Still very much winter here, cold, wind, deep snow. Spring is not even close.
Will sit tight and wait it out.
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Still very much winter here, cold, wind, deep snow. Spring is not even close.
Will sit tight and wait it out.
We've got all the easily accessible taps done, about 5 to 600, but the big woods are still plugged tight. I've tried the loader tractor and the bigger tractor with snow-blower and been stuck so many times in the past 2 weeks that I'm going to wait on Mother Nature to help before I tap any more.
Well it's 1:30 AM and I'm finally going to hit the sack with a smile. Finally got the ducks lined up and lit the fire at 5:00PM. 225 gallons later I've got a few gallons of beautiful blond syrup. It's not filtered yet but it looks lighter than the lightest grading. We really lucked in because the first of this sap was collected 9, yes NINE days ago. There is still maybe 10 to 15 gallons of ice in the storage tank.
The new evaporator worked pretty much as expected. Doors need some grinding. The condensate collector never yielded a drop. Don't know if it's a construction or leveling error. And yes the thermometer does not get immersed properly so I had to adjust all the temps. The Ystec thermometer worked like a charm. Once I had the correction figured out it would sound off at the right point to draw off about a liter at a time.
Thanks to all for the multiple bits of help that got me to this point.
Nite all.
Well I got all of our sap boiled down yesterday we made 16 liters (4.22 gallons) Out of 750 liters (200 gallons) of 3% sap and we got a cross between light and medium. There is lots of sugar sand this year. In the 2x4' pan when I cleaned them there was a 1/4 of sugar sand on the bottom of the pan.
It been a slow start this year but I finally made our first 2 gallons of medium What a great taste now we just have to sit back and wait for things to open up and start running again!
We better get ready it looks like starting tomorrow is the start to a 2 week run its time for BIGSAP.
Well ,still very much winter here, forecast -25 tonight about an hour from here. But
the son and I finally got on the four wheelers to the bush this evening. The snow is so frozen you can drive anywhere. Impossible before, snow too deep (4')
for an ATV. The snow is up to the windows at the camp, door frozen in ,it would be a good time to fix the roof if it needed it. But I looked down in, the
arch is still there, firewood too, and no vandalism. Will go down again tomorrow with the ice spud, shovel and chainsaw (a few down limbs). Don't
know when we will tap, but this is a start. There is always hope.
Got all 225 or so buckets out now. Collected about 205 US gallons today.
Best ever for us. Should be close to that Saturday.
Sunday: lousy run. 75 gallons from 225 taps.
Well thing are very slow up here we only collected 60 gallons yesterday, I ran it thru in 4 hours last night not sure if that is a good rate for a 2 by 6 flat pan but it was fun! Hope fully with today rain things will pick up. Glad to here thing are running well for you Brent. You need it after all that snow.
Pretty poor run here yesterday. Put about 75 gallons in storage. Spent a few hours moving taps from small trees on the sunny side to the big trees on the north side. Had to wait for the snow levels to go down a bit. Warm and foggy here this morning. Don't know how to call this. Could be one of those mornings where we find it ran all night. Don't want to waste any so I'm going to go and check it out in a few minutes.
Good luck
ALERT IN ONTARIO
IT RAN ALL NIGHT the sap saks are 1/3 to 1/2 full already.
I'd still be out there except I need the second coffee ... and because I forgot the collection buckets.