https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bc50ebd55e.jpg
Boiled again last night, 20 gallons down to 3 litres, buckets all full this morning, will have to wait,
Are we all having fun yet?
TurkeyJohn
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Printable View
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bc50ebd55e.jpg
Boiled again last night, 20 gallons down to 3 litres, buckets all full this morning, will have to wait,
Are we all having fun yet?
TurkeyJohn
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Not to rub it in Al, but it sure did run last night. 160 gals sap from 150 trees. Of course - it was the one night my son was late home from work AND my wife was too. I'd fill my 2 collecting pails every 4-6 trees, so it took me a while on my own. Each ~20 tree loop took multiple trips to the tank and back.Quote:
Originally Posted by BrutemanAl
Pulled in 110 Gallons/ 400+ Liters off my 110 taps in the last 24 hours and still coming hard out of the swampy trees. Made a dripper w. copper tube to pre-heat somewhat and try to keep from losing the boil when adding to the pan. Gonna test it tomorrow and burn all day to try to catch up...Hard freeze tonight should restart the higher trees. Not sure if I will be able to burn it all.
Attachment 19940Attachment 19941
Still not done counting how much I got since 4pm yesterday. Just glad I went around with the 5g pails as I needed them! Only got 30l in the tanks and probably another 30l in the pails. Think it's time to break out...The Brute.
Hi, I'm new to this site and still learning about maple syrup making. I have a 44x16" rear pan and15x16" finishing pan on the front of my arch. Last year I taped only 4 or 5 trees and used just the finishing pan so this is the first year I'll be using the full rig as I learn how to scale up.
I have a 100 acre woodlot in Darling Township of Lanark County about 20 klicks south of Calabogie and this year I have 30 taps out, 3 of which are not producing. Spring is late in this neck of the woods and I am only recently getting an average of 1 L of sap per day per tap (with my best trees giving me 3L/day), and have harvested over 200 L so far. Good news is that the Brix level is high @ 3%, about 3x what I was expecting.
My goal for this year is to better understand the mechanics of scaling up my operation. Things like average ratio of taps to Litres of sap&syrup, how long it takes to boil X litres on my arch, how much wood, how to manage the inventory of sap, etc. Am very impressed by those of you who track & graph daily production and temperature, hopefully I'll get there next year!
Emptied the buckets yesterday morning with one of our daughters and got a good amount but this left the buckets empty for the day.
Shortly into the morning the wind came up fierce......
I was away from home all day and upon returning MOST of the buckets were on the ground due to wind.
As luck would have it they all seemed to find the nearest mud hole to be blown into so they came in for a good wash.
There were two buckets that managed to survive the days wind and were almost full so I left them while cleaning the others.
As luck would have it again the wind pulled one bucket AND spile down right out of the tree. So yesterday's collection left a little to be desired.
We left all the buckets off the trees last night and I'll hang them again this morning.
Boil will start again this morning and then that's likely it for us this season!
Al, safe travels!!
TurkeyJohn, to answer your question.....yes, tons of fun LOL
Eddy, that does sound like a heck of a lot of work. We have a very small operation compared to you and even it at times feels like a lot when everyone else is busy!
Gelena, is the Brute your stove in Shack Wacky? Good luck, hope the shack's inaugural firing goes well!
PaulRenaud, Welcome to the forum!
Cheers everyone.....
Hi Paul. Very nice country up where you are. My uncle has a deer camp on the north side of the bogie north of ferguson lake and I drive through your area heading up there. Beautiful spot.Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulRenaud
They say you are supposed to average 40L of sap per tree - which then converts (on average) to 1 L of syrup - but I've found it really depends on each tree, where they are located (i.e. type of ground, wet areas, how much sun they get, etc.). It also seems to vary year-to-year; some of my best trees last year did ziltch this year. However, you will find a few great trees that just pump it out consistently year-after-year.
Like Galena has told me - you will get to know your bush over time and the trees and which ones are good and which ones you can skip etc.
