Ran a little bit. Not much. Still trickling some. Fun times on the trail
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Ran a little bit. Not much. Still trickling some. Fun times on the trail
I took a short stroll in my bush today...yuck! If yours is like mine Yellzee...kudos for dragging sap through that. By this time yesterday I had 120gals, today, only 22gals...I clearly have no clue what makes sap flow. We were as high as 72.3F here today...wow...here's hoping some form of natural phenomena occurs overnight that makes sap flow again...
On the upside, I sold my first syrup today...lolz, I was so unprepared for that...;-] No questions asked at C$22.50/L...to a couple that looked like they'd bought maple syrup for 150 yrs combined...;-]
Cheers,
Russ
Russ, I couldn't even stroll to mine if I wanted to. probably 500 feet of floodwater in the way. 4 wheeler and winch earning it's keep. Wearing hip waders and probably stuck 4 times on the way to the high ground in back. Next year I have pipeline right to the house or I am not tapping! Every year I work on my trail and every spring I wreck it!!
Tonight after work I will be pulling all my stuff and getting it cleaned up, must say, this is only my 3rd year doing this and what a year this has been lol. I'm happy with the amount I ended up with considering the way the weather has been and all the other variables that were thrown in the equation this year.
From my 18 taps I ended up with 12 ltrs of finished sap, not sure what is back in the bush from yesterday as I had to work late and didn't make it into the forest, so the 13 ltrs could be a little more,but I have my doubts.
When all is said and done I will post a picture of my syrup,then it is time to start giving it to the neighbors that allow me to use their property. In the past I have given them syrup pretty much as it is done,but this year I decided to wait till I was 100 % done so I could take a few picture's of it all at once.
I am planning on changing the way I do thing's for next year , so the planning has begun( in my head, just have to make it work lol),hoping to make my little operation a bit bigger :) for next year.
Its been a slice everyone !! Thanks for all the help when I needed it this year, it is greatly appreciated, and everyone on here is top notch, great group of people if you ask me. Stay safe everyone and enjoy the rest of your year. Now i feel sad that this year is over for me :(
Ps... Big Eddy... I will still stop by sometime,whether it is sap season or not, have your # in my cell phone so I will give you a call sometime
Way to go Al, those are respectable numbers especially for this year!
There was a bit of frost on the ground this morning... Doubt anything will run but you never know!
Will run what we have tomorrow. Only have about 100usg in stock. Will decide what to do then. Think with 18 on Sunday and 21 on Monday the buds will be pretty fat.......
Got 33l yesterday, still have some keeners out there producing very well, but others are definitely slowing, it was warm last night though windy so it may have taken the temp down to around zero. No buds yet, sap nice and clear, but doubt I'll get much more over the next few days.
Once I get my hydrotherm this coming Monday I plan to test the batches of syrup I have made and see how close I am to brix. Will probably save the last gallon or so of sap for tinkering with batches if need be - and also so I can learn how to use the new toy.
As expected.... Basically zero back here. Is it bad I feel relieved?
Here is a few picture's of my sap from this year, not the best picture's but you get the jisk ,couple more jars in the freezer.
Very nice Al! Good work :-) I use the same backlit technique to show off the colours, and usually put it in 250 ml jars - larger jars hold more syrup so the colour looks darker in a 2l jar than a 250 or 500ml.
My trees are still dripping away, albeit slowing a little. #7 has dried. Got 9l of good sap yesterday.
ETA: At the local library, just found a new book called The Sugar Season: A year in the life of maple syrup, and one family's quest for the sweetest harvest. Auth is Douglas Whynott. Bio says he is in New Hampshire, wonder if he's here on MT?
Al, those are gorgeous. I managed to collect 20L of sap yesterday and began boiling it down this morning before company arrived.
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I burned it to a blackened crisp. :( It's just not my year.
Now I'm sad for you Karen, dont like to hear you burned it, expecially after the way this year has gone.
Al, surprisingly I took it in stride. I couldn't believe how stupid I was to make such a classic mistake. It's not like I didn't know better.
Maybe if the cold spell comes this week I'll get a little bit of sap to work with (not burn). But if I don't, I'll be first in line supporting the maple industry by 'putting my money where my pancakes are' and buying it from those hard working sugarers out there.
