Printable View
Good to hear our neighbors in Ontario are starting to get some runs. We have been collecting a little everyday here in Ottawa and I have about 150-200 liters or so of sap, and have thrown out Alot of ice so hopefully, we get some good ratios. Mother nature dumped a pile of snow on us this morning so I'm off to plow snow but so I'll boil tonight and update everyone tommorow.
I'm boiling right now, went and collected the rest of my sap late this morning,got another 6 gallons and all the tree's were dripping really well. Also put in another 5 taps .
Father-in-law boiling all afternoon and now boiling and watching leAfs beat habs while boiling. Collected another 60 or so gallons today's/last night.
Need to go load the Sap trailer again before It gets dark.
Bought a vacuum/milking pump today so next years challenge is getting it running, making a releAser and running 1000' of mainline from the woods to the shack!
I knew there was something more about you than just sugaring that I liked. lol Go Leafs! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
I collected a whopping 6 litres of sap from my soft maples (at 2.5%). Obviously my trees are still sleeping soundly.
Anyone notice the night time lows on the 14 day forecast? Yikes
Yep, sure hope there wrong!
Got done boiling mine all down around 8 pm last night, ended up with 1.5 ltrs (around 6 cups) , looked at it this morning and there is allot of niter in it, I filtered it before boiling,filtered it 2 times before finishing on my stove and then filtered it another 2 times when all was said and done.
I put it in my fridge last night , can I slowly reheat it and re-filter it again do you think? Any suggestions perhaps?
Couple thoughts....1. Are you stirring the syrup or "squeezing it through the filter? I find you have to let it go through on It's own or the nitre sneaks through. 2. Yes you can reheat and filter, but since it's in The fridge I would say leave it settle a few days then pour the syrup off the top.
No i dont stir it as I filter it, I just let it go through the filter on its own.
Reading our shack log book last Night I noticed our normal end of season in the last 6-7 years is April 10-14. In most of those years there is a 4-7 day period of warm weather before some really good runs. So I have concluded that as a minimum we still must have 3-4 weeks left in The season!
I finally fired my new oil tank arch I built. Worked good. I can't give you a gph on it but it's a real step up from my old single steam pan rig.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/24/zesura6y.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/24/ha4e9uqy.jpg
I used a siphon to keep the pans level and it worked awesome. I've got a 2x3 sap pan and a 2x1 finishing pan. I had somewhere less than 40 gallons of sap over the last week and I finished just shy of 3 litres of unseasonably dark delicious syrup. I also boiled over on my kitchen stove for the first time in 3 years, so lost a bunch, and my hydrometer read heavy so it's gonna be thick. I hope it doesnt crystallize in my jars. I didn't have any sap left to thin it out.
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/24/udemuzyz.jpghttp://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/24/ady3asa3.jpg
Sent from my GT-S7560M using Tapatalk
I collected about 12 gallons of sap on my 55 taps (not nearly enough to fire up the evaporator) on Saturday before temperatures dipped down below -15C. It won't get above zero until Friday here and I already see night time lows above zero next week which means the season will be absolutely terrible for us in Ottawa this year. Hope everyone else is having some success.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric in Kinburn
I'm seeing the same trend. We'll be tapped in by Thursday evening and hope to catch a decent run for the next week. Looks like we'll collect for 10 day's and then run it all on Sat/Sun Apr 5-6. Will be 1 single boil this year. We'll be fine. We only need enough to supply family and give away to friends and neighbours.
Looks awesome Kyle!
I collected about 40 gals Friday and 30 sat. Boiled both nights and all day yesterday. Good times!
We boiled most of Saturday and all of Sunday. Total 260 gals of sap boiled off. Somewhere about 30 litres of syrup sitting ready for finishing and bottling. We kept going until about 9pm last night to get the last of the sap out of the bulk tank before it froze (again).
Did struggle with frozen lines and valves a bit, as it was below freezing in the shack and there was a lot of ice in my main tank to drop into the hose and plug my float valve. Glad I had my emergency pail handy.
We were doing well, over 20 gals/hr much of the time and hit 25 at least once.
I made almost as much syrup as we did all 2011, so it's not going to be the worst season ever.
Hey Folks,
My little operation, burn barrel with a hotel pan in the side and chimney off the back. Boiled down about 15 gallons to little over a litre and half of syrup. We have soft maples, Norways, and Silvers so takes more to add up. Could have gone a little longer to get it little thicker, but happy with the result. Wife says too eager to finish, way quicker than last year, was usually boiling for 10-12 hours at a time, this year, 3 1/2 start to finish, sweet......
Good season to all now that it's here, though interrupted...
TurkeyJohn
Hey Kyle, nice rig, similar to mine... question.. are you getting a good boil in the front pan with it right at the front of the rig? MIne is just like that and I cannot get a good boil up there... I suspect the draft pulls the heat back so it doesn't go straight up. Considering putting in a small blower to see if that would help.