You've got a nice stove - we only have a converted oil tank with a 4X2 flat pan - so there's bound to be differences in performance. What I did find though in my case was that the wood was interesting. Last year I cut and chopped hardwood and tried it and it was really slow-going. I assumed you would want to burn same type of wood that is good for heating a house. We ended up mostly burning old fence rails from my father-in-law's farm because they were the only thing that put out good flame. This year I cut down only standing, dead cedar. We've got about 70 acres just north of prescott and there's no shortage of it. Really dry. Chopped finer. It seems to keep the flame right on the pan as opposed to glowing coals and that's what keeps a good boil on our pan. Your stove might not perform that way at all - but that's my two cents on wood.
I've attached my water-to-sugar graphs and syrup ratios from last year's boils. They are from 65 taps of mostly red maples. This year we did 110 and I am interested to see what the final results are. As you can see, in our case, the sugar content seems to really fluctuate over the course of the year. This year the sugar seems to be really high though - at least for our first couple boils.
Attachment 19944Attachment 19945
Hehe Wisers, yep we've all chased after runaway buckets :-) SW has been fired successfully about 4x now, works great! However you won't see billowing clouds of steam or even much smoke if you're driving by. I am burning all dried wood and gawd what a blessing after last year. You see only heat haze. Oh I should say that you may see steam coming off the roof on a rainy day cause it's tin.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fort Wisers
Brute is my big 70l garbage bin which has been used for nothing but sap storage. I have only 5 15l water jugs, also used only for sap storage, but in crazy times like when I've had 150l in holding, the Brute comes out.
I see double-digit temps in the near future so wondering if that quick a rise will kill the run?
Yesterday was a little hectic to say the least. I got the RO running by 6:30am with 3500 gallons of sap in the sugar camp and another 4000 in the woods. RO ran steady until 5pm. Fired up at 12:30 and last fire on just after 5pm and made more syrup per hour than I've ever made before! Couldn't keep up with the filtering and the only thing that saved me was running out of concentrate. It's nice boiling with concentrate that started as 3.0% sap because it sure comes off the end of the evaporator fast! My brother is boiling today and probably has another 5000 gallons of sap in front of him so it should be another big day.
Hey FortWisers,
It's been our best year ever, with the warm weather coming and time getting tight for me, pulled taps and buckets this morning, last boil of the year tonight...It's been a bumper crop for sure, now I'm filling mason jars with syrup, loving it.
PaulRenaud, welcome aboard, best spot for Maple info on the web and loads of local folks to compare specs with....
Hey Galena, it's been a time seeing your posts and how you always stay so chipper with all your challenges, of course, when you overcome them and win
, we're all cheering for you out here too....
Good luck with the rest of the season gang....I need to get better at keeping stats, but rely on the old noggin to know what works....
One thing I do know is next year I'm going to put the barrel on cinder blocks to help with the bending to either stoke the fire or check the thermometer, and the ManoSteel pan worked fabulously...
TurkeyJohn
Paul - Welcome.Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulRenaud
With a 16 x 60" evaporator, you are ideally sized for somewhere between 75 and 200 trees, depending on how long you like to watch water boil.
If it has flues - you will be able to evaporate ~15gals an hour. If the back pan is a flat pan only, then 8-10 gals an hour.
Sap numbers below are assuming buckets - double them for tubing with vacuum.
Over a season, plan for a typical tree (1 tap) in a typical bush on buckets to yield UP TO 1l of syrup. Most years you wont quite get there, some years you will beat it.
Season can be anywhere from 2 - 8 weeks, but normally about 6 weeks of active flows.
In an average week, you can expect to have 1-2 no flow days, 3-4 okay flow days, and 1-2 great days. An okay day will yield 1 gal for every 3 taps, a great day will yield more than 1 gal / tap.
Plan for a minimum of 1 gallon / tap collection capability, plus 2 gallons / tap storage capacity if you are able to boil daily. (Min 3 gals / tap total storage).
We all talk about 40:1, but typically our sugars average closer to 24:1 over the season. I don't have reds, but I gather they typically average somewhere around 32:1 over the season. Sap sweetness will vary day to day and year to year.
I don't track wood usage very well, but yesterday for 200 gallons of sap in my home made 20" x 64" with flues, i consumed roughly a face cord of wood. We burn mostly dead dry ash saplings about 4" dia of which we have a never-ending supply. Split your wood small and fire often. You are not interested in coals - you want a hot fast fire all day long. We fire an arm load of wood on an 8 min cycle.
