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We were both wrong, but Kat was closer. Looks like Mark and Kat put together the best single day ever at TMM - 57 gallons from over 2500 gallons of sap.
I started recirculating at 8 am and Mark fired the evaporator at 10 am. Shut down at 7pm.
Pumps are fueled up for overnight...no boiling tomorrow, but instead hold some sap for weekend boil. Need to jug some syrup and restock the shelves.
That's a big day on a 30x8! Biggest day for me was about 38 gallons in about 3.5 hrs off 1800 gal of sap...you smoked me. Hopefully the weather cools down a bit.
Took Friday to clean things up and get some rest. Boiled both Saturday and Sunday, making 27 gal on Saturday and 30+ on Sunday. Lots of help from neighbors Chris and Heather on Sunday. Chris did a little unimog brake work, then hopped in the Tacoma and did a bucket run. Still getting 2.7% sap from the buckets. Woods are running around 1.7%. Heather jumped right in and despite not having ever running the evaporator before, after a short tutorial from Mark, she managed to run it expertly and made 30+ gallons and the density was spot-on.
Filtering and jugging tonight. Making B now. Up to 539.5 gallons, a new production record for us at TMM. With one or two more decent runs, we will reach my goal of 600 gallons. Since we have boiled a bunch of sap not from our own taps, once I factor that in, our per-tap averages will be close to our average of .33 gal/tap.
MArk and Kat plan on boiling tomorrow as I am heading up to Quebec tomorrow for a work related trip. If things wrap up early on Wednesday will likely stop at a few producers in NEK VT on my way back down.
Best of luck to all of Maple Nation who are still making some steam.
-Eric
Kat added about another 30 to that total today while I was mostly behind the wheel...
1300 gallons of 1.7% sap on Thursday and 1100 gallons of 1.8% yesterday. KAt cleaned the pans on Thursday, and it looked like we were back to making B the last two boils. Been listening to the Sox the last few boils, so that means it has been a good season here. up to around 605 gallons so far. Plan is to do a final gather and boil tomorrow.
Best of luck to all still at it in Maple Nation...
-Eric
Eric,
Things are winding down here as well. Making Borderline dark/B with good strong flavor but not any objectionable taste. Hard freeze last night and maybe down to 31 tonight and tomorrow night. Rain tomorrow and then a warm dry spell. Pumps starting now and will run til it stops. Probably Tuesday or Wednesday. Have a bit over 2000 now and would love to hit the 2500 but afraid that is really stretching things. Most buckets have stopped. Wish my radio could get some ball games
Doug
1100+ gallons from all taps today...last gather for us for the 2013 season. Didn't bother to check sugar content. Making C now. Mark gathered most of the tubing runs while Kat, Heather and my two daughters (13 and 11 yrs) did the final bucket run. I managed to jug up 25 gallons for a large order headed to North Carolina on Tuesday.
Sitting at 609 plus another 28 in the canner. With the sweet in the pans we should be close to 650. 200 gallons of that was made from not our sap, so it looks like we should be right around our .33 gpt average for the year.
supposed to be 70 on Tuesday- good day to start cleaning up.
-Eric
surprised to get another 250 gallons this afternoon as Mark was pulling buckets and some of the shorter tubing runs. tested 1.9 so we fired up the evaporator and made another 15 gallons.
640 gallons is our final tally. Could have probably squeeked a bit more out of the front pan, but wasn't interested in the mung on the bottom. With the exception of one batch, everything filtered well this year, especially once we went to the air diaphram pump Amber Gold recommended.
when you subtract the 200 gallons from not our sap, we had a slightly below average season with .31 gallons per tap.
Lots to figure out for next year. Looking forward to asking a ton of questions at the open houses toward the end of April. Not sure if we will try and re-tool for next year or just hang out at Mark's and be the filtering and finish guy for Ragged View farm...
Best of luck to those still at it.
-Eric