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Well we taped all 350 on the gravity on Saturday and on Sunday got the shack all up to snuff and we collected 55 gallons of sap, I boiled it down last night just to sweeten the pan. The season is just getting started and the new back pan works great. Last night I was finally able to hold a steady stack temp of 600 degrees. Looking forward to a great season.
we went out to the bush at midnight to retreive the 65 gallons that flowed on Monday. Waited for the mud to freeze. Going to boil that tonight. Overcast and just at freezing here on Tuesday morning. Going to try to fire up a Merlin RO for a new try at this system. Still holding off on the buckets and bags.
if it ever thaws out and we get to boil what are you charging this year?
I have put all our prices on our web page. I was in TSC last night and they have 1 L tins at $ 22.95
Thanks
Nice looking place you have there!
The Swans have started to arrive here in the south today.
I usually start tapping trees when mother nature provides me with some good signs of spring, well today the swans began arriving here near Port Stanley so it is time to get this season underway. Some fellas around here, have had tapped trees in early February, The bigger ones just started boiling last Saturday.
Last year the swans arrived on March 13 and I tapped on the 14 with a good run till my last boil on April 12.
Whitetail24
Brent - You're almost bang on what we've set our prices at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent
Managed to put in 26 taps today (we are installing mains and laterals as we go since this is our first year). Sap flowed from all 26 holes, and we were getting a steady drizzle into the tank. Now only 174 left to tap (hopefully).
Rob
I have about 60 gallons to collect from my jugs but with this wind I am going to have to wait unless I want to try to find them in the next county. by the time the wind quits it will probably be frozen again.
I did'nt expect to get much sap today with all that high wind, but ended up with 125 gallons on 135 taps on gravity. Looks like we will have to wait a couple days before it will run again.
Fred
I got about 13 gallons from my 28 taps today.
Should have the rest of the taps in on Friday. The weekend looks like the start of several days of good sap flow!
haven't even checked my buckets since Sun morn. Fell into a sink hole beside my well up to my hip, I've spent all week putting in a temporary water system for the house with an 1100 gal tank in the garage.......fun wow!
How long would you guys recommend keeping sap in the buckets. I emtied Sat aft. my buckets aren't full yet, probably 15-20 litres per pail now, I plan on emptying in the morning.......is this batch plant food or should it be ok
It's been cold enough it should still be good. If it gets milky, enough that you can't see the bottom of the bucket thru the sap, I'd dump it.
Water solution
1) tap 1000 more trees
2) blow $ 15000 on an RO and you'll have lots of sparkling clear water
HEHEHE
thanks Brent, I'll run that one by the wife.
We survived the winds with only one tree down across the end of one line and we lost a part of the roofing shingles on the shack and the sap did run in the winds now we got 50 gal. frozen sap. It wont run till Saturday now good time to clean things up!
Thermometer say -2 here but feels like 20 below. I will have to go check for surprises out back also. Our weather is the same saying maybe saturday.
I was really worried about my smokestack yesterday. It's 17" square and probably 35' above the roof and the 50mph winds put a pretty good warp and lean in it! Luckily it was still standing when we left the camp at 10:30 last night.
We got the hard day out of the way yesterday. We managed to figure out a lot of the things that Dad used to look after himself. The RO got washed up and membrane installed. I ran a couple hundred gallons of sap through it to get the storage solution flushed out and then started concentrating. We ran 3000 gallons of sap through it to concentrate to 8%. We flooded the pans, lit the fire and were off to the races. It took 4 hours to get our first runoff and by the end we had 43 gallons of very good light syrup - almost extra light. Mom made some beautiful sugar with it. Hopefully the weekend is a good one. Our first boil was 17 days earlier than last year!
We tapped about 125 trees on this past saturday. The sap was running a little bit on Tuesday evening and Wednesday,,,,,,,we collected about 25-30 gallons and boiled it down last night.......the first syrup of the year is always special. But today was back to reality...exremly cold with the wind (probably minus 20)....suppose to be nice this weekend.....its still early in the season for us.
I 5 gallon jugs are 1/4 to 1/2 full and frozen solid. Its suppose to get to 2 here today I hope I can get some sap out of them to day and tomorrow. I have to take my daughter to Montreal on Sunday til Tuesday to look at universities and those day look like a great run right now. Maybe I can get my son to collect while I'm gone.
I think I need to get some buckets with wide lids the 2 inch openings on the jugs suck when you get ice.
Jerome, while in Montreal try and get to Dominion Grimm, fairly easy to find.
I went last year. Montreal is about an hour from here, but D&G an hour and a half or so because it at the east end of the city.
That could be very dangerous for my wallet, its bad enough I live about 20 mins from Atkinson's.
I found out the same thing I am going to empty my jugs every night from now on as that couple of inches of ice does not pout out very well. I exchanged the 4 I had with frozen sap for new ones and am trying to thaw them in the green house. We have a D&G in Compton and its just a small outlet but I still spend to much money in it. They have the two gallon buckets for 3 dollars there.