Collecting (wood and sap) is the most work so efficiency efforts spent there will pay dividends.
Boiling takes time - so make it comfortable. (start with a roof, then shelter, chair, radio, wifi .....)
Once you start boiling in any volume - a float box is indispensable.
And remember the sugarmakers saying - "A watched pot never boils over" . First time you step away for two minutes - you'll understand why the additional word.
I'm sure there's more - ask away.
Well put Big Eddy.....
A good reminder of the essentials for all of us.
The older I get the more I agree with the statement about making things comfortable......
Back to the wood, we started our first year with more traditional hardwoods used (maple, oak etc) thinking like we've done for home heating but quickly realized (as Mike and Eddy have pointed out) boiling sap is a different beast.
We now use mostly ash and poplar and some pine mixed in as scraps come off from various wood working projects.
Woods that burn quick and hot are better, and as has been pointed out, smaller pieces than you'd normally think.....4" as Eddy mentioned, wrist to forearm size as we've read elsewhere.
And as Gelena points out, a dry supply is an absolute must so be sure to harvest well in advance (that being similar to firewood for home heating).
The big thing Paul is to always keep it fun, or at least enjoyable. We've only been at it 3 years and have already had a few days of "why are we doing this to ourselves" moments and still have a ton to learn.
People like Eddy (and others) who have been doing it for decades have obviously found the right methods and skills for making good product as well as keeping the mindset to keep the enjoyment alive during the "less then enjoyable days", so following their advice can save you days of aggravation and shave seasons off the learning curve.
Sometimes even just reading a post like Galena mentioned about chasing buckets helps you realize that you're not the only idiot digging buckets out of the mud LOL.....
TurkeyJohn, glad to hear you had a good run! Good luck with your final boil tonight!
Speaking of boiling I better get back at it.....
OK going slightly nuts here. My sugar ratios are changing from one batch to the next. Batch 1 was 18.8:1, batch 2 26:1, I think batch 3 came in also at 18.8:1. Now #4 looks like it's going to be 26:1 again. Making it difficult to tell how much syrup to expect from each batch.
And...my hydrotherms aren't in agreement. I am using a 10' high cup for both. One is a 'Quebec hydrotherm' and has two sets of marks for reading, one for hot at 211 and the other cold at 60. The other one is a more conventional therm where the top of the red line floats level when you're at Brix.
So, I knew btach #4 was a little high so I added some distilled and reboiled. Now the conventional therm says it's over Brix, and it's right between the two red marks on the Quebec therm. What am I doing wrong?!
Thanks everyone for the input. I am using Cedar shakes for my wood and have a stockpile of 2.5 full cord of which half is already split thin. I found a cheap supply from a local mill that specializes in cedar boards and sells off the tailings from his sawmill for only $20 per face cord. The tailings are thin and 8'ft in length, so all I have to do to turn them into shakes is cut them to 18". I use cedar because it burns hot and fast, so the fire is easy to control.
My rear pan has flues so hopefully will be efficient. I appreciate the guidance given on speed of boil for a fluted pan as it will help me plan how often to boil. I figure I will start on Sunday as am rapidly running out of storage capacity!
I spent the past couple of days giving the system a mild acid bath and lots of rinses. Got a jug of acid from CDL in Perth and diluted it 100:1. No small process to rinse it as I have no running water anywhere near my sugar shack. Pushed 250 L of water thru it to complete the rinse.
I didn't want to dump the acid out on the ground, so filled 2 large barrels with it and the rinse water. Now have it diluted at 300:1 and am wondering if I should toss in some baking soda to ensure it is neutralized before dumping it out?
Currently have water sitting in the flues which can't be easily drained. Guess I'll start the boil with extra water to boil off.
I have a float box on the flue but no float for it! So for this year will leave it hooked up for show and will have to pour in the sap into it the hard way. This summer I plan to install a stainless steel pipeline to it from a re-purposed milk storage tank. More cleaning!!
Still need to figure out how to make the float work.
