can't beleive no one has started the new month's journal. i had a good test boil yesterday, things are starting to shape up for the upcomming season. can't wait!! tempted to try some fall tapping
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can't beleive no one has started the new month's journal. i had a good test boil yesterday, things are starting to shape up for the upcomming season. can't wait!! tempted to try some fall tapping
Wow!!! November is already here. There was 1in of fresh snow this am, just a reminder to get to work on the pipe lines and get the arch fire bricked up. Ive been bissy this summer rebuilding the 3x8 grimm and its really coming along good, very happy with the end results. working on the blower now then bricking and insulation. Got to hurry now 4mths to go..
maple rookie
I looked at the woodpile, then at the shotgun and decided that yesterday was too nice a day to split wood. I didn't get a deer, but I think I made the right decision anyway. The last few leaves were falling, the birds were flying around and the sun was shining. All in all a great afternoon to go hunting in the woodlot.
We harvest more than maple syrup up there.
90 days till tapping
Putting addition onto the chicken coupe!!! with more chickens they are gonna need more space come the winter months!!!! worked on it 3 hours yesterday and should be done by early afternoon!!!
Now that all the trees and brush have no leaves I have to get rid of the downed trees in my neighbors woods that I have been putting off doing all summer!! hopefully late this afternoon.
Don't forget to get out and vote today!!!! I did mine already!!!
Thats funny. I get done work early yesterday and it was one of very few days it hasnt rained here. Im driving home in the truck beating myself up decided to get the rifle and hunt or split some wood. I get a text from my daughter and it said "dad I think we left your deer scents in the woods saturday night". Well decision was made right there lol. Well like you Revi I didnt see a thing. When I got home after dark I felt guilty so changed my clothes fired up the tractor and drove into the woods to the pile of blocks and started splitting under the use of the spotlights on the tractor. Next thing I know here comes the neighbor and kid and we got the wagon loaded with 2 face cords of split wood in a record time. Worked out good. By the way this is my worst deer season ever. 2 real nice bucks with bow last year and a doe and this year nadda. Deer hunting this year is reminding me of maple season this past spring lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Revi
Well the R.O. room is comming along nicely,,Got everything but the roof figured out :) I dont think it will be pretty but it will work just fine,,should be plenty of room,,,,makeing the back wall so we can unscrew it and slide the r.o. in and out,,(its 4 feet by 40 inches by 97 inches,,,made the room so we can get inside the machine to take the vessells out,,,Been in the woods at sanborns,,changing one lateral mainline that we used over from a previous set up there,,the line was full of chew holes and splices when we put it in service,,tried to patch it with hockey stick tape (what we had with us),,but that tape does not hold vacuum...I took 78 hose clamps off that line when I took it down,,,repaired all the damage I could see there,,got a bear in there chewing on the lateral line,,they make a big mess! Also alot of squirl chews there,,,SO,,rte.11 is set to tap,,sanborns needs another day,,then off to hill for a real maple makeover,,,gonna need alot more sap than I have had in the past..(4000 taps would be nice but kinda dout Ill get there this year)..and I got a couple more cords stacked in the shed,,,,hopeing to make serious progress on the r.o. room tommrow and get the rig planted by the weekend!!!!
Par(water blowing out the back of the sugarhouse like a firehydrent)ker- Your going to love that ro. Now youve got to get that sap! Im working on my lines every night down here buddy. Had a lot of substandard stuff last year. Gonna try to do a bunch better. Were going to have to WANNNN IT!!!! Theron
split and stacked almost 3 cord of wood in the last 2 days. got a bunch more to do and not enough hours in the day:( But I am making progress on the "TO DO" list:) not much longer untill the snow flies! Calling for fluries on thursday in these parts.
Great afternoon to be deer hunting especially for the deer:) I saw fox squirrels, the insides of my eyelids several times:), chipmunks and a beautiful golden glow in the maples as the sun set.
Glad the neighbor lets me hunt right out the back door. Would be nice to see some deer. This is my first archery season. I might have more action switching over to squirrel hunting with the old .22?
Chris
Hard for me to beleive that the fall semester is almost over. Decide to make the hour and a half drive home from school to hunt tonight. Saw a few deer, only one buck which was a little four point...owell it was a good night to hunt very calm in the woods. So far I have around 4 cords split a stacked and im starting to get the itch, cant wait for tapping time to get here and to try out the new evap.