Aw dang, Karen, that sucks :-( but glad you took it in stride. Want some Chateau Snaffles syrup?
Well Karen sorry to hear you burnt your syrup. I may be able to help. Coulpe of days ago I left my arch just for a little bit to bottle a few gallons so my wife could deliver the last of my preorders. When I returned my whole front pan was full of black burnt syrup it was so thick it would hardly come out of the 1" tap at the end of the pan. By the time I had the pan cleaned out I had 6 gallons of of black gunk that I could do nothing with but dump it in the snow bank. that was sad enough but then i had to clean the pans which eventually came down to a wire wheel on my drill it was so baked on. Hope this helps you out i definatly feel your pain haha.
I am also glad to hear that other people are finding the syrup is very dirty and dark this year I thought I had screwed up some how, but I guess it is just the year.
I'm still hoping for more sap this week as I have only filled my preorders and have nothing left for the other clients I have during the summer. I should get some as my season falls behind everyone else because of elevation and such.
Yeah Karen and Scott, sorry for your snafu...I did it myself last week so I feel your pain.
Scott, you are somewhat north of me, but like you, this week is looking very promising. Despite 2 days of no sap, I still have no buds and lots of snow on the ground...so my fingers are crossed. Anyone know if its been a good or bad year "for the industry"?
Cheers,
Russ
Season total was around 23 litres from 50 taps. 18 silver maples, 32 sugar maples. I only boiled 4 batches this year.
I boiled over onto my stovetop finishing the first batch, then started finishing batches right on the evaporator in my finishing pan.
I also started using a hydrometer this year, so I know my syrup is properly finished which I know it wasn't always last year.
Could have been better, but all in all it was not such a bad year. Hopefully next year the weather will give us some better runs.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/14/era6ydag.jpg
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/04/14/hy6unyze.jpg
Wow!! looks good Kyle,by the looks of it you also got allot of dark syrup,I got 3 liters of dark with my last batch being almost black and tasting like liquid brown sugar.
I took the picture that way thinking of you,because last year when I posted a picture of my syrup you sent me a pm about them saying the pictures didnt do my syrup justice. lol, and you told me to use a white back ground or the window sill ( not your exact words I'm sure,but it was somewhere along those lines lol)Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
So this year I took your advice and used the window sill, my wife asked me why I didn't just leave them on the table and take a picture? She said table not good enough for your syrup and picture's? I said " nope apparently not" lol,Galena said last year this does not do my syrup justice so they are going in the window sill !!! She said who is Galena ? I said a fellow tapper who gave me advice on taking pictures of my finished syrup... she said what ever.... you maple people can be so strange sometimes. I laughed and said yep we are a special breed
Thanks Al and yep we are!!! And in food photography of any sort you don't want the surroundings to detract from the colours. After all in your previous chef life you usually plated food onto white dishes, right? Syrup is translucent so it will pick up and reflect back unwanted colours...so a tablecloth or other items will not only be reflected in the syrup but may also lend an unappealing cast to it. Any issue of Food&Drink from the LCBO is a good place to look for food photography and of course food porn.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
Oh yeah you can tell wife my real name's Susan. Galena is the name of my space-cadet cat, which is why I'm using it here ;-)
ETA Kyle...good job on the windowsill shot too! Everyone else, take it from someone who knows a little about photography...make use of the nice diffused cloudy/murky light we have now and put those windowsills to work. Soon I'll have shots up too.
Yes, I find that the sap from my silvers always produces lighter syrup, but the sugar maples I tap often give me a very amber colored syrup. I'm not sure why... I had a lot of yellow sap from them this year. Could have been the year maybe. Im wondering if its geographic and somehow has something to do with the location. Who knows! its good though!Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
And Susan, you gotta love a good window sill shot! It's the only way to capture the color on camera.
Backlight with Sunlight can give some interesting effects too. These would need some cropping and some better positioning before they would be worthy of Susan, but I'll share them for fun. (The pictures lost a bit of quality shrinking to web size, but the effect still shows)
Eddy, nothing makes all of your hard work look better than a ray of sunlight through it. Nice job!
All Done!
Fired up Saturday morning around 07:00. Had around 115usg in stock and had not collected in a day or so. Checked the buckets on the trees. Looked cloudy and some yellow dumped it all. Was less than 20usg anyway. Ran the 2'x4' pan at around 12usg per hour. By 17:00 we were down to less than 2" in the pan. Pulled it off and transfered to turkey fryer. Good day. No issues. Setting up for an easy finish on Sunday.