Sent from my SM-T817W using Tapatalk
Get a short piece of 3/4" tubing and siphon it out. When one flue empties, stick you thumb over the other end and pop it into the next. Take 5 mins or less to drain them all.Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulRenaud
Awesome tip - thanks Big Eddy!
Galena... on your hydrotherm you need to be 2 lines or 2 notches above the where the syrup sits level with the cup to be at brix.. maybe this is wear the diffrence is.. .was your hydro therm preheateted or left to rest in hot syrup before you took reading. Because this will make a huge misreading..your post reads like you are mesuring brix with indicator level with syrup and for a quebec hydro you need a temparure compasation chart there a pain to use and hard to keep a constant reading.
Is there ever a good day to blow the high pressure pump on your RO machine? Luckily the nearest 5Hp replacement was only an hour away and I didn't need to drive to Quebec City!
Hi JeffB, thanks much for the details and for making me use my head...:-) ok.....with the conventional hydrotherm I just go with what it says in the instructions and the red line is level with the surface of the syrup. Neither therm was preheated, except maybe briefly rinsed in warm water. I don't leave them sitting in hot syrup. I never knew I had to have a temperature compensation chart for a Quebec hydro. Mine didn't come with any kind of instructions and attempts to find any online never found any. All I know is that my syrup would redline at either the high or low end, and that my syrup never looked thin or has gone moldy even after being sealed and stored. *shrugs* I don't know what's going on!Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB
ETA: A friend of mine uses an atmospheric thermometer. Any thoughts on that?
Galena
W need to be careful with the terminology.
I beleive you have a have a hydrotherm (aka Quebec Hydrometer) and a Hydrometer.
The hydrotherm has a thermometer within it. To be MINIMUM legal density of 66 Brix (everywhere except Vermont), once stabilized the top of the red temperature column must be at least 1 graduation above the surface of the syrup. The Hydrotherm is self-compensating for temperature between room temp and 210F. To be OPTIMUM syrup density (66.8-67.2 Brix) the top of the red column should ~6 graduations above the surface of the syrup.
If the red is not visible - it's not syrup.
A classic hydrometer has a hot and cold (red and blue) line on it, and a scale. The hydrometer is calibrated for 66 Brix (minimum legal density) syrup. The Hot line is set at 211F, which is the typical temperature of syrup taken directly out of a boiling pan. The Cold line is set for 60F (which may be an average sugar house room temp - I don't know). If your syrup is at any temperature other than those 2, then you need to also compensate for temperature using the compensation charts.
Smokey Lake offers the Murphy cup to simplify the compensation. It has a thermometer with a special dial for the adjustments.
Leader has instructions on their web site for the hydrometer https://www.leaderevaporator.com/pdf...hydrometer.pdf
CDL has instructions for the Hydrotherm on theirs . https://www.cdlinc.ca/wp-content/upl...hydrotherm.pdf
IMO neither set of instructions is very clear..
HI Big_Eddy, hehe I was sure I'd hear from you!
All I know is one is called a Quebec hydrotherm (got mine from Covell's, SKU is HA-MHYDQUE5988. And the other is....*reading package*....a precision hydrometer.
So I am indeed dealing with two different beasties. And what is an atmospheric thermometer and how do you use it?
And yes the red line, whichever I am using, is always either right at surface or just slightly over. If it's more than 2 hashmarks over I fix it with distilled.
1 hash marks over is minimum brix 66 . 2 more its 66.4 brix .. my hydro therm is calibrated if red is at the syrup level its 65.8brixs so ever hash mark is 2/10ths of a brix.. so always make sure its at least 1 has mark above the top of the liquid .. i finish all my syrup 3 to 4 hash marks above syrup level for a brix of 66.4 or 66.6
Thanks so much JeffB and Big_Eddy for sharing your knowledge with me...I learned a lot today! :-)
ETA quick question...how to fix *peach jam* syrup? It sugared up overnight - like the bottom the jar was coated solid. So I added about 2 cups distilled and reboiled but it still looks exactly the same. Argh.
Well the dam finally burst this week. 3-4 excellent runs and looks like things are full again this morning. Going to be a busy weekend getting through all my sap. I’m closing in on 1L/tap of syrup and after this mild spell temps are supposed to drop down again next week so potential a few good runs left.
