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Yes Al, a road trip was definitely in order! BTW, I've updated my 2018 stats in my signature.
All of the sap I collected in March made me 2.6L batch of amber syrup the other night. No wonder the syrup was dark, a lot of the sap was three weeks old. It was mostly frozen all of the time, but still three weeks old none-the-less. It tastes great!
Good morning Karen,a lot in our neck of the woods here have pulled already,either from running out of wood,or making more syrup than last year,or combination of both.Personally I am quite happy with the season,haven't totalled in a while,but sure I am at a full crop,if it weren't for open house next weekend would call it quits now. Keeping a close eye on trees,buds are definitely popping,had one guy try to tell me he was trimming brush the other day and buds hadn't started to swell, told him he needed glasses,and look up into the canopy,not low to the ground where it is cooler
Good point, I do tend to look at the lower branches. My trees still going strong but I'm not! Busy bucking up pallets and putting some aside so I can build a real sugar shack this year with them. Have to clean out my shack's chimney cause it's full of creosote fluff and the last thing I need is a fire, or it'd be going right now. So back to doing stuff indoors with windows open, dehumidifier and fan going. Planning on visiting CDL in Perth today, need more glassware.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce L
Well everyone, it looks like the trees in my part of Caledon have finally awakened. I'll be collecting today! :D
I've been driven inside by the hurricane force winds and the rain. The taps are still running like wild, closing in on 4L per tap. Gathered 80L in a constant loop of racing from tree to tree to tree. Empty, run, repeat.
I swear I could hear the theme song for Hawaii 5-0 as I imagined myself riding the wave of sap that was rushing in. What a great day!
Hehe sounds like our sap tsunami is finally hitting you! Enjoy the late nights and countless amounts of sap! :-)
Thanks Susan. Before I had to call it quits due to weather today I had collected 92L from 28 taps. I'll have to empty them ASAP tomorrow morning because the forecast is looking good for Round Two.
Yep that sounds like a sap tsunami to me! Maybe I'll come up with a design for it :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Yaaaa Finally it’s happening for you Karen, I was getting worried for you.
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Great boil today!!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...8044300ce9.jpg
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All done for another year at my stove! Pulled my taps on the 31st, my trail all but disappeared and turned into an exercise akin to walking on a wet bar of soap! No complaints - ran really well at the end. Finished of with 6 gal of syrup - should keep the grand kids bouncing off the walls a while :{)
Till next year - best to all, enjoy your bounties!!
john
Finished my final boil the other day. All jarred up now. Ended up with 19 litres of Syrup, 905 litres of sap, over 500 collected in 3 days last week. From 52 Taps Attachment 18455
Wow jaystersj!, I can't believe that you are done already. I'm just getting going.
I’m done this year as well. 15 litres off of 900 and I would have kept going but I ran out of wood.
Last weekend I collected 300 litres in 24 hours off of 30 taps (buckets).
Still boiling in my neck of the woods. Clear sap and cold nights. Two thumbs up. Next week will prob be my last week for collecting I think. We have had a very good past few weeks with on and off days. I am running low on the pile of wood I dedicated to maple season and have already bottled psat my last years totals. Good year for me and my little setup. 46L of syrup so far and with 90 gal of sap in the tanks plus a few more good days of drips in the buckets I think I could hit the 65-70L total. That’s more then enough.
Finished off 3.9L of syrup on the stove yesterday. Turned out to be a nice rich amber. I would have had an even better time of it if I'd be paying more attention to the pot. Then I wouldn't have had to spend an hour scraping off burned on black carbon from my stove top and running around the house taking the batteries out of the smoke detectors. You'd think I've had learned by now......
I've had one good run of sap (Easter weekend) and am still waiting for my season to really get ripping. It's been one weird weather season.
Ya that sucks Karen. I don’t finish on the stove for that very reason. I use a Colman stove with LP gas or a turkey fryer when I am finishing over 10L of syrup. Still glad to hear your boiling sap these days. More to come for those in Ontario that have not yet got their fill for the season. Had the stove fired up at 5am today. A new record for me. Going to boil everything down today that is in the tanks plus maybe grab what’s in the bush I hope.
Hey folks, first time checking in here this year. Still tapped here just south of PTBO.
Tapped on Feb 20th. Collected 380l of sap by Feb. 28th and finished 9.5l.
Nothing to collect from Feb. 28th, until March 28th. Crazy!!!
Since march 28th, i have collected 535L of sap, and finished 10.5L.
We have some still to finish, and evaporator is full, just need to get enough for one last boil this week. Sap is still running clear, all our shady trees are still running good, sunny trees kind of slowed down and a few with cloudy sap. Our bush is mostly shaded though.
Oh, I have 46 taps on buckets. I'm hoping for a busy week, but its been a weird season so far, with unpredictable flows! See what happens I guess. I'm hoping to get a bit more, but also hope it ends this week lol
S.
Crazy weather, yesterday we had 2300 l of sap, no boil since last Thursday! Hoping today it finally starts running again. No signs of budding our woods. We have run 151000l of sap since feb 19. Produced 1950l of amber syrup. Hoping for a couple of boils to finish the year off.
Crazy weather indeed! I gathered some sap yesterday and hope that the temperatures start to cooperate better. I'm itching to get some serious boiling done this season.
Still slowing pushing through in red bay. We have had pretty good days nothing crazy but steady in my bush. Still clear and fresh. This is my last week of collecting.
Here comes the ice. Good luck everyone and stay safe!
