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Had another decent run today. Started late again but ran really well once it started. Gathered around 200 gallons from yesterday and today. Just got in from boiling and got through about half. Making nice light syrup with excellent flavour. Hopefully we get a good run of dark syrup at some point.
Thanks to all for your ideas and exprience. I see this stuff starting to settle to a cloud at the bottom of the bottle already. I will test filtering a few bottles at a lower temperature to see if i can get rid of it. Fyi, the syrup tastes fine.
It came from a 1000L sap boil that took 3 days. I think some research on sugar sand is in order....
I collected 50 litre's yesterday, everything was flowing pretty good around 2 pm when I went back to collect it. Still had ice blocks in some of the buckets, hope to have another decent run today. I am back to work today after being off for 3 weeks due to my wife having neck surgery, figures.... once I am back to work the tree's wake up lol, last week I put in 10 more buckets in fear I wasn't going to get much sap this year and wanted to get what ever I could, now I will probably be over run with sap and not able to keep up lol.
I have a question.... at what temperature do you filter the finished product? I noticed in a few post's back that someone mentioned they may have filtered it to hot?
This is how I've been doing it(not sure if t's right)but it turns out pretty nice. I filter it when it gets transferred to the finisher then again when it reaches 66, and it gets bottled. Each time it goes through three filters and as the season goes I add a few more pre filters as needed. So the syrup is as hot as it can get, well within a degree or two.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
SteveQuote:
Originally Posted by SPM in King
No such thing as filtering too hot.
Tell us your process. I'll wager you pre-heated the bottles - correct?
As usual, I took March Break off to make syrup while my youngest was off school.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
We collected a grand total of 7 gallons of sap between Monday and Friday, then a bit more Saturday and boiled just ONCE on Sunday morning for about an hour.
Sunday night the trees opened up and we dragged home about 50 gallons last night in time for me to go back to work today. This week's forecast looks great.:)
This year's sample bottles in order from left to right. The Sunday boil was too small to bottle on its own.
GAhh! RFR, you jinxed me!!! Here I was feeling all smug and happy that I don't have lumpy sap...then just finished reducing some nearup collected over the last week or so, and put it in jars and on the windowsill so I can admire it...and eh wala, sap floaties!!! Mind, I haven't put the nearup through any kind of real filters (paper coffee filters at this stage, usually) so just going to pretend it's not there. No sign of it when the nearup was cold and sitting in a gallon jug in the fridge. Tastes fine, just looks weird.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Big Eddy,Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
I boiled this batch in my 2x4 pan. 3 days. I draw off after 500 and 700L. I then add these back at the end of my boil and get to within 1 degree of my ending temperature. I filter all this though some T shirts or something. I then boil in a pot over a propane burner to get to the exact temperature. I filter all this though a synthetic cone with 5-6 pre-filters inside. This goes into my bottling rig, which is a plastic bucket with a spigot at the bottom. Bottles are cold. The system has evolved over the years, but is not drastically different than it was. We filter hotter than we used to do.
Very glad that I finally got a respectable amount of sap today, just over 17l. My reds are budding out, and #7 is a red, so must watch for any changes in sap...though *knocking on wood* I've never made buddy- or off-syrup from my own trees, don't want this to be the first year. Only one spile on it is going anyway so I think it's going to call it a day soon. So that means I probably have only 2wks max to get as much sap as I can from my sugars!!
Evening now just got in from collecting 246 liters in 24 hour span..Looks like weather is gonna take a little turn and give use some snow and freezing rain next couple days.
I have just over 500 liters in a 48 hours time frame so I see a boil down planned for Friday and maybe Saturday if they give up some liquid gold.
Nice thing about this weather front moving in it will keep the stored SAP close to freezing temps for next couple days.Hope I can get another 500 liters by Friday my fingers are crossed.