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I know what you mean Smokeshow. Central Ontario isn't raising the roof this year either. That's why I usually post more often with my friends here in the Eastern Ontario section. They haven't kicked me out yet. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokeshow
Naw,we look for your posts Karen,like to see how you are doing in your neck of the woodsQuote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
I woke up to more snow and ice on the ground. Now the weather network is talking about up to 15cm more snow today. When I collected this weekend I still can't see the base of my tree's and there is still almost 2 feet of snow in the bush. The water in the creeks are normally running wild by now yet aren't even moving.
From my 330 taps on bags this year I have only collected 4600 L of sap. Syrup totals will be confirmed later as I finish at home where I have running water for clean up and I can put enough syrup through the filter press to make life worth while.
This week is looking like a couple of decent days to get the year finished off for me. The season will continue around here but I have to move on to other things.
Uh oh....I was out there in the Mammoth getting more firewood for Shack Whacky when I heard that telltale plinky noise. Yep, all my trees are wide-awake again and giving me nice clear sap....oh gawd what am I in for now?!
We are boiling again today what we've gathered since Monday. Hopefully another day - another 0.1 L/tap! Looking to get those numbers over 1.5L/tap by the end of the weekend?!?!
I had a marathon 22 hour day on Sunday - I dont know if you heard from John, but we had a big rip open up in our evaporator back pan. There was a good leak right into the fire, we had to douse it with water and bring out the welder. 12 hours of welding later, and 4 big rips/cracks repaired, we were ready to start boiling again at 2 in the morning. I got things started and passed it over to my brother who had gone to bed early and was up at 5 AM to take over. All the tanks were full with concentrate, fortunately nothing overflowed, and 2.5 mammoth days of boiling later, we are finally caught up. This morning we noticed another small crack in the back pan - we are taking it apart again this afternoon to weld it up. I hope we can make it to the end without any major failures.Quote:
Originally Posted by ennismaple
I pulled the rest of my taps on Sunday, collected 120 L, finished boiling that last night. I collected just over 1300 L this year, dumped about 350 of that... didn’t like the look and smell of it after it had been sitting a few days, better to be safe than sorry. I ended up with 35 L or about 9.5 gallons, wanted more but it is what it is and I am happy with what I got. Finally all of it is nice and clear no signs of niter at all, first time I have been able to have all my syrup clear and not have a bit of cloudy stuff at the bottom, so I am pleased with that.
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Looks great Al! No wonder we haven't seen you on here much lately. And yeah, the nitre seems to hardly be a problem this year. Interesting.
ETA: Groan....my trees have given me another beautiful crystal clear batch of sap. 42l. And I am STILL pushing that last batch of 114l. Burnin wood like snot.
I must say, I saw on a Facebook post in a maple syrup group... someone mentioned adding a stick of cinnamon to the bottle when bottling it, I tried it with 2 jars.... I tried a sip of one of them 2 days after bottling it, and that sip turned into a good swig of it. It tastes amazing !!! I was a bit worried so that’s why I just added the cinnamon to 2 jars so I didn’t ruin a hole batch. Depending on how much cinnamon flavour you like you could add 1/2 a stick to a full stick, I wouldn’t add more than 1 full stick that’s for sure, it would be to over powering. The jars I added the sticks to were 500 ml jars.
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I saw that here on MT, so I guess it's a cross-post. Sounds intriguing, maybe once this season is done I'll try it.
Thank gawd for enthusiastic clients...got one of them to agree to take the 42l I got this evening off my hands. They sugar too but their bush is all reds and they didn't want to do it this year as baby #2 came along. I am partly responsible for her name...I once half-jokingly suggested that they name a baby girl Maple. That is indeed one of her names. Yay!
I was expecting to come home to a decent sap run yesterday but was disappointed in many of my trees.. The few sugars I have did pretty well (I think one of them gave up 6-7 L yesterday) and a few of the open silvers did well (2-4L), but the bush trees barely gave up 1L. Based on the weather forecast, today's the last day I'll likely see any sap so hoping for a good run. I think I might skip out work early tomorrow to start boiling mid-afternoon..with the temps not going down much below +10 overnight Friday night I don't trust it to not spoil on me for my normal Sat AM boil..and I need every last drop I can get (had a bucket break on me last weekend.. found it on the ground..had about 8L in it the day before :().
The sap ran very well late yesterday. Can't get to the camp until early tomorrow morning so it will be a long day tomorrow!
Collected other 60L yesterday which brings me to 1405L of sap for the season. Got it all boiled down to nearup which is now on the stove. Looking forward to this afternoon when the temperature will rise above freezing. In the meantime I've got batch #13 to bottle and then I will update my stats.
