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Just went and collected 26 ltrs , took 8 hrs to get that from 8 taps , boiling away as I type :)
After all was boiled I ended up with just over a liter of liquid gold :) light colour and very tasty and sweet , I expect to get the same amount friday (today) and sunday , if not more , few of my taps were almost flowing sap which I had no idea that happens
Hey all
Seeing that images are kept kinda small on this site, and I have perfectly good easier-to-see images on another site, I've set up this link to a folder where I have already posted some pix from this year. If you scroll down below the images you can read my comments in the Photographer's Comments area, so you know what you're looking at.
http://www.dpchallenge.com/portfolio...ction_id=41009
collecting sap I think is an addiction , I cant wait to be done work today to get back in the forest to collect the sap
Thursday wasn't a bad day - 70 gals from 100 trees. Expecting the same again today. Making steam tomorrow.
Hoping for 3 Gal of finished syrup tonight after boiling all day. Hard to keep up with the boiling. it needs lots of beer!
Dave
Wish I could brag too but really can't, the 20km wind from the NW seems to be robbing the trees of the nice warm 4 degrees it's meant to be today. Driving me a little crazy and making me think of building a really high wall on the north side of my property!!
Ran well for me also about 45 gallons form 64 taps. hope for the same tm
password protected?Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
It was, but then I fixed linky so it should be OK now.
Big day today. Finally got time to check the lines. Lots of loose taps and one that i either forgot to hook to a tap or fell off a tap (both seem unlikely but no other ideas) so loosing sap from about ten trees as that was the closest tree to the mainline.
Finished up leak repair on the modified pan with flues and now starting the inaugural sweetening. Im about .5 us gallons of sap per tree each of the last few days so lots of boiling to catch up on.
Geussing nobody is one here as everyone in this area is boilig like crazy! Busy few days. Batch #1 finished but it has a bit off a funny taste to it. Many have sampled and its somewhere between a strong maple flavour and metallicy. Any thoughts? Only new equipment in this batch is a new plastic food grade holding tank. Flavour from that or old filters or junk in lines first run? Or maybe just unlucky?
You guessed correctly. Ontario is now the land of the midnight boil. :lol: Gusher central.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
Sorry to hear about your first batch. Hopefully you'll figure out what's going on with it.
Just finished my 2nd batch, pale clear gold yet again...*scratching head*...which I normally get closer to mid-run. Ah well it tastes fine. Have almost 5g on the woodstove to start evaporating down from today alone. Anyone else still getting syrup that looks more like honey than amber syrup?
I'll let you know what colour I get whenever this marathon boil finishes. It will be finished on the stove tomorrow.
I'm having the same issue here as well. But I'm the only one that tastes it...my kids thought it tasted fine. I'm hoping it's my pregnant taste buds. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
Could it be the arch? This year we cobbled together enough concrete blocks to fashion out a crude block arch and I put some grates I had lying around in there to get some airflow. A few melted in there and I was wondering if the ashes from the melting metal might have flown into my pans. I'm going to get my husband to taste the syrup to see if he gets the same metallic aftertaste I'm getting.
Pretty pleased with my boil rate this year though. Probably quadrupled it. Managed to boil through 200L over the course of 7 hours of keeping the fire going on my 2 evaporators. Going to take a break tomorrow from boiling since the forecast is rain the entire day. I don't feel like getting sopping wet in my condition. :emb: And since we're keeping up with the collection and boils, I can afford to do that...at this point anyway.
Hope everyone else is doing well. Looks like we'll be getting a small break by midweek before another run. Yay!
Mine looks like Honey also , but taste's fantastic , so i am not complaining , gave some to a few neighbors and they asked why it looked that way ? It doesnt look like that in the store's they said , I said shut it lol and taste it , they tasted it and said WOW !! Thats some good stuff right there lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Cool, good to know I'm not the only one! Maybe this year will be remembered as the Year the Syrup turned to Honey :-)
interesting color on that syrup! Mine has all looked normal. I've finished 1.25litres and have more ready to finish off tonight hopefully. Maybe about 1.5 - 2litres if my guess is accurate. Things should slow down this week... and by the looks of things may not be very good from here on out.
Attachment 7325
Nice job Kyle. Here too, it's going to get a little cooler in the next day or two, but I'm pretty sure we are still in for one heck of a run in the weeks ahead. Get ready for anything!
Three batches boiled, filtered and bottled, 25l in total, all light.
A lot of nitre in the first batch, the other 2 had very little.
Was averaging 20 gals./hr on the first boil, the next 2 I was giving tours so the evaporation rate was spotty, down to 10 and up to 18.
Not a lot of sap yesterday or today - used today to get the finishing done. Not sure about tomorrow but the forecast for the rest of the week looks good.
Finished the batch I boiled Sunday. Worked put to another 1.25 litres. About the same color as my first batch, but maybe sweeter :) yum yum. More sap boiling and hoping for more to run.
I'm not far from you and Sunday and Monday were not good for me also , only collect about 20 ltr both days combinedQuote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
The conditions seem right for making extra light syrup this year! What we made Friday is the lightest we've ever made, with Saturday not far behind. Sunday's syrup was lighter than we make first run a lot of years! When we boil the evaporator through today I expect we'll make a bit of medium. Hopefully we're in for a big week next week after the thaw!
