OK, going to make syrup tonight from the 92l I have...somewhere between 21/2 or 4 if last year's figures are any indication! And wtf are seagulls doing screeching around outside? Those **** birds only turn up when it's going to rain....grrr....
Printable View
OK, going to make syrup tonight from the 92l I have...somewhere between 21/2 or 4 if last year's figures are any indication! And wtf are seagulls doing screeching around outside? Those **** birds only turn up when it's going to rain....grrr....
Great day out there for sap running, collected 185 gallons (710 litres) decided to call it a day at 8pm and it was surprising that many were still doing a couple of drops a second still. I had some real producers today in the buckets division 10-12 litre totals and still going. I found 3 dry taps today, they were producing a few days ago so I'll keep an eye on them.
Hope everyone had a great day as well.
Caught up this morning after bus runs,11 gallons made in two hours,then got home tonight to face another 1000 gallons,why couldn't this have happened March break week?
Come and get it Attachment 13934Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
[QUOTE=Big_Eddy;304908]Come and get it QUOTE]
If only!! If I was driving by Frankford, I'd bring an empty jug or two.
I collected 16L here today Eddy. Hopefully the dripping will continue throughout the evening and there will be lots to collect in the morning. Judging by the amount of sap in your holding tank, I suspect your spill more in a day than I collect. :lol:
Up to my eyeballs in sap. Another 200 gallons today. Just came in and surprisingly many were still running hard. Still working on yesterday's sap but almost through it. Made another 5 gallons of syrup today. Still light and very tasty.
Well I made batch #2 yesterday, was expecting to get only 2.5l and got almost 4l syrup...not complaining! I was biting my nails a little cause it finished really high, 224-225, but no sign of any crystals, at least not yet. Brought in 4g last night, and then just lugged in another 7-8g from the three best trees which ran all night...haven't even measured it out yet! The other three did some but nothing like what I found this morning. #2 is kickin butt at the moment!
We spilled a lot yesterday! We gather into a 100 gallon tank using a collection of 5 gal camping jugs, plus a couple of 5 gal pails to hold any ice we want to keep for cooling. Total for the day was 140 gals, so the collecting tank was sloshing out the vent, the 7 x 5 gal camping jugs were each sloshing out their openings, and my youngest was holding 2 half full 5 gal pails that were sloshing everywhere on the ride back down the hill. He probably had 16l on his pants by the time we got back:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
My 15yo had boiled at least 40 gallons of Monday's sap after school, but with the new load we were close to full again, so my 18yo stayed up well past when I went to bed. By the looks of the tank this morning, he boiled off 75 gallons or so. He doesn't have class until 2:00 today, so I expect he'll boil some more. Even still, I expect it'll be another long night for someone tonight. Hopefully we'll get another couple of good runs. The rest of the gang are coming home for Easter, so it will be family time in the sugar house. :)
I was bottling last night. All of last week's output - a dismal 8l total. Made up some 100ml maple leaf bottles for gifts. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around putting an Amber sticker on these! Syrup is just a tad over the line into 2015 Medium / midway into 2016 Amber.
I just got back from my tree's , had not been back there since Monday night,I brought back 65 ltrs, and have roughly another 120-140 ltrs still in the forest. All the buckets were over flowing and 3 of my water cooler jugs were full to the top, so I had to carry the full one's and dump them into buckets and pails that still had room for more sap. So right now I can honestly say..... I have to much sap !!! lol... and all the tree's are still running
Looking out the window I can see that the sap continued through the night. Breakfast can wait, I'm heading out!
Had a good run yesterday got home at 630 was snowing pretty good figured i take a peek and ended up collecting 380 lirs to my surprise.
Im away for work today and thinking if that keeps up im gonna have full buckets and drums to come home to thursdayy evening.
If that happens thats over 1000 liters to add to my 750 in the storage tank .
I cant boil till friday like u luck people are doing.
With luck maybe 1200 liters to rip through friday and sat will update later this week.
92L collected this morning. :D All you propane boilers, make sure you have full tanks going into Good Friday. You won't be able to fill up at a lot of places until Saturday.
Collected 22l this morning so that and the late evening collection of 26l from yesterday are all boiling away...and I only collected from my three best trees this am! Kinda scared to go out now and collect from all 6!
So here's what my 18yo left for me to find when I got home from work. Even had a caution label on it. Who says teenagers aren't fantastic??Attachment 13958
Between the two of them they boiled off 120 gallons yesterday.
