2 Attachment(s)
SmellsLikeSyrupNH 2019 Year in Review
After not being able to sugar last season because of work commitments, I came in to this season with renewed motivation and a boat load of new equipment.
Equipment- Smoky Lake 2x2 Syrup Pan
- Smoky Lake 2x4 Raised Flue Sap Pan
- 3 Shurflo Pump Setups for my 3 small sugar bushes
- Maple Guys Jet Press Filter Press
- Carlin 301 CRD Oil Burner with 4.0 70 nozzle
- Smoky Lake Murphy Cup
- Flow Meter from Amazon
Details
Tapped on Feb 3rd my 1st bush with 3/16 tubing, I'll admit it was a bit early, but I wanted to test my Shurflo pump setups and wanted to dial it in from the learning curve that was going to come from it. Learned right away that I needed a recirculation line and what to look for with leaks in the line. I never installed the vacuum gauges on any of my lines. I had them but after a lot of trial and error early on I didnt want to add to my frustration if I wasnt seeing the Hg I was hoping for. Once I got them dialed in I was happy with my sap flow. Next year as I rebuild my crates with the pumps in them I will add the gauges before i ever tap to not make that mistake again.
Got my 1st collection on Feb 7th, 125 gallons and used it to sweeten the pans and test out the new oil burner. I switched from a 3.0 nozzle to a 4.0 after the 1st boil and got the rig to boil at about 50gph. Tapped my 2nd bush on Feb 12th and collected 235 gallons on the 23rd. Tapped my last bush that same day to have 275 taps total.
Each pump setup ran off of a 12v 80AH Deep Cycle Marine battery. They are VERY heavy and took approximately 16 hours to full recharge them, during recharge cycles I would throw on small lawn mower batteries to keep the pumps going but they would only last about 6-10 hours each. Wish I had a better way to run electricity but no such luck.
The new evaporator pans combined with the RO and the Oil Burner made my season an absolute breeze. Reducing the water by more than 50% on every collection made the evaporator just fly through the sap. The longest boils I had all season were 4-5 hours and that was only because I ran raw sap during Maple Weekend. An average night of boiling for me took no more than 2 hours.
Summary
Collected 3010 gallons of sap and made about 70 gallons of syrup. Dont have an exact amount yet because I havent bottled it all yet, but I have no complaints on my season yield. I was able to handle the amount of sap quite easily and wish I had gotten more.
I have a flow and temp graph I made:
Attachment 19933
Couldn't of been successful without my beautiful wife Puren.
Attachment 19934