Any chance we could see a picture of this very light syrup? I'd love to see it!
BTW, the sap in The Golden Horseshoe is not running either.
I hope you're right Ennismaple. I dont want to stop boiling yet, still havent got a gallon finished and I'm not sure I've even got enough sap to do it.
In lanark area it tends to be a bit cooler than Smiths Falls area, but I'm crossing my fingers that things keep running.
I don't have a picture of the syrup but it did make the following maple sugar. Attachment 7363Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
It's not uncommon for producers on small evaporators or cooking on their kitchen stove to make lighter syrup than us bigger guys. It's harder for us to keep everything as clean and the evaporator makes more heat (we're over 2100 F beneath our pans) so we can get more caramelization - meaning darker syrup.
Ennismaple, that maple sugar looks so delicious. I'll have to give that a try one year.
Karen, there is a linky at the bottom of my signature to my setup and samples of syrup from this year and years past if you're interested :-)
ETA: Ennis...wow no wonder you get darker syrup, I make probably 1 bazillionth the amount of syrup you do!! My mentors' syrup that I saw yesterday is a light clear amber, and they are only a 10-min drive from me. Their bush is scattered throughout the small hamlet where they live, and they have I think 120 taps.
I have yet to process my 3rd batch as would like to get a bit more before I boil, but will be curious to see if it's honey again or the more usual amber!
Galena, can't access pics through your link. I'd like to see how light your syrup is. It asks for a login and password...
Aw pooh, thought I had it fixed. One moment...Quote:
Originally Posted by Kyle Baker
*tinker tinker swear swear tinker*
OK should work now. If it still doesn't, PM me.
Here is a picture of some of the Syrup I made on Monday night
Attachment 7373
Batch 2 tasted fine, Up to 17 liters. There would be more but it didnt all go through the filters so i dumped it back into the next finishinf batch. 2 huge pots of almost syrup to finish hopefully tonight.
Only difference in batch 2 was not using any defoamer. Bottle is a year old so thinking maybe it has gone bad? It tastes awful but i cant say i have ever tried it straight out of the bottle before!!
Bruteman Al, your syrup looks great. Congrats!
Galena, your link always asks for a password etc. I guess Kyle and I are on "do not fly" list when it comes to your link. lol
I have been having no end of trouble trying to finish off my FIRST batch of syrup. Yes, FIRST.
I was all excited to be using TWO turkey fryers this year, but the second one didn't work. Took it back and exchanged it for another. Got all set up again yesterday, hoping to finally boil off all 114L of my sap. The SECOND fryer didn't work either. It wouldn't get hot enough to boil my sap. Fast forward another 11 hours of boiling yesterday and I had to pull the plug at midnight because there was no end in sight and I'd just emptied my remaining propane tank. So far I've got 21 hours of boiling invested in this batch. Sheesh!
At 9 a.m. I started up my working turkey fryer, put the concentrate in a pan and 2 hours later I've got a pot of near syrup ready to get up to temperature on the kitchen stove. I can't believe how long this has taken me, but when you have equipment failure after equipment failure, all bets are off.
So, excluding any other unforeseen acts of God I should be looking at my first batch of finished syrup this afternoon. Wish me luck!
Hey Karen... I remember a little vent type thing on my turkey fryer that you opened and closed to adjust airflow besides the main knob...check for that and adjust it might get it hotter
Galena - It's a different scale but no less of an obsession!Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
When we first took over the operation after my father's passing I would obsess over the colour of the syrup we produced. Over the past few years I've come to realize much of it is beyond our control. If the tubing is washed each season, the tanks are washed each time they are drained, the evaporator is cleaned periodically and we manage a consistent fire we've done what we can on our end - the rest is up to Mother Nature! We sometimes lament we make too much dark syrup but I know producers who wish they made more dark and less extra light!
Boil...boil...boil...Looks like it will never end! I am so glad I did get a new evaporator this year. I do about 8 gal/hr compare to 4 last year. today I never tough it would run it is only 1.5C but the only tree in my back yard is "pissing". I can imagine the collect tonight in the sugar bush.
So far 9 Gal of finished liquid gold and more more to come.
My best year so far here in Coldwater ontario!!!
Dave
Yes, there is a little vent at the end of the gas line where it joins onto the actual unit. I tried opening and closing it to vary the amount of air, but couldn't seem to see any difference. Do you remember if your fryer gets hotter when the valve is more open or less open?Quote:
Originally Posted by DonMcJr
On mine you turn the red control knob all the way counter clockwise and that is full blast , then turn it clockwise to turn it off full . One thing I do remember a friend telling me , when you hook it up to the propane tank , open the propane valve slowly , sometimes when you just start cranking it open , the small regulator on the turkey fryer has a small rubber baffel in it and the pressure can cause it to stick and you get what you described , sometimes you even have to remove the turkey fryer hose from the propane tank and start overQuote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Hey Al. Thanks for the tip. That covers the red control knob issues, but what about the air intake valve at the unit end? Any advice about that?
I'll definitely try what you suggested before I take this unit back. Oh, another question. I had the red knob control open to full when I turned on the propane. Do you have yours turned to the closed position before you turn on the propane? Did you get your fryer at Home Hardware?
That may be the issue. You should have the valve closed when you open the propane tank knob.