Glad to see the pails dry on the union trees this morning, though of course the keeners had some for me. Not enough to collect though, thank gawd, less than a gallon. May have enough by this evening to make it worth making batch #1.
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Glad to see the pails dry on the union trees this morning, though of course the keeners had some for me. Not enough to collect though, thank gawd, less than a gallon. May have enough by this evening to make it worth making batch #1.
Made it to my bush yesterday for the first time since Sunday night and I was kept busy. Collected 517L of sap from 49 taps (1 bucket had fallen off) around noon. Then gathered an additional 64L from the same 50 taps as dusk became dark. Got a small start on boiling but nothing finished yet, my revised boiling set-up was not nearly as effective as I had hoped as my back pan did not reach a boil, just steamed a bit. Will try to improve this when boiling recommences!
As for moths, I saw none during my mid-day gather but I saw several during my gather in the dark. One tree had at least 10 of them fluttering around the spile and in the bucket. I don't like to see them on my first day of gathering but it's so crazy warm for early March!!!
It has slowed down to a trickle here. Turned the pump off and installed a bypass. We need some cold nights to recharge the trees. Perhaps in a week or so.
Talk of moths must be premature. The ground is still frozen and it's only mid March...we could yet get some snow after this mild spell. Nice weather tomorrow for boiling though! I should have 700L.
Well I've got 45l of sap and a fearsome itch, so I collected a little over a gallon this afternoon and plan to finish off my first batch this evening. This year I am trying to NOT use filters and use instead the olde-fashioned method of simply letting the nitre settle to the bottom of a nice big jar then pour it off, and reheat when ready to store. Just fed up with filters sopping up a lot of syrup in particular, even though those same cloth filters can be saved and boiled out.
Oh and last year I had a buddy pick up some of those stainless steel funnels with detachable spouts and filters in em from Princess Auto...they work great for getting out bark etc when bringing sap in from the bush!
Have fun with that first batch Galena. Hopefully the first of many more to come. :)
My trees did zero again today, but was able to get into the sugar maple bush down the street that I also tap. The snow and ice had finally receded. I brought along enough supplies to put in ten taps and buckets. I'm so glad I did. They were running big time. Plink. Plink. Plink.
Help a Yankee producer from Ohio who spends most of his summers in the north country and loves the ahsayers , what are Union trees and keeners?Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Hehe, in my never humble opinion, Union trees are the ones that won't give a drop before 8am or after 5pm....and the keeners will just keep on dripping no matter what all the others are doing. It was my two keeners that produced most of the gallon I collected today! Bet anything I could go out there right now and check, and they'd be going or at least have enough sap in their pails to prove that they've only just decided to call it a night :-0
So last evening we finished batch number four... 101 litres made 3100 ml. Sap/syrup ratio 33:1, and sugar content of 2.6%
Collected a total of 54 litres of sap today.. Holding off on boil #5 until tomorrow (taking a break). But I do have to say that the other 2 moths accompanied by the robins are sure making me shake in my boots for buddy sap! Lol, I actually think I'm traumatized by our experience with 'buddy the sap' last year..
Susan, I love your unions and keeners talk! We do become attached to our trees
No below freezing temperatures are forecast for me a week and a half out. I've hardly collected enough to bother boiling so I'll probably dump the few litres of sap I have before it goes bad.
I'm sad to say that I think my 2nd year is going to be a washout. I wish others a better harvest.
The trees are taking a break for the time being, I replaced a couple of 5 gallon containers on the pipelines, I couldn't justify the time to even dump the buckets as most were appearing nearly empty at the end of the day. it looks like it a -1c for the next few nights and sunny days so things will wake up again. In the meantime I shall continue cleaning up my pan mess from last night. :(
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.
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.
Things sure exploded here today too. Most of my buckets are 3/4 full already. Probably will have to do a collection this afternoon.
Finally a decent run here today, got up to 14C. Collected 75litres from my 40 taps, mostly from the tree on the edge of the yard. The tree in the bush aren't doing much, lots of snow around them still. Hopefully they all produce eventually. First boil tomorrow.
Well got a grand total of 42l today, so very happy...don't think I've ever collected that much this early in the run, will be interesting to see what happens over the next week or so.
Oh and I now have a 4th pail on #9...I was collecting this morning and was just getting rained on, steadily, from 2-4 natural spiles of bark...so I got some baling twine and tied another pail onto the tree...and got about 2l from all this new natural spile setup, about 50% increase over what that tree normally produces now. Only drawback is I can't have a lid on it, so there were some bark bits floating around, but it's definitely sap and not water or squirrel piss as my best bud already suggested :-)
Got a big surprise run today,squirrels have hopefully called for a ceasefire,finished repairs this morning,got the vacuum running,then found more leaks.Left the bush at noon,maintaining 24" vacuum,started picking up sap after lunch,came back to the main bush after picking up sap from the bush up the road to find releaser overflowing the tank,pumped that tank up along with the tub of sap from other bush,then found another tank ready to go over in the third bush.Guesstimating around 900 gallons came in today
Got 85L from the ten sugar maple taps down the street, and most had overflowed a long time before I got there. 70L made it home, 15L decorated my pants and boots.
That's a lot of decorating, I had a face plant and a on the arse plant today as well, came in and the wife said your all wet.;) Gave the trees a little hug today for producing 124 gallons (well that's what made it to the tote) The wind slowed down some of the trees this afternoon, but this morning I timed one tree and it was dripping 2.5 drips per second. I was happy to see a half dozen produce the 2 gallon mark today and they were still dripping at 6:30pm.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Just did night check on the trees, and they're bushed after all the work they did today. Even the keeners had slowed their drip rate to 1 drop every 5 seconds, while the Union trees were already in bed snoring their heads off...but, after collecting 42l as an all-day total...can't complain :-)
We collected 190 litres today! Now I'm starting to remember all the aches and pains of last year's collection.. yay!
Glad to see everyone else's trees have finally woken up! Maple season has officially started!
There's a lot of sweet steam over Ontario tonight. :)
Glade you all are full on hope it last for you all,done down in N.J.