We dragged home another 140 gallons tonight. Took both tanks today. Attachment 13959
Great work, BigE! And seeing those blue 5g camping waterjugs has reminded me that I should grab some from CT tomorrow...I just learned that one of my 15l water jugs has a teeny tiny pinhole leak in the bottom...grrrr!!!
ETA oh yeah, after 7pm collection, 66l today to play with...;-)...add that to the batch I got but didn't boil yesterday, throw in some of tomorrow's am sap (there's bound to be some) and I might well be getting batch #3 of syrup made!!
Holy crap is all I can say.. Yes the novelty of bucket collection is gone! my husband came home from work and said.. "The buckets are overflowing again" and I was like, hmm... Because we have 200 litres still sitting on our deck to boil.. Lol! What's another 230 litres..
Needless to say, I had to go purchase a commercial shipping drum to store all of it today.
Hmm.. Why am I doing it by propane again 🤔
I hear 'ya Lesley. I had to collect twice today and got 137L. I boiled all day and didn't make a dent. I think I have more in storage now than when I started this morning.....:o Fabulous isn't it?!! :D
BTW, don't forget to fill up your propane tanks tomorrow or you'll be in trouble on Good Friday.
Oh yes,. Thanks for reminder.. That's great that your trees woke up! Congrats on great collection day!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
It was certainly nice of you to share some sap. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Lespetras
Hey gals, burn some wood:lol:
Karen,are you riding the tsnaumi wave? Left the bush tonight hoping it will freeze and shut down,550 gallon tank,close to the top,300 gallon tank,close to the top,400 gallon tank ready to go over,800 gallon holding tank,boiled down enough that i can empty one of the tanks into it,did manage to put through over 1000 gallons today anyway.
Sure am Bruce! Tsunami time!! Not sure how I'm going to be able to gather the sap tomorrow if the forecast for tonight's freezing rain comes to pass. Those sugars that I tap are down the road 7km. Since my sap storage is bursting at the seams the boiling starts early tomorrow again. Loving this!
lol, love the warning note Big Eddy, even though I was at your place a few weeks ago for a short time, your one son I met seemed very nice, and from what you have posted on here, they are hard working boy's, hopefully they are not like that just at Maple Syrup season lol.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
THANK YOU! For the reminder as I'd be sitting there with no finisher without fuel. I'll have to get a couple of tanks before the weather turns to the nasty today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Went yesterday morning to find that things were full and running onto the ground from all 6 lines, so I switched them out. Everything was slowing down for the afternoon and by 8pm I squeezed 175 gallons (670L) as I emptied everything expecting to wake up to nasty weather. The last collection was done on foot as the trails got too muddy even for the tractor to get around, got stuck twice getting back to the shack so I hoofed it around filling 5 gallon containers from the buckets and leaving them along the route. I'll sure be glad to see the ATV back from the repair shop to get around with, this body is starting to hurt feel it from the lugging of 5-6gal. containers.
Finished another 23L of syrup last night, while trying to shove some food down the throat, finished cleaning up it was past 11pm.
What a run these past 3 days a total 465 gal (1782L) of sap maybe everything will stop for a day so I can do some serious boiling.
Glad to hear that everyone is getting lots of sap. Been a great few days.
After a very long day, I finished ROing and boiling at 10pm the last of my 500+ gallons of sap from the past 3 days. Made a little over 13 gallons of syrup. Sugar content still lower than what is normal for me but making up for it in quantity. The nasty weather should keep the sap at bay for the next couple days and give me a chance to do some bottling and clean up. Weather forecast for weekend looks good and long range looks good for a couple more weeks. Was hoping to make 40 gallons but I'm already at 33 gallons so I'm thinking I might as well shoot for 50!
Very glad that the trees are starting to produce and the long awaited tsap tsunami is finally arriving! Here, I'm still watching the ocean pull back from the beach, but am not complacent in the least. Barely made a dent in yesterday's total, but now I have 4 full days to devote to boiling. And I think yesterday was a record amount of sap collection for one day. Some froze-over sap in my pails this morning but the spiles are all quiet. Whew!
And batch #2 looks frickin gorgeous, even though it did what it did last year and just ran hot straight through the filters and left lots of nitre behind, so cold-filtered it again last night and it looks much better. Can't wait to show you a sample from this batch Bruce! And think I may rework batch #1, it looks a little thin compared to #2.