I bought a stainless steel countertop 7' long with a 16" sink in it for $30.00
yesterday. It even has a backsplash on the ends. I was going to get an 8' piece of formica countertop, but this will be a better way to go.
Parker, with the new RO what flow rates are you going to get and what levels are you going to concentrate to? Also, now that you have the RO, how much wood are you going to put up? Did you say there's 7 membranes...4" or 8"?
Josh
The machine has 7-4" vessels with 2 membranes a peice,,,was told not to try to run more than 8 new 4" membranes by someone that had the same model in the past..I guess the way the pump-feed lines are set up it wont matter how many you have after 8 membranes,,,all new to me,,,,,,I really dont know what to expect,,Think it will one pass the sap at around 800 gal. an hour? and I think I will just not pinch the pressure and recirc. back into my holding tanks while we gather-check for leaks,,try to make enough concentrate so we will be able to boil for 3 hours....if we dont have much sap Ill run it with the evaporator? or just run raw sap? (been told I wont do that after I boil concentrate) I am still gonna finish filling the woodshed just in case there is some unforseen problem...looking at my boiling records I can see that having enough sap could be a problem,,,,so I am going to add as many as I can befor the season..........
Got the walls up and the roof screwed down today,(kinda unique roof),still a ways to go but my goal is to have the room tight and heat on by friday...time will tell!
Parker- If you recirculate while your gathering that will work real good for you probly. When you do that you just run it open flow with the concentrate and the machine wont be so prone to clogging. Just dump water. My seprotech that I ran last year right out of the hole with two new nf270s did 10 gallons per minute of water running that way. My machine would be considered a 900 gallon per hour deal with the extra vessel and just the 5 horse high pressure pump. Thats twice the pace of mighty marvin right there. Maybe that unit of yours would be just as good. Theron
TTTHHH(closeinginonqubecfast)RROONN- was that with 4" or 8" membranes,,and how long are your membranes?
Parker---I think the theory behind using only 8 membranes is this---Many folks feel that if you add more membranes you acheive more out put. This is not true. You could put more membranes in your rig, but it will only put out what the pressure pump has capacity for. An expanded 600 gph machine will not put out 1200 gph, it will only put out 870 gph which is what the pump is rated for. The more membranes you put on the machine however, the lower pressures you will see. I think that the person that told you that, probably didn't feel it was worth putting more membrane to the machine without a significant return for his investment.
I got my stubbies and check valves yesterday. Last night my wife and I made up the drops. Today we're going to install the drops. The next day or so I'm going to test out a high vacuum pump with my homemade releaser.
I've been off all week to archery hunt. It has been terrible. The season started great with a lot of deer sightings. this past week I'm lucky to see a deer a day. The past three mornings were in the mid 20's while hunting. Pretty cold while sitting in the tree stand.
Hmm,,,I am pretty sure I can get membranes for $175 each.(1400 for 8)..But then agine with the limited ammount of sap I am going to get,,,,,mabey 4000 gal. on a good day,,,how fast do I really need to concentrate when marvin is going to still be doing 250-300 gph?
Now,,if I am just running the sap thru the machine and not building the pressure(recirculating back into my holding tanks) will I be doubleing the concentration (going from 1.5% to 3) of the sap? And say I am doing like 700? gallons an hour,,I will turn 4000 gallons os sap into what % of how many gallons in 6 hours?
If I have mountian dew looking sap how much can I run thru the machine befor I have to do a wash-rinse?
Thanks...trying to get some basic understanding....
I can tell you that last year using a 6x14 with 4900 taps, concentrating to 8.5% I boiled every 36 hours. I would only have to boil for about 3 hours each time. I also have a steamaway which increased my sap to roughly 11.5% entering the flue pan. So if you concentrate to 12% to start with the amount of taps you have you wont be boiling long. And no you wont boil raw sap after you use the osmosis. It just wont happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Parker
Parker--I would think if you concentrated to 8%---4000 gallons would be turned into 1000 gallons of concentrate. It would leave you 3-4 hrs of boiling. There are a couple of positives here
1. More time for the woods
2. less wood consumption
3. more sleep
Negatives:
1. Beer to syrup ratio goes down
That old Osmonics machine does not have much recirc flow so the fewer membranes you can get by with the better.
