625 litres from 77 taps on drop tubes to buckets. Boiled down to 18 Litres but got a little carried away trying to finish in my flat pan just simmering while waiting for the coals to reduce and now I have to dilute with sap. I'm at 85 brix at 80 degrees.
If this keeps up it could be my best season.

That's awesome. Don't jinx us northerners. Seems like everyone down south is pulling taps and I feel like we are just getting started. I've packed away 30 gallons so far. I missed the early early run. Only tapped after the last cold snap in Feb. This is my 23rd year making syrup here. Normally pulling taps late April. Latest I pulled was 6 May. The sap was still running but I was exhausted from the extended season. Looks like a few more days of good runs then a bit of a needed break. Time to clean tanks and pan to get ready for the next big push. I am anxiously hopeful that this could be a record year. Looking good so far. The only downside is I may have to fork out for another half pallet of bottles. Tough problem to have.

For reference and because I don't know how to have the fancy stats at the bottom of the post. I have 565 taps on gravity vacuum. 4x40 RO with a SS procon pump head. 2x8 70's vintage D&G arch with 2007 D&G SS flat bottom continuous flow pans. The whole beast is fired with pure filtered used veggie oil and runs really really hot. Saves me a cord of wood a day. Filtered through my open source SS 8 gallon vacuum filter rig. It is a 1 man operation.

Wow that sounds sounds like a great setup you have there. Where do you purchase your bottles from?

4Walls that does look like a great setup. Is the burner similar or the same as an oil furnace burner?
I may have to look into something similar if that's the case as I have a riello oil furnace burner sitting around. I'm using approximately 1/3 face cord of mixed ash, maple, oak, birch, and poplar per 300L and run about 60L/hr if I fire hard and steady. I keep all the end cuts, 2" and up branches, and other non house firewood scraps for the evaporator when I'm cutting firewood so not much waste in that respect
Your neighbors must get hungry if they're outside when your evaporating. I remember following a bus that was a test pilot many years ago in Southern Ontario which ran on used vegetable oil and it made me want to stop and get some fries. Not sure if that's still the case with burning used vegetable oil but the smell of fries and maple syrup would certainly be something that would drive me to the nearest chip stand
Also my first year I haven't thrown money into the operation except for bottles and sap collection fuel

That's about right. I was burning a cord per 1000+ litres a day and finishing about 25L of syrup in this rig. Im sure the oil system is similar to an oil burner. I dont use the high pressure oil pump and made my own spray nozzles out of crimped 1/8 copper flex tubing. I use a 18L Pepsi soda keg as a pressure vessel and have warm filtered veggie oil in that at 70psi air pressure. The oil exits the keg and then is piped into the arch. It is mixed with the same 70 psi air just before it enters. Creates a fine mist that continues burning all day. I use a tiny needle valve to control each the oil and the air mixture. I am the FCU. Each keg lasts about 3 hours of really really hot burn time. No smell of French fries. It burns too hot and clean. I would highly recommend building a little RO system first if you have access to power by your steam pans. I wish I had done that 20 years ago when I had 20 taps. Would have saved me thousands in fuel over the years. I built a 3 chamber 75GPD RO about 9 years ago and it was a game changer. Added more taps and then built a 4x40 RO 5 years ago and haven't looked back. I only bring my sugar up to about 10% but that is an 80% savings on fuel and TIME!!! You should head over some time and check the oil system out. It is portable and I have used it as a demo in a few of my buddies hobby arches. Easy to turn the burn rate up or down depending on the application and the desired heat output.

4Walls, thanks for the info, Im going to do some research/testing with my riello burner and see what I can come up with. I have some friends that I can get used vegetable oil from during the summer months so I can get a good stock of it. If I'm in your area I would certainly appreciate the tour of your rig, thanks
I also agree with you on the RO, maybe I will purchase that piece by piece this summer.
The past three days have been some slow sap flows here but it's still adding up, and now another big freeze to replenish the trees for next week.
I used the search bar and saw your YouTube video about the oil burner, seems pretty straight forward with a lot of tweaking

Hey all, i've been tapping for 11 years now and seem to have a high ration of sap to syrup. Im using an RO and boiling at 4-5% but getting a ration of about 52:1. I feel it's very high but not sure. Any ideas?

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Originally Posted by sergeaubin

Hey all, i've been tapping for 11 years now and seem to have a high ration of sap to syrup. Im using an RO and boiling at 4-5% but getting a ration of about 52:1. I feel it's very high but not sure. Any ideas?

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Not sure if I understand you correctly but you should be using less sap to make 1L of syrup after going through RO.
Should be going from say 40:1 down to say 30:1 or lower not up to 52:1
40L sap not ROd=1L syrup
40L sap ROd would give you less sap with higher sugar content so say 30L RO sap=1L syrup
If I have mistaken what you mean then disregard response

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Originally Posted by 4Walls

..warm filtered veggie oil ...

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The WARM part is key if you're thinking of using many types of biofuels. They tend to have higher freezing points.