Oopsy better go fix that...I meant to put in $15/USD, $20/CAN!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
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Oopsy better go fix that...I meant to put in $15/USD, $20/CAN!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Put the vacume pumps out today and was pleased to collect 80 gallons from 120 taps. I then proceeded to collect 10 gallons from 70 buckets (a complete waste of time). Sugar content up a bit to 2.5%. Here's hoping this mini cold snap will reset things and get us a few more good runs!
Got just under 3l today. Sunny but windy, the wind always cuts down on any benefits from the warmth of the sun. Insane weather pattern this weekend and apparently into next week too. Just making nearup and adding to it as I collect, don't want to make just a teeny little 1.5l batch of syrup from what I have, but not enough room in freezer (or snow outside) to keep about 1gallon nearup cold. *sigh*...so will I be stuck waiting til April for the spiles to blow out as happened in 2014?
Shouldn't be a problem keeping the sap cold now outside, -9c it should be looking pretty frozen come morning. I think we were all hoping for colder nights, but now we also need some warmer days to go along with them. Nothing running today, must of been the northerly breeze cooled everything down.:(
Good news here Galena. None of the blue health spiles fell out this year. Yeah, well, most of the time the buckets were empty. lol Seriously, I was happier with them this year. I think the main difference in their performance was "user error". I think I tapped when the trees were still too frozen in previous years. This year I waited until the bark thawed a bit more.
Good to know, Karen! I still have my doubts as I know I didn't tap til the weather was really suitable last year...now we just have to wait for someone to devise a bark-o-meter to let us know when the bark etc have thawed enough to allow a tight seal, health spiles or not!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Truly oddball weather lined up for the next week or so, fairly cold, calling for snow! Plenty of time for thumb twiddling and staring at the trees. May just go ahead and make batch #2 but knowing it'll be less than 2l kinda bums me out a bit. Maybe I'll just keep chucking the nearup on the stove and let it cook down a little more every couple days.
It started late but sap ran really well this afternoon. Was still dripping like crazy when I came in at 7. Tomorrows weather looking good too so hopefully have a good load tomorrow night.
Hey all
My trees just won't run think they are defective. Lol
Been in the minus digits past few nights and sunny during the day but only daytime highs of 2Cor 3C
I'm looking for a good run but it's just not the cards I'm thinking.
Been reading a couple post of people that are 5 minutes or so South of me and wondering how their trees running and mine aren't
I have a bad case of tree envy lol
This week's forecast looks bleek plus and minus temps but with flurries and clouds and even a possible shower.
So I will cross my fingers and check my tanks and hope for the best
I have been in the same boat as you, I am in Codrington south of Campbellford and people all around me report on how well their sap is running, I even went to the extreme of hugging the tree's to see if that helped lol. I went over around 2pm yesterday and everything was dripping like crazy, I will be going over this morning to collect it, I expect to get around 60L or so.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB
It was already close to 4pm before my trees thawed out enough yesterday to start to drip. But by 7pm it was below freezing again and it had all stopped. Got 15L which I'm giving to my nephew for him to have some fun with on his BBQ. That ought to be more than enough to ensnare another future sugarer for life. :lol: Let's all hope that our daytime temps warm up faster around Ontario today than they did yesterday.
Like i mentioned before, it usually seems like the shoe is on the other foot. When I went back at 8 to turn off vac pumps my one pipeline tank was overflowing. I was shocked. I think this afternoon will be good too. Hang in there, I think we have a couple good weeks ahead of us yet.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
Everyone...just hang in there! Leave those spiles in til the buds pop. I might not need the floaties for another week but I sure haven't deflated em and put them away yet!
Had fun visiting with Bruce Leggett today, very much worth the drive just for what I learned during the two hours there. And next visit I am definitely bringing some syrup along to be assessed and critiqued by a pro. Today was also the first time I've actually seen a vacuum operation running, so was glad that the trees let up enough sap so I could see how the system works. Thanks again for your time and fielding the incessant questions, Bruce! :-)
Well, it's been dead here for a week...and no end in sight for another week or so.
I just finished, filtered and bottled a batch. Looking for some feedback on this bottle. See image. Looks like jelly. Any thoughts on what this could be. This is my 9th year and I have not seen this before.
Thanks.
Attachment 13904
It looks like I got a lot of sugar sand....must have filtered too hot. What a pain. 38 bottles.
Very strange...never seen anything like it. How does it taste? Is the flavour OK at least?
OK ! OK !
I been wrong once before lol. My trees are not defective like I was staying in a earlier post.
At 10am there was maybe a liter or two in all my buckets and main line tanks , but now it's 630pm and I just poured a coffee after collecting 267 liters in 5 1/2 hours WOOOOOOOOOOOO ! ! ! (Said in Rick Flair voice) . :cool:
So needless to say I love my trees again after pumping out a average 2.38 liters per spile.
I'm just hoping they pump away later into the evening and get another good co!election after work Monday evening.
It's been a long wait and a frustrating start to sugaring season .
Hope my fellow sap addicts trees start running for you !
Catch ya later boilers !:lol:
Nope couldn't tell ya what happened never seen maple bottle like that before !