As you add membranes the recirc flow you do have is lessened for all the membranes in the machine. If you ever try to make very high concentrate your permeate flow will be very low and the membranes will foul quick and without good recirc flow will be hard to even get clean again.
I would suggest you single pass and at most remove about half of the water. 3% or 4% concentrate will cut your boiling in half and still keep Marvin happy.
The best money you will ever spend will be on some good multi stage (sand, 5 micron, 1 micron) filtering equipment ahead of that RO. If grungy slimy sap gets in that RO it will all but ruin the membranes and your flow.
Parker- I was using two 40 by 8" membranes in the seprotech. That guy probly knows what hes talking about single passing. The seprotech is older too but it has a seperate recirculation pump that is plumbed into the system. That passes for what the modern ro's use on the bottom of each tower. They are recirculation pumps. As I understand it on a 4" membrane the high pressure pump provides the recirculation for the membrane. You can do like he said and single pass it and try not to get greedy. That will still make you do way more with the evaperator. So say you take 2% and single pass it to 6% thats still way better than raw. I would still think that if you ran it open flow with your concentrate and recirced it it would be pretty easy on the membranes and you could do that while your gathering but maybe once it gets a bit high it would plug it up faster Im not sure. I know that that is not the case with either one of my machines. Its easier on mine to recirc it open flow to 18% and will plug it less than trying to single pass it anything over 8%. I think it may be easier on it than even single passing it to 8% but Im not sure becouse Ive had to recirc it to high concentrate as long as Ive been doing it becouse of my small evaperator. You have to filter it good. You need to at the very least have some of the small filters on the front of the machine and you can buy socks to put over them too. Thats a minimum. Thats all Ive ever done before but this year Im plumbing in a lapierre two foot filter in front of each ro. Im doing it becouse every year we get a lot of crappy sap down here and it does slow the ro down a lot. What sucks it they are 500$ apiece. Ive decided this year it has to be done. You need a big tank to capture permeate water. If its a thousand gallon unit you should keep a thousand gallons of perm. You run the unit concentrating a max of 4 hours do a rinse, conc four more hours do a rinse, four more hours complete wash and then rinse the unit with all the perm. If you want I have some real good books that came with the seprotech. Ill make a copy and send you one. It explains in real good detail how your supposed to wash that unit and probly would be a pretty good guideline for yours. One other thing Im doing this year to mine is Im incorperating a hot water rinse. Roughly 90 degree rinse water Im going to rinse the units with every four hours or if they decline very much in output. Ive put a seperate tank in the shed just for that. Ive never gone to that kind of trouble in the past but the book it pretty big on that and Im going to try it. Anyway hope some of that helps. 802 maple really knows a lot about ro's and the other guys on here do to so shoot the questions out as your going and everybody will chip in and youll be all set. Theron
Patheron, The warm rinse works real well even on the old machines like I have.
Its surprising to see how murky the water gets when you do a daily warm rinse even on a machine that is flowing well. We go to 115 F degrees, the pumps will heat the water for you as it runs.
Parker, don't get discouraged thinking you will spend all the time the RO saves you --- fiddling with the RO. When you see that stream of water going down the drain and you can go to the woods instead of boil it will be worth it.
been bricking up my 3x10 arch. coming good. ill take a few pics and post them in the next few days. Sugarhouse is looking great. just waiting on barndoor rails for our big door we put in the front. hope everyone is doing well. i been cutting wood out of the new sugarbush everyday after school. we got a 50 foot wide path 900ft cleared. were getting there. have to go about 500 feet wide though and about 1500ft long alot more to do
NATE
P.S ITS TIME TO GET INTO MAPLE SUGARING GEAR GUYS!:D
all it,s done here is rain and it sure has put the damper on everything.i was hoping to have my little sugarhouse inclosed by now..but!! i think tonight after work i,ll go out in the garage and work on my arch.i,am also building my own syrup strainer..it,ll be the flat filter type.
yesterday,i got my corny type keg and i,ve been looking that over..i,am going to try and make a releaser out of it.
delbert
My fabricator came today and installed my new replacement door that the oil burner will go into. He did a beautiful job, and it fit perfectly! Just need to install the oil burner and insulation around it. Will post pictures soon.
I got to meet Daryl form NW PA Weds. He brought down my new filter press!!
That is one cool little filter press! Very nicely made. Honestly I didn't know what to expect I just wanted to get a look at it. Once I took a look at it I had to have it, almost couldn't right the check fast enough!!:D That thing is very well made and the machining work is awesome!:cool:
It was nice to chat with Daryl for awhile I just wish I didn't have to goto work that evening.
