Ah feel yer pain...we had sun today too, temps of 7 degrees, but it was pretty much cancelled out by the 20km wind from the west. Didn't even collect today.
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Ah feel yer pain...we had sun today too, temps of 7 degrees, but it was pretty much cancelled out by the 20km wind from the west. Didn't even collect today.
Hi All,
I took yesterday (Thursday) off and my Dad and I boiled off the 200 litres or so in our tank. For us the timing was good although the weather sucked (rainy and cold) and there was very little new sap for us yesterday. The boil gave us 5 litres of light/amber syrup, plus some concentrate we left in the pan as the evaporator cooled down. For us this was the first year to draw off as we boiled which was quite rewarding. We played around with the final filtering and bottling after some hard lessons from the last couple of years and have no nitre at all this year, which is great. Overall a fun day in the shack. I was hopeful that we'd have something in the buckets today but there's very little so a weekend boil is not looking that promising unless it picks up big time on Saturday. But ... I have March Break off ... and I am not out of province for once .... so there is hope! MaxJ, you're nearby and you mentioned you've got sap today (Friday) ... how was it looking by end of day? Good luck everyone: May the Force be with you.
Jon
Hi Maplerock
There was a few dripping very slowly by the end of the day, I'm not sure what happened if the trees are in a rest mode still from running hard for a few days, or like Galena mentioned the 20km wind would of been a big factor. The temps dropped 5.5c in a little over a hour and 90% humidity it was feeling chilly by 6pm, it's at zero now again. So if we get the 25-30km winds tomorrow it'll throw a wrench into the gears once again, my trees don't much care for the winds.
Spent the last couple days at my parents getting ready for our first boil. Looks like we'll start boiling on Sunday. Unfortunately for me I am on 12 hour night shifts Sat-Sun so I'll miss all but the last however many hours on Monday. My 5 year old will be taking my place and spending a couple days helping "Gramps" keep the fire and steam rolling (oh poor Gramps.....) Considering where we were with my son this time last year, it's safe to say every second will be appreciated a little bit more than usual.
Collected less than 100L today. It was Sunny but the wind was cold. We still have a lot of snow in the bush so maybe that's against us too.
Total for the week is around 500L. Sap is weak at only 2.4-2.5% pretty much .5-1% off what we are used to seeing. Not too happy. Lots of wasted btu's in our future.
On the plus side, for the first time in a while there's frost on the vehicles! That's gotta be a good sign.
Good morning all,
Well in 3 days and 100 taps collected 4 gallons that's it sad sad sad.
I have about 85 gallons in the storage tank I'm going to boil today and see what happens , I have a feeling that amount is just going to sweeten my psn and that's it. I'm not sure if it's even worth firing up for that !
Any thoughts on that it doesn't look like favorable weather for a good SAP run till the start of next weekend. I guess I can boil sweeten the psns then drain and freeze it till the next run if we get any then dump the sweet in the pan to start the boil with .
Anyone else having this same problem on what to do?
Jeff. If you run shallow enough with 85 Gallons you should get syrup off. Just keep the level low and try to be steady with your firing rate. Better that than letting it spoil.
I'm taking the opportunity to clean my tanks today and then going to hope for a bit more of a run over the next couple of days. If nothing, I'll drain the flue pan and finish it and start again later when we get more sap.
I'm about 10 mins south of Havelock and it went down -4 last night hear so hoping for a decent run today which should give you more sap. Weather forecast has also improved somewhat. Looks like by this Wednesday night we could be back down below freezing at night again (although I'm sure it will change again).
Your right, I shouldn't be so pessimistic, especially with my lack of experience😉Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Completed batch #5, made 2750 ml from 94 litres of sap. Sap/syrup ratio 35:1, sugar content 2.5%
Looks like a me a good day is ahead weather wise and with our freeze last night, we're hoping for a tsunami!
Well, I don't know about anyone else, but I've got the floaties on, rolled up my towel and starting to stroll up the beach to the nice dry hills above...19l by 11am looks pretty good to me. I dread to think what the pails will look like when I get home from yoga class!
Also made some charts this morning ('cause I'm easily amused) of all the collections from 2011 on. Pretty eye-opening to see the vast stretches of absolutely no sap in March of both 2014 and 2015, only to be followed by gigantic spikes in flow all through April all the way up to April 20th. Previous years when weather was warmer all winter long, still had periods when no sap at all appeared but for only a few days as opposed to, say March 13-30 last year, when I got virtually none. Then got slammed!
ETA: Inverary-ites...wait til the sap either stops all together or starts to turn sour/cloudy on you. Then pull spiles. Meantime, don't waste time panicking - it's pointless and unproductive.