WOW! :o Nice going Karen!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
We finished up on the weekend. I pulled the taps and it's still pouring out of the holes. Sad to see - but ran out of time and wood. Only had so much time to collect it. Next year we will tap in stages as some people seem to do and hopefully make things more manageable. On the plus side - the sugar content from our trees was outstanding this year compared to last. We got 75% more syrup from roughly the same amount of sap. Don't really understand that but won't complain!
We ended up with almost 75 liters which should do our four families nicely for the year - as well my mother-in-law's baking.
Thanks to Galena, and everyone else who offered much-needed and helpful advice. Much still to learn. Hope everyone has a great summer!Attachment 20011Attachment 20012Attachment 20013
Finished bottling batch #13 and got 7L of light. Batch #14 is finishing on the stove right now. Temps are hovering around freezing and no sap has started to drip at the moment. If it does, my propane tanks are full, the pans are clean and I'm ready to go!
I have updated my signature stats and can't believe how fortunate I have been this year. I am also buying a small freezer to hold ONLY syrup. Pinch me, I must be dreaming. :cool:
Glad you’re getting a great year Karen,just wondering about your profile,what are “Freeman Maples “Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Bruce, it is a cross between a Silver and a Red maple. The saplings that I got were part of a selection of Ministry trees that the Ontario government offered back in the late 80s.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruce L
http://reforestlondon.ca/tree-month-freemans-maple
There are quite a few Freemans around here, they make good yard maples. Think they have a high tolerance for road salt and stuff like that. There are a few on a nearby vacant property that I would love to tap, and I have permission to tap them, but am afraid that they would swamp me out like my own trees already do! The trunks tend to look like red and the branches like silvers. I can get some pics.
Batch #14 finished; 1.4L of light. Total syrup so far this season 41.12L! :o
Well so much for being finished....brought in another 350 gallons this afternoon and still running strong. Probably leave vacuum pump on overnight or until it quits running and then that’s it for me....for sure this time!
It’s gone from a frustrating disappointing season to a very respectable crop. Hopefully everyone else finishes strong the next few days.
Holy crap Karen.. this is amazing!! What a season!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Amazing run Karen,you may get 1 gallon per tap like they do in Vermont!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Still running here...got about 55l sap today. Was able to give away the 42l I got yesterday, but now I'm going into the weekend expecting to boil yet again. Patched up the stove in SW with heat tape, see if that helps. There is just so much dam heat leaking from it. Gone through a good 2cord wood on SW alone.
Batch #7 finished this evening at 219...super-low but then the sugar content is super-high. 6.25l syrup so right in the ballpark I was expecting it to finish at. So 432l sap, 22.2l syrup so far. Really hoping this last run finishes soon!!!
Susan, the sweetness of the sap that your sugar maples produce continues to blow my mind!
Haha thanks Karen, the sugar content blew my mind out with the first batch!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Heaviest flow of the season for us yesterday. We had close to 1200 gallons come up in just under 8 hrs, and it was still flowing good last night when I left the camp. Going to be a long day boiling today. Hopefully a good run today. After this weekend I'm sure most of us will be finished. Buckets are all but finished. Total sap this year to date is less than half 11000 gallons compared to 25000 gallons last year. But double to the sugar so not to bad of a season. .95 L of syrup per a tap so far this year, including our buckets.
Another 85L out there this morning and still dripping well. It's raining today so I will wait until tomorrow so that I can boil in the sunshine.
I pulled 100L this morning which was awesome. Hoping it runs all day and I can collect more tonight. Will be doing a final boil tomorrow.
Good luck to you Paul!!
I got 98.5l in holding tanks outside, the weather is now crazy warm so I think this will be it. A bunch of spiles have slowed down, some are still quite hot. Guess what I'm spending my weekend doing?!
ETA: I was off by about a whole litre with #7...I had to slow cook it down a couple hashmarks more, and when done came to 5l and 250ml. Ah well.
And now I am powering through something stupid like 120l. 75l of that from today. Fighting the urge to go curl up in a fetal position underneath the bed. On the plus side, though, the heat tape seems to be working at helping keep the heat inside the stove instead of radiating off in visible waves!
Collected 124L today and will start boiling in the morning.
HEARD THE PEEPERS TONIGHT!!!!!
I have 75l from today alone and about 20l leftover from yesterday that I really want to push through tonight. Been hearing peepers but my sap is still crystal clear and the syrup is pretty dang good if I do say so myself :-) Thinking that with the high temps the trees will blow out this weekend. Thank gawd!!