It took until the afternoon before things thawed out to run, and it was a great run of 65 gallons collected. Still ice on the puddles and had three buckets that still had icicles still stuck there at 4pm. Had one bucket laying on the ground, the hook broke on the 5/16" Health Spout, great producer so I'll hang a heavy S hook instead.:(
We often have a small amount of "that" suspended in our finished product. It has no flavour and a waxy consistency. It will settle to the bottom and form a cloud within a few days to a week or so. We now bulk bottle 90% of our yield, let it settle, then package into smaller bottles to use and give away. We like to give away in glass so you can see it but have too much pride to let the cloud remain. Lol. Pain in the rear but but it looks good in the end.Quote:
Originally Posted by SPM in King
Oddly enough, this year we had 1 boil create the cloud (starts off as suspended particles that are not visible at bottling temp) and 1 batch stay clean. The only difference was that 1 batch sat as concentrate from Sunday until finished on Tuesday. The other batch was started and finished in 1 day. This is the first time in years that we ran a full boil from start to finish in 1 day. We usually marathon boil a 1000L over a couple days then finish. We will try another 350L 1 day boil to see if we can replicate the clean syrup.
You can see "the cloud" at the bottom of the right bottle.
Attachment 13907
Hey Steve. My first batch has a fair bit of that floating around too. Uggh. I've been letting it settle out for two weeks now. Niter usually falls fairly quickly, but this stuff is STUBBORN! Once it all drops, I'll pour off the clear syrup and bottle it. So, it's not just you. Maybe trees in King Township and Peel Region have lumpy sap. :confused:
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.
*shaking head* Ok so now it's -5 out there, 8pm and they're all producing, holding off collecting til tomorrow though. Tucked them all in and said goodnight, now turn off the flashlights and get some sleep...but they all ignored me. Good thing my trees don't know that they're not supposed to run when it's below zero..or they do know, and do it anyway, cause they can. Now who says I don't have kids?! :-)
Great day for sap 105 gallons and things are still dripping, not surprising though as it took until the pm again to get running after the -10c. Real crap day for equipment, ATV went down, needle valve in the carb stuck open and flooded the engine with fuel so it's in for repairs. Couldn't maintain a good boil with all the interruptions going on so that was an issue, so I'll try again tomorrow. I was ending it all off on a good note using the tractor to do the sap, the first half went great 50 gal. in the tote and off to do the other half, got stuck in a swampy area. Lugging 5 -23 litre containers a 100 meters in mud finished me off for the day. So I'm hoping it'll freeze hard enough tonight so I can get the 4X4 down to pick up the sap and then try to get the tractor out as I'll need it with all the snow coming.
Vacuum pumps hauled in about 1000 gallons today,a little too much to face after getting home from driving the kiddies home from school,started around 6:00,shut down about 8:30, couple more hours to go in the morning will be caught up.
Another really good day here. Collected about 200 gallons. Only disappointment is sugar content is still low. It was down around 2% today. Kinda thought the cold would have brought it up but I'm not complaining. Looks like weather going to give us a break in the sap for a few days so i can get caught up.
Got 47L today! That'll help. :D
SteveQuote:
Originally Posted by SPM in King
Sounds like you are doing it right. Maybe it was just "one of those batches"
Most of the nitre precipitates out during the final few Brix. That's why nitre builds up in the last syrup pan, or in your finishing pan, but not in the sap pan. It really doesn't matter how many times you boil the sap. Any intermediate filtering steps will help to speed up the final filtering, but will not make the difference in the final product. It's all about the final filtering and what you do with the syrup after it.
I like to take my syrup off the evaporator about 68 Brix. I draw off into a 20l stainless pail without filtering. I typically boil until I have ~15l of syrup in the pail, then pour everything except the sludge into a 20l pot for finishing. The sludge is rinsed out of the pail for the next batch.
My 20l pot of warm and slightly heavy syrup then goes onto a propane burner or the kitchen stove. I bring it up to a rolling boil and add 1-2 cups of sap until it hits my final target of 66.8Brix. At the same time, I am steaming my cone filter (with 4 prefilters) over a boiling kettle of water until it is too hot to touch.
I place the filters into my canner and pour the syrup into the cone. I watch until the syrup just stops boiling in the pot before I pour - so it's as hot as it gets. I pre-heat my glass in the oven set at 180. (I once used 225. It was neat - the syrup would hit the glass and boil a bit - but it wasn't so neat an hour later when more nitre precipitated out)
It seems that every once in a while a batch will look cloudy in the bottles. I just dump it the whole lot back into the pot, bring it back up to a boil and pour it through a fresh filter. I can't explain it - just happens.
I think we may surpass last years numbers if these temps keep up! It's so beautiful out and the sap is just pouring out of our trees, we are currently working on batch number 9, and already have 310 litres of sap...
Our local hardware store that carries maple supplies has back orders on bottles, I guess this massive sap production was unexpected to say the least, and I was told many of our local hobbyists apparently didn't even bother tapping this year as it was expected to be a poor tree performance year but I guess you never know. I'm learning this all as I go. I'm just happy that it's still going 😆
Lesley, those are great numbers for you so far! Congrats on doing so well this season. Looks like mason jars are in your future if you keep going at this pace! Keep us posted. :)
Thanks Karen, yes I really thought it was coming to an end and then pow! Even the local supplier is surprised. I've been working lots (no more mat leave) so it's been hard to keep up with the boil, how about out your way?Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Still only 6L of 2016 syrup sitting/settling on my counter. I started my third boil yesterday. I'll be continuing to add sap to that batch when I crank up the burners this afternoon. The 47L I collected at dusk yesterday was pretty good since the trees didn't start to drip until mid afternoon. I suspect they dripped for several more hours after that. Everything is still stuck in the trees so far today. I think it's a good time to do a propane run to fill my two empty tanks as there is freezing rain in the forecast over the next day and a half. Might as well be ready for whatever comes my way.....that is if you guys in Inverary are willing to SHARE A LITTLE SAP with the rest of us!!!! :lol: