My plan 2022/23

This morning was a beautiful morning and I thought I would go back up the steep hill where I marked the path for two new lines yesterday. My goal was to see if there was another path for a line to the left (going up) of the first line, to make sure all of the trees I had wrapped the twine around were indeed maples, and third was to mark the trees with yellow and orange construction tape.

I started off going left from the bottom of the hill and I was able to identify a number of maple trees. Sometimes it went away from the original line and sometimes towards it. Near the top it went well away from the original line, which is why I could not spot it from the top looking down. It turned out that there were 28 trees I could tap, some possible double taps. Next week I will run a twine line up there to measure the distance, but when I go by CDL on Saturday, I will buy two more 500’ lines. I had only planned on having two lines, but I guess I will have three at that location.

I marked the other two lines with construction tape, checked to make sure they were all maples and only one wasn’t and counted the trees I would tap and there were 25 on one and 26 on the other, with possible double tap trees. Combined with the taps at the location on or beside my property, there will be 150+ taps.

For the steep hill location, I will be buying two 55 barrels for collection. One will have one line going into it and the other will have two. They will be side by side.

Question: Is it okay to have a line that goes from one barrel to the other near the top of the barrel, that if the first barrel gets full, it can then start to flow into the other barrel?

There could be days, when I will not be able to keep up with the amount of sap I collect with my RO.

Question: Is it okay to mix sap concentrate with raw sap in the divided pan? (My assumption is yes, that it would just take longer to boil)

I have not used a divided pan before, but my impression is that it is just a continuous process and that near the end of the day if you have more sap then you are willing to boil that day, that I just stop adding wood near the end, cover it when it has cooled down a little and start over the next day.

Is that a correct assumption?

Thanks

You are correct about the shutting down process, but you won't want to cover it up until it stops steaming and make sure there are no coals in the fire. The other thing I use to do would be to add more than enough sap to the pan so I knew it would not boil off. kind of screwed the gradient for a while. Thought I would let you know last year was my first year using the 3/16 tubing and I put in just 8 taps as a trial. I had a 55 gallon barrel for those. I had one really good run day, and those 8 taps filled that barrel. You may want to plan on checking more than once a day on those 25 to 30 taps

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Originally Posted by Pdiamond

You are correct about the shutting down process, but you won't want to cover it up until it stops steaming and make sure there are no coals in the fire. The other thing I use to do would be to add more than enough sap to the pan so I knew it would not boil off. kind of screwed the gradient for a while. Thought I would let you know last year was my first year using the 3/16 tubing and I put in just 8 taps as a trial. I had a 55 gallon barrel for those. I had one really good run day, and those 8 taps filled that barrel. You may want to plan on checking more than once a day on those 25 to 30 taps

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Thanks. I will definitely wait for the sap to cool down before putting the lid on.

Last year the locals told me we had a very slow year. I was sort of redeemed by the high sugar content in my sap. I had about 25 taps going into each of three barrels. The best I ever did was 25 gallons in one of the barrels. The whole spring I never had a giant flow day. My buddy about half hour south of me had his barrels overflowing a few times, but he also had more taps, going into his.

I think one thing that might have slowed my flow is I had my taps too high up on the trees about 7’ high. My drops were 3 feet long and even though my lines were about 4 feet high, I put the drops up fully extended. This year they will be closer to 5.5’.

I will be pumping out the collection barrels in the morning and if need be before it gets dark.

Today was supposed to be the day I picked up the two 55 gallon barrels and more supplies from CDL, but I picked up a paddle board first and it was much larger than I expected and I could not see a safe way to carry the paddle board and the two barrels with my tonneau cover and bed extender. I will try getting them in two weeks.

On the way back home, the plan was to stop at CDL and pick up a 1000 feet of tubing and a few more fittings and some bottles. I decided to call ahead just in case, and sure enough this time of year, they are closed on the weekend.

The only maple thing I was able to accomplish is pick up more twine to mark out the 3rd line.

Early this week I will pick up two 35 gallon horizontal tanks, one I will attach to my ATV as a transfer tank and the other I will use as a feeder tank for the float box on the evaporator.

Today I ran the twine up the third line. I will need about 540’ of tubing for that line. I added a few more trees and will be close to 30 taps on that steep line. After deer season, I will run the lines. No hunters should be there as it is close to the road, but you never know,

Tomorrow I will go buy the two 35 gallon horizontal tanks.

Picked up two 35 gallon horizontal food grade tanks today. They were $165 each. That is at least $100 cheaper than CDL. I got them in Trout Creek, in case anyone else in Northern Ontario is looking for them.

I will start to play with how I will attach one to the ATV and the other to my feeder tank stand. Also will get the fittings to go from the tank to garden hose fittings.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0809...ECpYP9EpBSHWfA

The 55 gallon barrels I will get in 12 days.

Ouch. They certainly don't give those away do they.

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Originally Posted by Pdiamond

Ouch. They certainly don't give those away do they.

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The 55 gallon barrels are cheaper. There are places that want $100 more for the same 35 gallon tank.

I have not sold my syrup, but if I was in it for the money, it would take 4 years or more of selling everything I made, to cover my capital expenditures, and that would not pay you for your time. It is certainly a labour of love.

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I have not sold my syrup, but if I was in it for the money, it would take 4 years or more of selling everything I made, to cover my capital expenditures, and that would not pay you for your time. It is certainly a labour of love.

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That's fine for your first year, but I think you should start selling! You've got way too much invested and way too big at this point to give all away. You must at least be at a quarter-time year-round job at this point for your operation. Charge below market value if you must but the customers will actually enjoy having some skin in the game by having to pay something for the syrup. You won't make money, but you'll lose a lot less.

I had made my sugar shelter dual purpose. We call it the Maple deck. In the summer it is like a gazebo with a big deck and in the spring a shelter for my evaporator. The evaporator is all but built except for the base stack.

Today we had a gathering on it, of 20 people. I called it Waffle and Wings Whursday. (It was supposed to be held yesterday on Wednesday.) We had waffles with my maple syrup to start off, then tons of wings and other foods to finish it off. Several beverages were also consumed.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/00aW...dYLxQE495NhMdQ

It was an opportunity to use the space and to share my maple syrup. Next week I will be putting the evaporator wood, on parts of the deck.