Well the poor man RO finally let go today and we collected 45 gallons of sap we should have enough to finally run off the first batch bi mid day tomorrow:) . if the temps hold true next week we should get BIG SAP.
Looks promiseing so far. A few more trees started to drip today but then some of the ones that dripped last week didn't go figure. Maybe my first year won't be so bad after all. Collected 4 liters of sap today more then I got in 3 days last time.
we're not quite in the banana belt here but we got great temps today. All bucket and bags fully deployed by early afternoon.
Collect 100 gallons from the buckets and bag and we have another 100 in the tank at the bottom of the pipeling. Late this afternoon I got the sap sucker going and was pretty impressed with the vac we got. Also got to see some mistakes in the tubing. Now debating if I should be trying to get the Merlin RO's going again tonight.
Should be big sap tomorrow and a marathon boiling session.
Good to hear it's running as far north a Trout Creek !!
well I got the evap finished today. 2x3.5 D&G syrup pan, 1 divider on a De Caro wood stove butchered to fit. Boiled 8 5gal pails, threw out the ice that was left over, tunnels with 2" thick wallls in 6 of the buckets, left me with 2" of concentrate in the pan. Took 3 hrs of boiling plus 1 hr start up and 1 hr shut down. Tommorrow should be able to boil for 6 hrs after I tweek my chimney and hook up my feed tank. I'm expecting 1 to 1 1/2 gallons of syrup, am I being realistic? Should I have kept the ice to boil? I tossed it because most of what I've read says it's not worth the BTU's to boil frozen sap because the sugar content is so low.
On a side bar, Brent I couldn't talk the wife into an RO to make our potable water for the house.
Sap should be like when you freeze a bottle of coke in the truck in the winter and its partially thawed and you drink off the liquid and all you have left is water when the ice melts fianlly.
MTBGUY
yeah you should get 1 to 1-1/2 gallons of syrup. If I follow what you did you had 8 x 5 gallon pails. Frozen took off the concentrate. Using the 40:1 rule
you should get gallon from that. Sunday's batch yet to come.
Good luck.
Just remember: to take 40 gallons of 2% up to 4% you have to boil off 20 gallons. When you nearly finished and need to go 2% from 65% to 67% you need to boil off less than a cup. The end game goes R E A L fast and is where most novices get caught. Don't lose your first batch.
have about 10 gallons in storage, I am out of town till Tuesday night but my son will collect, There should be full tanks when I get home for the looks of the forecast.
Fairly good run here today and yesterday, boiled all afternoon, will finish it tomorrow.
Well we did it just finished off the first 3 gallons of light medium of 2009 had a great day family showed up and the neighbors came over help in collecting could not have asked for a better day! we should be swamped with sap by Thursday!!!!!!!;)
Sap run well here today. Should be ready for my first ever boil on Monday or Tuesday. Just a few more finishing touches on the 2x4 homemade evaporator and still have about 75 taps to put in.
Rob
Looks like sap weather has arrived here also. You guys fianlly let some across the border. Was nice to see sap at 9 this morning instead of 3 in the afternoon. Now to just get enough to boil. The sap is getting sweeter on some trees also.
Ken make sure that sap that escaped across the border is speaking both official languages.:lol:
Boy I can hardly wait to get home, I've been in Montreal visiting universities, I went to Dominion and Grimm this morning and was not impressed I expected a nice showroom where you could walk around and touch but very little merchandise was out you had to ask for just about everything.
My son and daughter should have collected enough so that I can boil Wednesday I can hardly wait :)
How long can I leave concentrate in the pan between boils and how often should I empty the pan completely and wash it out.
You should go to D&G in Compton they speak only french so i have to use hand singals and sign language. Lucky one day there was a guy spoke english in there and gave me a hand. Well today was a bit better with sap. Getting almost enough to start boiling.
Judging by the slow down in posting activity the run in ontario is going strong. I'm about 1 hr N.E. of Toronto and am averaging about 100 litres of sap per day out of 38 taps is this close to what's happening out there? I haven't got my pan fully sweetend yet but am planning a 7 hour boil tommorrow. I've got 200 litres stored plus whatever I get tommorrow so I hope to be able to get my first batch of syrup tommorrow and do a big boil Fri/Sat again. I'll let y'all know how I do, this is my first year with a pan instead of a pot. I'm trying my best to keep my wife off the website but she keeps threating to set up a wife section so they can all discuss our obsession.
That is about right, some good runs past few days,yesterday boiled for 7
hours steady.I have a great neighbour who comes over and keeps my wood
ready by the evaporator and runs out with my truck and picks up sap if I start
to get low and I want to keep the boil going.
Well yesterday we collected a total of 425 gallons of sap the best this bush has ever ran, were looking at 14 hours of straight boiling good thing the wife is off work today, as I was heading in to work she was off to the bush to start boiling we should be ready to draw off by time I get home tonight.
:)