My part for my mig welder finally came in I will have to pick it up in the morning. Now I get a few welding projects done.
It is amazing how fast time is flying now! Just under 3 months to go and with holidays and maple seminars that I wish to go to, there is just not much time left!
Jim Brown and his wife Darlene were out this way this past week and My wife and I had the pleasure of meeting up with them Thursday evening. We had a couple of boiling sodas and a nice meal at the local Olive Garden and were able to talk maple for a while.
Jim was surprised at how many maple producers there are in and around Loudon. Where he comes from in NW PA he is one of only 3 producers in the whole county. I can think of almost 20 producers within 10 miles of my house.
Sometime in the future when my wife and I have a chance to go on tour we plan to visit Jim and Darlene. We had a good time although the time we spent together was much too short.
Got 2" of snow yesterday, First of the year. I am not ready for it to really start pileing up. I need about 6 more months to get all my projects done for this season.:o
Going to pick up another older used and abused lawn tractor today and joined the Yellow tractor forum!
Maple related!
I did order some stainless for the secret maple project.
Deer hunting has been a bust out the back door. Spent several hours this week in the woods.
House projects still not done!
Based on the above four actions: Does any one have a extra room for a tractor nut, mapleholic, deer hunting, project slacker?
I let you know how this all works out. If you don't hear from me for a while .....well you get the idea:)
Hey the wood fire in the house feels really good to take the chill off. It was snowing a little.
Regards,
Chris
Ray came over yesterday afternoon and we finished the boarding and battening the R.O. room,,,still need to insulate it ,,but that wont take long..gonna be tied up with hockey games with the girls tommrow (gotta set priorites),,,,did get 100 more stubbies in,,,,went to Goodriches and got a bunch of mainline and fittings fri. in the rain...(one 1000' roll tied on the roof cause there was no more room in the blazer)...need to start compleating some of these projects I have started!!!!
I tried to get to Goodrich's on Friday, just couldnt make it happen. If you went, you were within a few minutes of me.
I hate turning the clocks back. Everyone says it is great since you get an extra hour of sleep but all I do is get up an hour earlier. It takes me a few days to get use to it. I still have many maple things to do but I'm trying to finish up a outside wood fired pizza oven. Today I have a order to can up about 45 gal between grade A and B so that will keep me busy for a few hours
Keith
Dennis,
Was nice to meet you last Wednesday evening.You have a very nice setup. I like that shiney SS. Thanks for the good word on the 5 X 5 press. I try to make a good press at a decent price.
Daryl
Keith, I agree, you just get up earlier and can't work as late in the afternoon. I don't see the benefit of daylight savings.
I had to work yesterday so I didn't get much done. Today I was able to finish grading mainlines. I borrowed a site level with the grade marks on it and I wish I had one sooner. I probably would have done a couple things differently. I also got a few rolls of tubing out. It's still looking like these woods will yield about 500 taps.
Managed to get my wood in and under cover today. Down to three things on my to-do list before sugaring season...
- get a base stack
- remortar arch
- setup sap tank & piping
Nice to knock the wood off of the list! What a time consuming job!
Headed to Bascom's sometime in the next two weeks. Need to stock up and do some Christmas shopping. :)
Keith
got a chance to walk in the sugarbush at Stetson's Maple in Lempster NH today. beautiful sugar woods as a result of 30+ years of good stewardship...nice tubing set-up. they don't use spout extensions- but they do re-do their entire tubing in sections on a 10 year rotation. RO, Thunderbolt evap and a nice steam fired finishing pan that they made. about as good as it gets in my book...
Well almost done with the RO plumbing. Had to move one of my bulk tanks so I can build a platform to set it back on. This will raise it about 3 feet which will get it above the RO feed pump. Finally got my strainer and a couple gate valves instead of using ball valves. Finished putting in drops to new section of woods and put in a sap ladder to get the juice to the mainline.
Added on more job to the list...a couple squirrel hunters peppered a section of mainline with two shotgun blasts. Good thing I know where to find them to have them help with repairs. (bedroom down the hall and to the right!) At least they got the line chewer.
over the weekend i skidded out more firewood trees and put more siding on the sugarhouse.i also drew up a plan for my syrup filter.
delbert