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Just got in from another long day. Collected about 45 gallons today, RO'd and boiled it then drain evaporator and boiled off the concentrate. Evaporator was filthy and it's time to start fresh. I have everything completely finished off and the evaporator is soaking. Have 17 gallons of syrup so far. If weather forecast is right then looking like we should have at least a couple more weeks around here and this season might just turn out ok.
Bruce - if the forecast says +1 or +2 C overnight we will typically freeze because we are right beside the lake. All that ice creates it's own micro-climate! It froze Saturday night but not hard enough. Sunday night was likely the same. We still have snow in the woods so that helps too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce L
I forgot to add that we got just under 0.4 GPT yesterday. Assuming today is the same we'll boil tomorrow.
No sap for 2 full days now, bored bored bored bored bored...but hey, I am now an official Maple Addict!!!! :-)
And made pretend I was doing something useful...tomorrow I am picking up an order of some watchcap-style toques I had made up with an askew maple leaf and the words Tap Me inside them...so as partial payment for them I am giving the owners of the embroidery shop 1l syrup to defray the cost a little...so pulled together some syrup from last year's remaining batches, sterilized a jar, heated syrup to 185 and made a nice little blend for them.
Marty we are just 5 minutes north of the Ten Acre Truck stop in Belleville and I have had the Vacuum running since Sat morning and things are still running. We had a good draw Sat and Sun. Then it has dropped to 0.4 GPT every day since. I finished RO'ing the last tank last night at 7. And when I left at 930. There was another 60 gallons. Weird year this year. No snow on the ground here and frost in the ground. But the bush is 90% north facing. I'm sure sometime today it should stop. Till this weekend.
So far we are around 65 gallons of Syrup in 5 boils.
My brother got to the sugar camp this morning and the 1500 gallon tank (for 1850 taps in our coldest section of woods) was 1" from the top! I guess it ran all night. The releaser is only tripping every 6 minutes but if it did that for 12 hours since the tank was last checked it adds up. He will have a long day. The RO was on early and he was fired up before 11am. Hopefully he gets through it all problem free and gets home before midnight.
With what he has in front of him I'd say he'll get us to 0.4L per tap by the end of today. With what runs tomorrow we should get to close to 50% of a crop before the weekend freezeup.
Weird weather right now, thunderstorms, lightning, and trying to get the boil done.
We're getting pounded with hail in a thunderstorm. Weird weather indeed.
Just dip the hailstones in Maple Syrup, yummy.
Collected maybe 100 gallons from one bush this morning,got the vacuum pump running in the main bush to clean out the lines,almost filled two tanks,probably about 650 gallons,fired up at 2:30, finished at 5:30 with another 16 gallons of liquid gold