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Has been a good week. 2.5 half days of boiling and 63.75 Litres of syrup. Sap did not run well yesterday because of previous warm night - however today is a different story with a cool night -5 and + temps today plus sunshine - sap is flowing well today. Plan to collect tomorrow and run thru RO and do another boil.
So far I am 80% of last years haul.
Collected 500L today and ran thru RO. Was able to pour off and bottle 15L of dark amber syrup today. Total for the year is 95.875L. Just shy of last year with opportunity to surpass.
Things have really slowed down here. Collected Friday, Saturday and today. All smaller runs. Looks like we may only have a few more nights below freezing in the next 2 weeks. However, it has been a record year for me, already 60% higher than any other year, first collection was Feb 13th, and I am ready for a break!
Congrats! Your hard work paid off.Quote:
Originally Posted by Willen
Pulled my 19 taps this morning in the freezing rain.
I had already collected more than I have any year due to the early start, so I dumped a bunch of sap that had collected in the bags over the last few days.
1300l of sap, 47.5 hours of boiling (not including finishing on kitchen stove), 31l of syrup.
South is pulling taps and some of my trees in the thicker canopy haven't thawed yet, thats interesting.
Since I tapped on March 21 I've collected 378L from 93 taps but I've been chucking the ice so the math from sap to syrup will not add up properly nor will the sap sugar content. I will measure sugar content to see how much of a difference pulling ice makes. My last collection sugar content was between 3 and 4% between buckets without ice.
Looking like the last days for me. Weather isn’t looking great plus it’s time for me to get some other stuff done this spring. Seems like it’s early but it’s not showing another freeze till Friday. Wednesday is looking like we could hit 20. I haven’t actually did a total on syrup produced but I will post it soon.
I’m also going to add a water/sap meter into my set up next year to calculate the sap collection. I always try to keep track but it’s not easy with my gathering system. I’ll add the meter so ever time I’m adding fresh collected sap to the main holding tank it’s tracking it. One between the head tank and evaporator would be pretty cool to track gph boil rate also. I might do this also.
My boil yesterday was absolutely full of sugar sand. Like handfuls and handfuls. I’ve never seen it this bad since I started doing maple. Glad it’s at the end and wasn’t like this all season.
The end is here for me as well, likely the last collection today. Some of my trees have quit, leaking out a dribble of yellow sap in the bucket, while others are still gushing overflowing buckets of sweet clear sap. But the temps are staying high, the turkeys are gobbling, the snow is almost gone ad I am ready for spring.
This year has been a gusher. A full 7 weeks as passed since my first collection. I’m 70% over my previous highest year, and not quite done. Over 100L/27G per tap, and lots wasted to overflow. I keep thinking this can’t be good for the trees.....
The biggest improvement this year was a walking beam, tandem axle atv trailer with a 125G tank for sap collection. Less ground pressure and it will roll over anything. Next experiment will be in filtration, but that’s not for a week or two when I get around to bottling....
Really thinking a larger evaporator needs to find a way into next season!
Not a gusher in my woods. Was an ok season considering the weather. My gravity lines didn’t really produce much this year. Only pulled ok numbers from the vac lines. Next year all my lines will be on vacuum.
That's it for me, I've finished the boils and pulled the taps & lines. A pretty weird season but I will consider it a win as I did better than last year.
Finished up with just over 18L from 883L of sap (~50:1) sugars were 1.0 to max 2.4. I'm pleased with both the mechanical vacuum system and the custom evaporator (I would have liked to have more sap though).
Next years plan includes finding some maple sap and doing a blend between the two.
Thanks for all the help and advice offered.
Dave