Finished emptying the big 800 gallon holding tank this morning in about 1.5 hours of boiling,then went to prime the pump to send sap up from the other three tanks,pump frozen up. Carried pump up to sugar house,thawed it out with hot sap,by that time sap transfer line was frozen up,fought it for almost 2 hours,then gave up.What should have been a catch up/ clean up day has turned into a delay day.
Eek...having seen your setup and bush and taking into account the rotten weather today...yeah, that would mean a lot of trudging around trying to get stuff to work. Really sucks to lose a day, esp as it sounds like there's going to be a run by morning!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce L
My brother got better than 5,000 gallons processed yesterday but he didn't feel like boiling until 3am so he left me 3,000 gallons to boil tomorrow. With what runs tomorrow it will still be a long day. We are at about 50% of what we need for a good crop. A strong weekend should get us to about 75% with several good weeks ahead in the long range forecast.
Sugar content was poor yesterday - by my math it was 1.5% We'll need to RO it more to cut down on the fuel consumption.
Bruce where are you guys located. Buds are swelling in this area a little bit. So I looking to see where every one is at so far.
I'm north of Brighton in Codrington, some of the tree's in this area are starting bud, but they are the one's out in the open, in the forest I tap, they are not showing any signs of buds yet. But I am sure that will change soon, as soon as I enter the forest I can feel the temp difference in the air.
Buds are all still tight in Campbellford. I tap one red and its buds burst last week so I pulled it. I think my sugars will be good for a couple more weeks unless we get a big warm up and they are not calling for that.
Hey Bruce, I tried to email you a response re my glass jugs and your inbox is full! Anyway I see where I made mistakes (leaving headroom was probably the main one, as the syrup was reheated to 180-185) And maybe you've already tried this, but if you know where the clog is in your line, perhaps something like HotPockets would help thaw it?
Otherwise, made 3.2l last night...would have been more like 3.5l if one of my somewhat precarious filtering setups hadn't taken a little tumble :-( But the remaining syrup looks and tastes great, though still has that light marshmallowy/vanilla flavour profile. Batch #4 should start to taste more like maple.
Now just sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for the trees to get going again, though I bet I won't have that problem this weekend!!
ETA: Famous last words!! I just saw that one of my burly reds, which I don't tap, lost a sizable trunk during the course of the night - so THAT's what that thunky noise was! - so have been lucky enough to round up help and get it bucked up this afternoon, esp as the canopy fell on the neighbour's property. Sad to see half a tree down, but not surprised that it was that tree. The canopy has been producing punky little leaves the last couple years and there's been raccoons living in a hollow in one of the trunks (the one still standing I think). Didn't cause any damage to the neighbour's property, which was my main concern. So grabbing some lunch, then getting on my buckin' stuff and the bucksaw and heading to work. There goes a nice relaxing day of thumb-twiddling!
Clamer,we are 45 minutes north of Kingston on highway 15,lots of freezing rain here,line not thawed out yet to boil,hopefully this afternoon.Buds are quite noticeable in the tops of the trees,figure next hot spell will alter the flavour and be done.
Ok...after about 2 1/2 hrs solid work with a couple of good buddies and myself, definitely getting a good night's sleep tonight! Got about 2 cord wood out of that trunk, and plenty of branches to let dry and process for kindling later for next winter. The chainsawer said there wasn't a single straight grain in that tree so he sure had his work cut out for him. Wonder if it was a hybrid, a red/sugar cross as it sure as hell was as dense as a sugar. It always leaves out as a red though.
Now I have some time to relax before I go and refinish batch #1, bottle #2 (cause I'm pretty sure it's as close to perfect as I've ever gotten) and do a cold filter on #3 cause there's still some nitre floating around. Too lazy and tired to go reheat it.
Sick of propane.. here's the new make shift arch
Attachment 13990
Less expensive, and more convenient (no trips into Costco)
Finally got the sap transfer line to thaw out this afternoon,tied up low spots in it and tightened it,pumped up roughly 400-450 gallons,less than a 2 hour boil,tried bringing the sap over from the other bush but that line stayed frozen.Syrup back dangerously close to extra light.
Very cool Les .That's the first step in " BIGGER FASTER HOTTER " upgrades lol
Boiled 120 gallons in 6 hours .Nothing finished yet weather looks good for today to boil off another 140 today..
Still slow here, I boiled two weekends ago, had 130l sap and finished 3.5l syrup. Over the last two weeks I only gathered 100l of sap. Second boil today, but first I had to thaw the blocks since I have been storing it in the freezer.
I sure expected more sap so far from my 40 taps, fortunately the weather this week looks promising. Still 2 feet of snow in the bush.