A couple of notes on spile location...my South spiles did pretty much nuthin all season and are pretty much done. The West ones did well, and the North spiles have been doing very well esp now in the last part of the run. Only one tree had an East spile and that was unexceptional. What a year.
I'm done! Collected my last run of 192L (since Sat) and boiled it down this afternoon/evening. Hydrometer said 2.4% sugar content. Was surprised to see that all the trees were dripping pretty good today considering the lowest it went to last night was +2. But this boiling had a slightly different smell to it.. the smell that says they trees will be buddy soon. Syrup tastes fine. I think I overcooked it but will wait until tomorrow to check it. I'll be out pulling my taps tomorrow (except maybe my sugars..they usually still run after my silvers go buddy). This was the first year I didn't consistently test boil my "early budders" near the end of the season to check if they were going.. I tested on Wednesday and it just had a faint whiff of "offness" and tasted fine.. figured I was good until today.. may have been better if I had segregated those batches and tested again yesterday.. just seemed to be too busy this season. Could also be the warm weather.. there was a teensy bit of cloudiness to a few buckets.. A couple of gulps told me they were fine but perhaps not...
Oh, bottled up batch # 2 yesterday and ended up with 6.5L off 170L of sap.. my record at 26:1!. Total Sap collected this season is 726.. just a bit shy of last year but with 50% more taps.. but I'm pleased because I was thinking I wouldn't get 3/4 of last year's haul based on how the early season went.
Good luck to all still collecting and boiling! Time for this guy to start thinking of Turkey hunting!
Paul.
There's a first time for everything and today is the first time ever in my sugaring life that I pulled spiles while trees were still producing beautiful sap. I still don't like that I had to do it, but there is too much to deal with. There is currently a very strong SW wind and as SW doesn't have a spark screen, am hesitant to really go and try to gun it. So I have barely boiled 25l today, and there is still 60l left from yesterday and the 22l I collected barely an hour ago. Hopefully tomorrow will be rainy as predicted and I can motor through it. There is the option of boiling inside but I don't really want to.
So I pulled the spiles, said thank you to all the trees and told them to use their sap for their leaves and growing now. They better listen! Final tallies to come as I grunt through the last 85l or so of sap...preferably before it turns!
With the sudden rise in temperature, looks like we will be done early this week. Lost 20 L of sap when one of my storage buckets spilled due to the rapid snow melt of the snow it was sitting on. Only collected 40 L Saturday after harvesting 200 L on Friday (using pails).
The brix level seems to be dropping as well, now reading 2.6 - 3 vs 3 - 3.2 in the previous week.
We're done.
Pulled taps and collected what sap there was Saturday. Washed buckets all afternoon in the sun. Boiled everything today. Was a race to see whether I would run out of sap or wood first. Turns out I ran out of steam with one row of wood left and 30 gallons of sap to go. Closed the valve to the front pan, took it all to syrup and drew off everything in the front pans, opened up the valve and let it flood. Cleaning the pans can wait for another day.
I still have today's batch left to filter and then we will have our total for this season.
We’re done too. Collected the last load of sap yesterday morning. Spent the day boiling down the last of the sap and cleaning up in and around the sugar shack. Drained pans, finished off concentrate and did year end shut down on RO this morning. Ended of making 420L which I’m very happy with considering I thought it might be a struggle to get to 200L at one point. I got about 60 taps pulled today before the rain chased me inside. Will be a busy week of bottling syrup, pulling taps, flushing lines and getting everything cleaned up and put away.
And now the planning begins for next year!
BWAHAHAHAAAAAA...I'm already draggin wood home for Shack Whacky to burn next year and searching kijiji for a cast iron woodstove in good condition to replace my current one. It just gives off way too much radiant heat, and wastes all that nice dry wood I was shoving in by the armload 3-4x per hour. Oh and also thinking of possibly sourcing some place to freeze sap so I can get just the sweet...don't have the $$ or want the complications of a *real* RO setup.Quote:
Originally Posted by Clinkis
Looks like folks are pulling spiles and putting away their syrups for the season. Got back into my bush yesterday after an absence of 6 days. All my sap jugs were overflowing, I still can't decide if this is a happy or sad thing... Everything is nice and clear though along with what I had buried in the snow. Boil, boil, boil... There's still lots of bush snow around and the spiles are continuing to drip, I suspect tomorrows sun will have them all running hot. I have a good 150L of sap that I'll be forever boiling down, so maybe I should pull my spiles tomorrow. I wasn't sure how long they should stay in for, and if they should be pulled while running. But I guess they heal up quick? I put them in on March 20.