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Getting a steady 12gph now, comes in chunks of 4gal/20 mins with the sump pump arrangement I have now. This should be perfect as that's the same rate I can boil at. We're supposed to drop just below freezing at 8:00pm or so tonight, so it should be interesting to see how long the sap runs. Right now I'm looking at forecasts which should give me sap for the next 5 days in a row...;-]
Cheers,
Russ
Kind of a disappointment here today Marty, sap started tripping the releaser about every minute around 11:30, started boiling at 1:00 and all finished and walked out of the bush by 3:00
I had a good day, just small time sapper compared to some of you lol,18 taps and I collected almost 14 gallons, boiling away right now.
It started to run here around 930 am, I was in the forest around 915 and nothing was running, I was sitting on my atv watching a fox chasing something under the snow in the distance and all of a sudden I heard... drip drip drip!! I jumped of my atv and ran over to my favorite tree and sure enough it was dripping, I went to some other tree's and they had started, so I went back to my favorite tree and gave it a bug hug and said thank you... lol, glad no one else was around to see that!!!
Great news BrutemanAl, always nice when it starts...I was getting 12gph for about 2 hours, then it shot up to 16gph...still going at that rate.
Cheers,
Russ
Buckets were overflowing as of 2pm. Did a partial collection then. Some of those buckets are half full again. By far, the best run so far here. Well over 150 gallons.
Finally used my low-scale refractor. My sap is coming in at 3%, which sure surprised me. Anyone else use one?
Cheers,
Russ
Went back down to check the releaser and holding tank after more work done at upper bush and sap was going over the top!!!!! Big shock, trees must have opened up over the supper hour. More to boil tomorrow between bus runs.
78 litres collected today. Looks like it may be finally here.
LOL I can relate on both fronts - got 33l of sap so that's what almost 9 USG? on 18 taps too. Mind, tree #7 is slowing right down, but that one little red in the far corner was often the only tree producing during March when nobody else was even close to trying.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
As for the tree-hugging and saying thanks...hey, every time I go out to just check the pails I talk to the trees, give them encouragement when they're not running, kudos when they are and I'm collecting. And at the end of each night I go out and make one last walk-around and say thank you to each tree in turn. I'm sure some here are rolling their eyes but hey, it never hurts to put good energy out there.
In fact...and no word of a lie...back in March the bf and I were outside and he tossed a snowball at my superproducer, #2. I had just told him to not do it, but of course he did anyway. Well, soon every other tree is producing except #2. So I made the bf go out and apologize to #2 for throwing a snowball at it. And now #2 is pumping out sap, gave me more today than the other trees did. So treat your trees well!! What goes around comes around.
Loooooooooooong weekend.
Ran 205usg through our new 2'x4' pan.
Saturday was a miserable day. We are still outside on a block arch so wind is a major factor. Once we set up out wind breaks we started to get some results. Went through about 160usg on Saturday (including the 40usg left in the pan) With pre heated to boiling sap we were only able to get around 8usgph of evaporation. Wind is nasty. I lit fires and fryers at 06:45 and was boiling by 07:30, last add was at about 21:00. I cover the early hours then dad covers the later hours. He gets to sleep in and I get home to the family at a decent time.
Sunday promised to be better.........
Peach of a day! Sunny, warm and fairly calm. Ripped through the last 45usg of raw sap and 40usg of concentrate. By 15:00 were down to about 1.5" in the pan. Pulled the pan off the fire, filtered the concentrate, and added back to turkey fryers to finish. I find it to be so much less stress to finish 12" of syrup in 2 turkey fryers than less than an inch in a 2'x4' pan. I'd have to try hard to burn the syrup in a fryer! We achieved closer to 12usgph. By 16:30 we were at 221* and right around 66.5 brix (using hydrometer and temp conversion chart since I can never get 211* hot test syrup in my test cup. Always seems to be between 200 and 205*)
Bottled around 17:00 and ended up with around 4.75usg of syrup. Cool maple / straw colour. Taste is prominent maple with our traditional touch of smoke. Exactly what we were after. Sap was a little weak (2.75%) which had us running at about 44:1.
Did a late afternoon collect. Picked up another almost 75 gallons. One more boil next weekend and we are done no matter what.