I took the morning off on Sunday. Dad fired up the turkey Fryer and started boiling it down. By the time I got there the concentrate was at 218*f and all the buckets and spiles were pulled and washed. Awesome timing! Took a brix reading at 219*. Still not syrup. Hit solid 220*, bouncing to 221*. Took a sample. Bang on at minimum density of 66.5. Let it boil 5 more minutes and then pulled it off. Filtered it and botteled it. Ended up with 2.5usg. Darker than last week but tastes the same.
Will post pictures later. Will do a final cleanup of the storage bins and pan next weekend.
well... who is gambling the next few days are the big sap runs and the sap is still good? I am hoping for a huge run as my father-in-law took it upon himself to "boil down" the sap in our flue pan while finishing off a couple batches on the turkey pot... I walked in the door as it started to get to pan bottom level in the finishing area and threw pails of water on the fire to put it out... I think we salvaged everything but glad I wasn't 2 minutes later getting home.
so need enough to make it worth sweetening the pan all over and still getting more syrup.
I'm definitely gambling on it. Hopefully it will salvage my season so that I have some syrup to see me through until next spring. These hurricane winds better simmer down though or there will be nothing but empty buckets flying all over the place.
Not sure how much gambling is involved, but I'm hanging in. I'll be out tomorrow afternoon tipping out any rain and other less-palatable stuff before what I hope will be a few good days. I bottled up everything we've made so far this year and I still have empty glass and shelf space so why not stick at it? If I don't - my "after syrup's done" excuse will expire and I'll need to get to some of the other tasks that have been building up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
Plus - my helper crew is being bolstered for Easter - be good to put them to work.
Not gambling - counting on it! With a few good days we might be able to beat last year's numbers!
Ennis did you have some good days last week when it must have been just a bit too warm at night here? I had three nights with frost but no real sap runs.
suspect vacuum would have made a big difference as it did trickle a bit.
Ennis, I'm with you, we ARE going to get some good days this week. Yellzee I totally agree, vacuum would've made a huge difference for me.
My forest sump is like 1" above the thaw pond...lolz, had to throw away 5 gallons of sap once over the weekend...but that's fixed now. I have hopes for tomorrow, but suspect it will be Wednesday before I see more sap. Luckily, some neighbors who tapped for the first time brought over about 7-8 gallons they were going to throw away. So I will probably boil tomorrow morning in the hopes that sap flows during the day.
All I know, I have no buds on any of my trees, and they ain't going to just bud without sap...;-]
Cheers,
Russ
Well I'm kinda feeling like the Sorcerer's Apprentice...my 5 remaining trees gave me 17l nice clear sweet (I tested) today...I'm going nuts with all the evening boils!!! I already have approx 10l (5 batches, averaging 2l) already in the fridge already, gonna have to start chucking out other food soon to make room for all the dang syrup :-0
Love the pics everyone's posting, once I have a spare moment I'll get some shots of my batches..and if in doubt do what Karen (Run Forest Run) does, set up a white sheet as a backdrop. Get that nice pure array of colour showing through!
And just barely 1/2 hr ago was outside admiring a ginormous rainbow and absolutely fantastic golden-hour light...nice and pale gold, very soft, a photog's dream. Then saw that trees #3 and #4 are busting out the buds like crazy, but then I didn't tap them this year. Checked the crowns of all the other trees and right next door to them are the ones still chuggin out the sap. Nary a swollen bud in sight. I actually stood there and TOLD the trees Thanks for all they've done this year, I'm very happy and proud of them, now will they PLEASE stop til next spring!! Never thought I'd have this *problem*...;-)
I'm anxious to see your pictures Susan. :) They are always a treat.
Tonight I compiled my 'Boxy Gold' box elder nearup and have boiled it down. Funny that the boiling point of water for me tonight was 208.8F (or 97.7C). I guess the cold weather system that is coming upon us is really messing with the barometric pressure. My syrup is now slowly dripping though my filters, buried under 4 layers of towels to keep the heat in so that it drips faster. I don't know how much I'll get from that batch, but I'm hoping that it will be somewhere around three quarters of a litre.