Done for the year I think. I'm out of seasoned wood and the ice storm is making a mess of things. There is still some full bags of sap hanging on some of the trees but I think I've made enough.
Switched to mostly bottles this year instead of mason jars (still used some mason jars just in case).
Using a coffee urn to fill the bottles was an awesome tip. Made filling bottles a one man operation.
Tried getting a preheater working that wrapped around the evaporator flue. Made a hell of a noise and gave up on that.
20 taps. Three trees I double tapped as they are coming down in the summer. One of them produced zero sap! I guess it will be coming down first.
1050L of sap, 40 hours of boiling (not counting finishing on the stove inside).
17.6L of syrup. Started light then ended darker.
Bought a welder. Plan is to make my own small evaporator instead of the barrel evaporator. Also plan to build a small shed to get out of the weather. I only had to boil in the rain once this year buy watching the weather forecast.
Collecting today with snow boots and spikes. Doing a lot of looking up. ^^ Don't want to get knocked out by falling branches. Still can't get my car out of the driveway after the ice/sleet storm this past weekend. Good thing I've got lots of things to keep me busy around here. Looks like it's going to be a juicy weekend. FINALLY!! :D
Can you believe it? It's April 21st and I'm in the middle of my first major sap tsunami for 2018. It's going to be a fantastic weekend! :D
Well that stunk. :confused:
The sap ran really well for the first few hours yesterday and then shut down completely. Today there are only a couple of taps giving any sap and the others are dry as a bone. Looks like this year I'll end up with half the syrup with twice the work. I'm happy for what I did get I just wish it hadn't taken as much effort as it did to get it.
Wow that is a crazy sudden screeching halt to what sounded like an awesome tsunami. Dang it! Poor Karen :-/
Susan I bet you could hear the breaks squealing all the way to North Grenville. Boiling what is likely my last batch right now. I collected almost as much sap as you did, but your sugar content is far superior with those old sugar maples of yours. My sap total is something like 796ish L. Syrup total to come.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Gezzz I went through the forest today where I tap trees to go do some work for next year and most of them were all running, trees were soaking wet, made me want to go get my buckets and taps and jam them back in.
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Al, I bet you probably could too! Some of my trees are still trickling a bit, I wish they wouldn't. Others have been sensible and dried. Karen, well at least you do have a lot of sap to boil. Maybe use the poor man's RO to make life easier? Sure worked well for me, and will be doing it in the future.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
I had left one tap in my largest sugar maple until yesterday. Collected another 12L for a stove top boil (although I had two pans boiling and went into the garage thinking I had "primed" them enough.. opened the door and smelled burned marshmallow! Ugh.. ruined a good pan I think. at least it was only one of them..). Still getting good sap just slowed down now.. my silvers are still dripping a lot but I don't want those anymore.. went buddy around Easter time. Got a 500ml jar from that last boil though.. I've done that twice since I pulled my taps..just for fun.
These little batches I filtered with coffee filters.. I think I figured out a system to make it work decently.. man do they filter nicely!
Sorry to hear about the burned batch Paul. It happens so fast!
Doing the chore of cleaning up here Karen. Haven't touched sap since Good Friday,sure stinks coming out of the lines. Peepers and snakes out in full force,few mosquito scouts out so hope to get finished cleaning soon
Bruce I'm starting the clean up here as well. Calling it a season. Haven't heard a single peeper yet, but a pair of bluebirds were checking out accommodations at one of my bluebird boxes this morning. Moving on to installing additional raised steel garden beds in my veggie garden. Those things are fantastic!
whats a poor mans RO?Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Al, Susan is talking about removing the ice from your buckets and discarding it. I do that all the time, except I put the ice into another container and use the melting liquid for making syrup until the remaining sugar content in it is about .5% and then I toss it out. At that point it's not worth it for me to boil it.
That’s what I thought, I only use the ice to keep my sap cool most times.
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Yesterday I pulled all of my taps for the season. I almost made syrup in May! That's crazy.
I made syrup once in February (the 26th), twice in March (the 11th and 27th) and three times in April (the 5th, 13th and 23rd). My sixth and final batch yielded 3.7L of Amber, bringing my 2018 total to 16.9L of syrup. A respectable total, but not spectacular.
It was a cold year where the daytime temperatures had trouble thawing the taps. For the month of March the taps were frozen solid from the 3rd until the 25th. Then came the ice storm......followed immediately by the warm weather.... and it's over. Average sugar content was hovering around 1.8%. The lowest ever.
I was hoping for closer to 25L of finished syrup but the sap refused to cooperate. I ended up with all grades of syrup which is a definite plus. The darkest of the batches provided a nice glaze on the salmon for tonight's dinner.
On the subject of equipment, I give my new Denali camp stove from Costco two thumbs up. It was easy to use and held three full size steam trays. I can't wait to fire it up again to make syrup next season. However, I know that I'll be finding ways to use it this summer when I'm in full BBQ and grilling mode. :D
This year certainly had its challenges but in my mind there is no better way to spend February, March and April. :) Counting down the days until the start of the 2019 season.
Actually what I do is collect it, sap and ice and all, measure it (and melt the ice) so I know what my production is like, then put it in 15l water containers. As you noticed the ice has its uses and keeps the sap cold. But when it came to boiling time,I was thawing the containers fully, but no more. Now that I know better, when they freeze up, I'll just drain off the sweet and discard the ice once I can no longer taste any sweet dripping out.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
Hi Galena
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