My plan 2022/23

Drained the pan today of the sweet and cleaned the pan. When I drained it, I ran it through the filter I showed on an earlier post. The spring clamps worked well and I removed a ton of nitre. I will use a similar filter when I do my draw offs. I put the sweet back into the pan.

The 60 watt bulb kept the sap to 40° allowing me to draw it off. I did get a 100 watt bulb today. I also got from Amazon an eye dropper in an amber coloured jar and I will use that for dropping in the canola oil. I had a cheap plastic bottle to do that, but it broke the first time I used it.

Sap flow was almost non existent today, hopefully tomorrow enough will flow to allow me to have a boil on Wednesday. Only one line of eleven had any kind of steady drip.

I did check the drips of three of the lines. One had 2.5% sugar content, the other 3% and the other 3.5%. I checked them again in reverse order and I got the same readings. Last year I had really good sugar content as well, so that should be helpful. Now for the sap to flow well.

I do believe you are going to have another good year. The make up of the soil and trees must create that good sugar content, at least in the beginning of the year.

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Originally Posted by Pdiamond

I do believe you are going to have another good year. The make up of the soil and trees must create that good sugar content, at least in the beginning of the year.

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The soils are interesting here as it is all Canadian Shield where you have relatively shallow soils on granite. The trees right beside my house are in very sandy soil and do not do well, but 98% of the trees are on shield rock.

This morning started off cloudy and colder than expected and all of a sudden the sun came out and the sap started flowing in the afternoon. At times it was streaming out of the lines. I ended up with 33 gallons after running for a little more than 4 hours. I am grateful for the 33 gallons. The sap is still running two hours after I collected.

I will boil tomorrow afternoon. I will also collect more sap before I do. I got a surprise Dr’s appointment in the evening, so I have to time when I collect, with my expected boil and cool down time, with the time I have to leave for the appointment. I should have time for one and maybe two draw offs.

For the draw offs I was told to draw off until the temperature drops on the temperature gauge. I only have had one draw off, the temperature did not drop, I stopped because I was afraid of not having enough sap for the backfill and cool down period. Is this correct to draw off until you see the temperature drop?


The next boil after that will be Friday.

The sap is still running almost four hours after collecting, but it should stop soon as the temps are now at zero/32° F.

The point of this post isn’t that though, it is about the line I tapped on December 27, 2022. It is still running and it is still running as good or better than lines I tapped in February and March.

I am currently at 26% of total sap I collected last year and 23% of the sap I boiled. (I was given 110 gallons last year)

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Originally Posted by Swingpure

For the draw offs I was told to draw off until the temperature drops on the temperature gauge. I only have had one draw off, the temperature did not drop, I stopped because I was afraid of not having enough sap for the backfill and cool down period. Is this correct to draw off until you see the temperature drop?

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Yes that is correct. On my rig i actually start drawing off just before i hit the 7 degree mark and it will usually climb to 1 or 2 degrees over while its drawing off. I actually dont stop my draw until i get back down to 6 degrees to help dilute the syrup back down to closer to where its supposed to be. I end up with heavy syrup that i then correct when bottling it which is preferable to me than having light syrup.

Originally when making my rig i was going to have the front pan draw off at the back where it meets the back pan but the supplier convinced me to keep it in the front to make the piping connection easier between pans. I do regret making that change as the hottest part of my arch is right where the two pans meet. So thats why i end up with a spike in temp as the syrup is a little heavier back there and gets drawn forward as i am drawing off. It still works really well overall but its definitely something i would change if i ever got new pans.

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Originally Posted by The Heldeberg Sapper

Yes that is correct. On my rig i actually start drawing off just before i hit the 7 degree mark and it will usually climb to 1 or 2 degrees over while its drawing off. I actually dont stop my draw until i get back down to 6 degrees to help dilute the syrup back down to closer to where its supposed to be. I end up with heavy syrup that i then correct when bottling it which is preferable to me than having light syrup.

Originally when making my rig i was going to have the front pan draw off at the back where it meets the back pan but the supplier convinced me to keep it in the front to make the piping connection easier between pans. I do regret making that change as the hottest part of my arch is right where the two pans meet. So thats why i end up with a spike in temp as the syrup is a little heavier back there and gets drawn forward as i am drawing off. It still works really well overall but its definitely something i would change if i ever got new pans.

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Thank you!

I will start my boil today at noon. I have 43 gallons to start, I will do a quick collection around 3 pm with my wife watching the pan while I do it. Expect another 15+ gallons. The sap slowly started to flow around 10 am. It has clouded over and we expect rain around 4 PM

It will not drop below freezing all day and overnight. I expect the sap to run well into the night before it stops because the trees have not recharged. The rain should stop tomorrow around noon and I will collect again and if there is enough, I will boil again tomorrow.

I should have at least one more draw off today.

11 hours of effort, and 60 gallons boiled, one draw and almost 9.5 L of amazing tasting syrup made.

This time on the draw off, the temp did go up, settled back down and then dropped.

I played with my boil rate. I at first avoid the jet affect and my boil rate drop to 10 GPH or slightly below. When I went with the full jet affect I was up to 13 GPH, I settled on a mix of the two, and averaged 11 GPH.

The temps will stay above freezing all night. Last I looked the sap was still slowly running. We will see in the morning if I have collected enough to boil tomorrow afternoon again, or if not, will boil on Saturday.

So far I have collected 30% of the sap I did last year.

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I collected 57 gallons today and will boil tomorrow and will collect more tomorrow after mid boil and I will have my wife watch the pan.

Last year I used wooden handles for my concrete door. The edge of the wood against the concrete burnt a little, but not bad. The wood was simply a fair size branch cut to size. I did the same thing this year with new branch wood. This year I don’t know if my evaporator is that much hotter or I used different wood, but this time, especially yesterday, the wood burnt and almost was like a stub by the end of the boil.

I put new branch handles on today. The small tree was actually cut down in the middle of this winter and I was not sure what kind of tree it was, but after drilling the hole for the bolt, I am pretty sure it is a softwood. We will see how this green softwood holds up. If not I will experiment with ironwood next time, if I can find a large enough diameter piece.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/08aw...q6j_Jn_6IAcqMw

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Boiled 70 gallons of sap today and had one draw off and made 8.5 L of very tasty syrup.

All went well. One lesson learned is the hose that goes from the feeder tank to the float box. I drained it the other night, but I guess there was still some sap in it that froze. I found that out when the sap was not flowing to the float box as the pan started to boil. It was an easy fix, but the hose will stay in my heated garage overnight from now on.

So far I have had three boils and three draws. The three draws made almost identical volumes of sap. Not knowing what to expect from a divided pan, I had expected more frequent drawoffs, but I guess not.