Next in line, tomorrow, I'll cook down my soft maple nearup. I doubt that there will be too much more soft maple sap to come as some of my trees popped today. Most are still tight, but it cuts down dramatically on my tap number. I can hear those darn frogs a few kilometres away, and they better not get any closer. :lol:
The sugars that I have recently tapped down the street are doing their best. They aren't filling their buckets, and their sugar averages 2-2.5%. One tree offers up closer to 3-3.5%. He's always been a reliable tree.
I'm crossing my fingers really tightly tonight, hoping that the freezing temperatures over the next few days will salvage my season. I've now officially gathered the same amount of sap that I did in 2012. Gee, I didn't think that I'd be revisiting a year like that again so soon. But, I'm thankful for whatever this season will bring.
Yellzee - from Wednesday to Sunday we didn't get any more than a slight freeze but got almost 4 GPT. Vacuum was the difference between having nothing to boil and some monster runs. The sugar content was low but still worth boiling with the RO. The sap actually ran well overnight last night and today despite the high temps - but looked like cream of mushroom soup! We dumped it and will hope to make good syrup again later this weekQuote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
Ok time for a couple of dumb questions...yeah I know, I probably should know this stuff already but I don't. Shame on me *slapping wrist*
First off, what's wrong with yellow sap? So long as it's clear and doesn't smell or taste funky, I just toss it in and boil it up anyway. Never noticed it affecting taste. Maybe it darkens the syrup a little, which would be undesirable for the bigger producers.
Second: what the frig is with those big hairy dusty-brown moths in the buckets? Are they a pest/parasite or just some hapless critters with a sweet tooth?
Anyone know the answers, would love to hear them!
I got no moths, but flies galore...I'd say they had a sweet tooth. Funny tho, I get a ton of moths where I am, just none yet.
Cheers,
Russ
When I did buckets moths were a sign season was almost over! Yellow sap I haven't seen since tubing so I think it's water contaminated by bark or something. Weird I came to flush out for tomorrow's run and did find some slightly cloudy Sap Back here. Dumped and ready for tomorrow!
Well, this is only my 2nd year so no pro here, but I am keeping my eye on the buds. I have no buds (in fact I got 3" of snow today), so I pretty much don't care what the sap looks like...there's no way my trees are surviving without putting up some darn good sap to the branches...and that hasn't happened yet (or at least that's what I keep telling myself). Given most of my tapped trees are at least 60'-70', a lot of sap has to run for them to get stuff to the buds. But, I'll find out as I keep tasting the sap and seeing what happens with the boils. I'd be happy with any color sap at this point...(well, as long as its not more ground water which I pumped on Saturday...lolz)
Cheers,
Russ
Yellow or brown sap often happens after a rain and results from water running down the tree and into the bucket. Sometimes you have a bad pocket in a tree and there will be some staining after rain from within the tree too. With 150 trees in the bush, we dump the brown ones. Why add another half gallon of dirty water to 50 gallons of good sap? Occasionally on a hot day a few buckets will look yellowish. Always just a small amount on a too hot day without much flow. Not sure why. We keep and boil that. Makes for darker syrup but still syrup.
We collect the moths too. My pump has a pickup strainer that they don't get through so we just pour them in the collecting tank and take thm home. After the tank is pumped out they seem to dry off and fly away.
Occasionally ants will find a spout. Usually one that is leaking down the tree. I dislike it when that happens as there can be hundreds in the bucket. We end up using a cloth strainer to prevent getting them into the large tank. Ugh!
Funny day today. The temperature went below freezing around 3:00am, and has gone down since...we had an hour when it went back up a degree or so at 27F, but its lower still (21.2F now). Not supposed to be above freezing until 2:00pm tomorrow...sheez...
Cheers,
Russ
Cool. Never thought that just rain alone would turn the sap yellow, but it's boiling away now and I threw a whole collection of tree pee into a batch and it came out fine. Today I got 2l of tree pee off of one spile, and that was it, everyone else was all froze up! :-)
I know it has to be warm enough for the moths to hatch and mature, just wondering if this particular species are linked to maples. There were several dead ones frozen into the little scrapings of sap at the bottom of most pails, so none to rescue, though I've rescued a few others and turned them loose.
Guess I'll just keep on collecting til the sap's running clear and they aren't budding...