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Thanks for the tips guys! I will not flood the pans anymore. May be a bit before I boil again but I will keep you posted.
Finished tapping yesterday in the cold wind and bright sun. South side taps were dripping a bit, but lines stayed frozen. Looks like the total tap count will be 750 this year, which I am happy with. Still have another 65-70 on our property to grab but will wait until next season. Was thinking 3/16 on those but not sure there is enough slope. Now I am thinking putting them on vac. with a small electric releaser to pump up to the sugarhouse. I have enough pipe to run a vac. line down there, and a pump line back up.
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I am not form Vermont, but I follow this thread what I do is stop flow from flue to front and then stop flow between the two front pans to keep them from mixing this is what my friend told me when I was getting big draws at start up reason being because the density in the front pans was all the same because it was mixing. I run right up until my sap level drops below my sight gauge and I don't draw anything off. If my auto draw is drawing at shut down I will let it draw until temp starts to drop then close valve. I wait for temperature to drop to 200 before stopping flow. Before I was getting 6-8 gallon first draws now I get about 3 which is normal.
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GS. I do the same as sapmaple. Think I got the idea from Goodrich, but just draw off one bucket. Works good. Once you get the front pan boiling good, add a bucket and open the valve between the pans. The bucket will cool off the temp. probe, but the middle will be boiling, as the sap comes in from the flue pan, it'll push the boiling syrup to the drawoff and quickly get the temps back up. Drawing off not long after. I also fire until the feed tank is almost out of concentrate, and when I shut down, I shut the blower off and leave the door wide open, so most of the heat gets pushed up the stack. The pans get low, but don't run dry.
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The one good thing about all the cold weather we've been having here in northern Vermont is that it has allowed us to get the tubing system nice and tight. Three gauges below are from two different research sections (LR pump research pump on top, Busch research pump in middle) and the main bush production area (Busch pump on bottom....that gauge is actually reading about 0.8" Hg too low).
Crew is now headed out into another couple of sections of woods where the two Busch pumps are reading 23.5" and 25" Hg.
Still just a bit too cold for the sap to run.
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Very nice. Hoping we see those numbers by Monday.
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Well I got the new 5hp high pressure motor in my hands this afternoon. Man they don't give these away. But the good news on my end is I put a brand new hp pump on this fall, now a new hp motor, two new membranes. And feed pump I think was almost new when I got it. So that's like an almost new machine. Fingers cross, lucky rabbit foot is out and knocking on wood, I can recover my lost expected production and at least make a little money. I think we still have a few good runs coming here, next weeks forecast looks like it's shapp up pretty well.
Going to finish tapping this weekend got maybe 6-700 left to put in.
Pm
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I only got about 700 gallons today. Never got real warm and the wind was blowing all day. I doubt I will get much tomorrow because it is going to get cooler by afternoon. Looks like next Wednesday is the next day it could run for me. I sure hope the sap runs right up to the end of April.
Spud
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lines from head tank to evap all froze yestersAY. took a while to get thawd but made 10 gal in 2 hr on 80 gal
around 25 gal total.
;landed another 600 taps but not sure how many will get tapped
eaerly in the wek I had a 25 minute draw its was cool
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got sap suckers up to 15 and 24 inches. found broke ball valve once i finished that you could hear leaks all over., high vac 25 lost a little today need to get out find those leaks.
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I only got 4-500 gallons today. I don't think there will be any big sap days in my area till April. Sap is testing at 2%.
Spud
