We're boiling everything we have left tonight. Another 40 gals to go to empty. We collected today as we wanted to dump any rain water but only got 7 gals from over 150 taps so nothing to speak of.
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We're boiling everything we have left tonight. Another 40 gals to go to empty. We collected today as we wanted to dump any rain water but only got 7 gals from over 150 taps so nothing to speak of.
Heh, all too easy when you only have 6 trees...and I hug them and kiss them and squeeze them and call them George :-) Last night made 1500ml of a nice light amber with the telltale first batch notes of vanilla and marshmallow at 222-223 (will probably get a digital therm as steam makes it difficult to read the older kind), was anticipating more like 1200ml...but then, I didn't filter it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lespetras
So this morning there is a nice little nitre mountain sitting in the bottom 200ml of the jar! So this means that my educated guess of 4% sugar is on the money. This amber is unusual for my first batch, but I've had it before...in fact last year's first batch was also a light amber. I'll probably get a pale gold batch somewhere along the line.
ETA: Just very carefully poured off the 1200ml I was aiming for, but I still have about 100ml syrup left sitting atop 200ml nitre...letting that muck go cold through a paper coffee filter, but will probably reheat it later and put it through cloth. Anyone have any other ideas? I hate to waste any syrup!!
Some people who don't filter tend to siphon. That could work.
On a different note, I'm not seeing the panic on here that I'm feeling. It seems to me (and theweathernetwork.com) that syrup season is pretty much over before it really got started. I've only been at this for a couple of years so PLEASE, someone with more experience, tell me not to worry. I'm in Inverary (North of Kingston). Anyone close to me feeling the panic I am?
Everything is dripping again today, so it's still good. How long it will last is another thing.
Hi Jeff,Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffwills
I'm also in Inverary, and yes I am a little panicky. Like u, This is my second year at it. Last year seemed a bit more predictable weather wise. These warm days and positive temp nights are means for concern.. Like I've mentioned, I've already noticed 3 moths in my buckets so far, a bit early I think. As I remember that didn't occur until April last year. That accompanied by a later tapping start means prob less syrup but who knows.. It's very hard to predict the weather. 😆
Thanks for the siphoning idea, Jeff, I'll look around and see if I have something suitable. A turkey baster could work, or maybe that syringe thingy from my icing kit.
In terms of the weather and the season, we all pretty much knew that it wasn't going to be nice and predictable like last year's run. I would not waste time and energy panicking, just...literally...go with the flow. Don't go yanking spiles just yet. If your trees have an off day (most of mine took yesterday off and at 2pm today, are only just waking up again) with little or no production, just deal with the sap you already have or bottle up the syrup. If you pull spiles now (I've heard of impending 'reverse weather' patterns next week, whatever that means) you could miss another good run or two. I can tell you right now that each year that my season realky kicks in between March 19-23 and stays strong til I pull spiles, usually mid-April.
Jeff - I'll tell you not to worry - you can't do anything about it anyway. Make syrup while the sap runs, and gather wood otherwise. There are good years and bad years and this may be one of the latter, but until the buds open up, it's anyones guess what will happen.Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffwills
As an example, in 2013 I was done, cleaned up and ready to pull taps on the 29th of March as the forecast for the next week was hot and rainy. At the last minute, I had to travel over the weekend so the buckets stayed out until I could get to them the next weekend. The kids collected a dribble on Saturday before the heat. However, late Wednesday it cooled off, so we dumped the rain (and moths and bugs) from the buckets to see what would happen. We made almost as much syrup that weekend as we had the whole month before.
Leslie - leave those poor moths alone!! They just want a snack. Scoop them out and send them on their way. And NO - moths do not mean the season is over. Moths just mean that you have enjoyed a couple of nice warms days. In previous years, we have made syrup 4 weeks AFTER seeing moths. I'd much rather have moths in my buckets than buzzy flies and ants.
We got our first boil done yesterday. Not a lot of sap but enough to fire up the RO and the Beast. The sugar was weak but using the RO to re-circulate back into the raw sap tank we were able to get decent concentrate fed into the evaporator. It was very noticeable when the high test sap started to run out and we were boiling stuff that had only been through a single pass.
My uncle came in and joked about all the boiling we were going to do and not get any syrup today. I told him we'd have syrup coming off the end in under 2 hours from the time the fire got lit. He didn't believe me but guess who was right?!?!? I love boiling concentrate! 5 hours total firing with only 3 where we're getting runoffs and we made 275L of Amber - Rich. Still feels weird to say the light syrup we made is Amber.
It had a beautiful sparkle and looks great in the glass. The Hannah Checker said it was 68 LT.
Thanks for posting your chart, Big_Eddy! I remember seeing last year's visit and thinking that was precisely what needed to be posted here :-) Going to go walk the trees now and see if they're all still lazing around. Pretty sure they'll be busy tomorrow.
ETA: Yep, even the keeners were hanging out with the Union slackers round the water cooler all day. Time to give em the old 'Smarten up or you're firewood!' speech.
Not much happening today even with the sun, couple of buckets produced and a couple of lines did a dribble, 30 gallons for the two days of collection and it tested out yesterday to 3% so that's pretty nice. I'm not too worried as I got the big tote for collection now if it gets busy in the collection tomorrow. I hope to get my pan back from the repair shop in the morning as he's try to make it flat again, I've been cleaning and fixing things up for two days now since the burnt pan affair.