Too much draft. Slow it down and pile more wood at the front..Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
Holy crap! That's ridiculus evap rate.. I think I'm lucky to be getting 3 -4 gals/hr - haven't been able to get solid reading yet..Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Hey, I had no problem keeping a good boil in the front pan. I actually kept better boils in the front than the big back pan. I have the space under the back pan choked down to maybe only a couple inches, so a lot of heat stays up front before being pulled back by the draft. The back pan boiled at the front of it very well, and even halfway back but the very back was fairly still. I may open up the airspace under it a bit to split the heat. I don't know what kind of boil of rate I should get on it, but I started around 9am and took it off around 7-7:30, and boiled in the neighborhood of 30-40 gallons of sap. Seems like a long time to me. Still better than last year though!Quote:
Originally Posted by Yellzee
http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/03/25/dymunyje.jpg
Sent from my GT-S7560M using Tapatalk
Between Friday and Saturday's runs we had enough to boil Saturday evening. There were only a few kinks to iron out but overall things went well. The RO ran well, the new sap tank is great (3,000 gallons storage in the camp is awesome!) and we love the new cross-flow pan. The sap was kinda cloudy coming in so we made a low light (almost medium) but it tasted great.
With the new sap tank in the camp we re-plumbed to a rigid 1.5" pipe to feed the supply pump. Even with 2 Celcius sap we still pushed 625+ gallons per hour through the RO all night. Last year we had a 1.25" pipe and we struggled to get 500GPH with cold sap.
The PITA is the fresh snow got packed down into ice and we couldn't get pallets of wood to the door of the sugar camp. We don't have chains on the back tires and with all the weight on the front forks we just spun in place.
Yes it was boiling great on Sunday. Now waiting again to warm up to get more sap. So far this year did not hit the ratio that I have more sap than I can boil.
I have 80 taps and a 3X2 Patrik Paneuf evaporater. On a good day I can boil 7 gallons\hour.
Dave
Is that a flat pan Dave?
Sent from my GT-S7560M using Tapatalk
HI all,
looks like this weekend is it for the ottawa area.. -5 at night +8 during the day. I have 66 our of 110 taps in and will put the rest in tonight and tomorrow. I gathered 30 gallons of sap from friday and saturday.
Good luck to everyone for the weekend because i think we are going to get what we have been hoping for.
Mark
You think after this blast it may all come to an end? The weather going up to the pluses and staying there doesn't seem promising for a long season. Might be short and sweet. If so I should get some extra taps in and collect what I can! Then again, it could get cold again and continue on which would give me more sap than I can handle.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ontario guy
Kyle, that's also going to be my strategy for this year. Put in extra taps and boil and boil and boil. If I get more than I can handle I'll be chucking out every bit of loose ice that I get and I'll be using my refractometer to make sure that I'm always boiling the sweetest buckets first. This season could be fast and furious, and if it is, I'll be ready.
i once saved all the ice and melted it. then measured the sugat at .5%, so it is not much if your running near 3%
i have seen years where is ends quickly but there is so much snow left that i don't think the cold weather is leaving us yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ontario guy
Please gawd I hope so, I have only about a month left before I pull my spiles (unless one of you guys want to stop by and collect whatever my trees produce). Fed up with getting nothing for 4-5 days, then some 1-2 days ad nauseum!!
oh boy, the environment Canada forecast has now changed the nightly lows to below zero for over the weekend and early next week with nice day time highs.... get ready Galena cause it's coming.
I need to get more taps in pronto..
Don't worry.....the forecast will change 10 times before next week! Every time I look the forecast changes! I've given up relying on forecast. The way this winter is going, by the weekend they will forecasting below freezing temps and snow! I hope I'm wrong but this frustrating winter has sucked the life out I me and everyone else! Here's hoping there right for a change!
Supposed to warm up today, but I don't think that is going to happen. Put all the fittings back onto the pans today, as I take them all off and home for the summer so there is nothing light to steal for scrap metal. Plan was to run a tub full of water through the pans and tighten up fittings when everything got hot, but might have to hold off another day for that.
Well, I was at 35F for a good 5 hours today, but no sap at the end of my mainline. I assume there's just too much sap frozen in it. I was expecting some rain, which I thought would be amazing...but alas, its snowing again. My trees have pumped sap on numerous days, probably even today, but unless someone can make a gator go on 4' of snow...;-[
Saturday is my new hope.
Cheers,
Russ
Maybe sap tomorrow if it warms up and starts to rain. Wife won't be wearing the Reeboks this year to gather, that's for sure
Its supposed to rain after midnight, and constantly through tomorrow, that should definitely de-thaw the mainline...here's hoping.
Cheers,
Russ
Just in from tapping another 30 or so trees. No sap flowing out of the holes.snow much lower and a lot easier to walk through. Young lad could do laps in the field in the four wheeler without getting stuck. Spring May really be coming!
The sap started to flow on my tree's around 3pm yesterday, not a huge amount, but some were dripping. Here's hoping for a good run the next few days... fingers crossed
just back from my ridge - maybe 2 gals of frozen and semi frozen accumulation from last 2 days (20 TAPS) - It's +4 and raining here now. Just picked up my new pan yesterday - feel like an expectant parent in the waiting room :{)
5 gallons this afternoon here, from 130 taps. Mainline is still partially frozen and sitting in snow (despite being on a wire 4' above the ground). Has been 37F since yesterday here (didn't drop at all overnight), so now its not the weather but the ground snow that's fighting me. Luckily I managed to get my 65 gallon storage tank set up today so tomorrow I can start drawing straight into it...for now, its 5 gallon buckets...as long as I remember to change them...;-]
Forecast is at or near freezing as highest through Monday...so the snow's not going to retreat much...sigh.
Cheers,
Russ
Just checked mine. Surprised at not much there after today.