Been a strange year but turning out to be a lot better then I expected considering the late start.
Court
Well through Thursday and Friday we decided it was time to finish out what we had and shut it down for the season.
We boiled most of the day Thursday and then a bit again Friday morning after a quick collection.
Our finish product proved to be a bit more than we anticipated so we had a good excuse to visit our local BMR for a couple more bottles and other odds and ends.
We wanted another glass maple leaf bottle anyhow so we could compare the two batch colors.
This second batch gained us just over 5 litres of the good stuff.
We bottle the 5 litres and used the remainder to try and make some maple lollipops.
The end result was more of a maple sugar on a stick which was very tasty but not what we were looking for, we'll try again at a later date!
2nd Batch:
Attachment 19955
Color compare of 1st and 2nd batch:
Attachment 19954
Attempt at making Maple lollipops:
Attachment 19956
So final numbers are 416 litres of sap resulting in 15.25 litres of syrup and some "sugary treats"!
Today (Saturday) cleanup will continue as well as getting caught up on notes for improvements next year.
Ennismaple - so sorry to hear about your RO pump, hope you got it all sorted out!
Clinkis ..im like 25 minutes north of you and my runs are absolute junk. Nothing has seemed to open up and run.... from last sunday to thursday night total collection was 175gallons from 187 taps on gravity lines.im hoping this weekend or first of the week every thing wakes up or my season is going to be a bust.
Anyone want sap, I know my trees ran last night so probably another 40 or so l out there. Running on fumes, SW stove works but is inefficient so takes way too long to get to temp and maintain a decent boil. Grab some gallon containers and come and get it!
On my way i have 2 1000L totes should i bring a pump or do you have 1 lol
lol Jeff leave one of those 1000l totes here....I have 45l ready to go and probably another 45l from this morning's collection. Ratio approx 20:1! You're only a couple hours drive away :-)
Trying to fix batch #5, that is going to sugar on me. The Hydrometer redlines 8marks over the surface and the PQ therm is a couple marks over. Will see if 1 cup can do it - for 3.25-ishl.
An interesting comparison of 2018 vs. 2019 for us and for anyone in Eastern Ontario who struggled early-on with yield. These are our total yield numbers from both years tracked out. What makes it even more striking is that in 2018 we had 65 taps and this year 110! You can see that basically the first 'real' collection this year for us was March 13th with 6 Gallons and - by comparison - last year we had already banked close to 200 G by that day.
Today is probably going to be my last collection and I will start pulling taps as I move along. Out of dry wood and the soppy stuff is taking forever to boil the sap. Plus, its been a rough 2 weeks and I have to go back to work and try to earn some $. Trees are showing first signs of buds too - so it's time.
Looks like we won't even make last years' total sap even with the extra taps this year. On the plus side though - sugar content seems to have been great and we have already surpassed last years' finished totals (which I guess is the only thing that really matters anyways).
Hope everyone has a good weekend!
Attachment 19957
That's pretty much how my chart from last year tracks, too. Started Feb 21, had a nice long slow but steady season with a bit of that late March-early April spurt to wrap things up. This season....yep pretty much SFA til now and we're inundated with sap.
Oh and a big shout-out to Fort Wisers, whose top-sekkrit location I stumbled upon while searching for the middle of nowhere. Came home with 3 nice big water jugs to borrow for the remainder of the season. Thanks so much! :-)
JeffB, that’s exactly how I was feeling first of last week. I was expecting a bust season but things went crazy this week. Don’t give up just yet. There is still some good sap weather in the forecast next week and hopefully this mild spell will loosen things up for you! Just and FYI I’m just south of Trent River so propbably even closer to you.
You're most welcome, glad you came by and happy we had a chance to chat for a bit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Realized after you left we never even really showed you our trees?!?!
Next time.......
What a gorgeous day today, got a lot of odds and ends done that were put to the back burner due to sugarin'.
Also got all the equipment cleaned up and put away for the season.
Oh ok clinkis im 2 minutes north of tims in havelock so shouldn't be of a weather change by the distance.
Hehe no prob, I could see those nice thick stands of silvers and was a little jealous! I have stand-alone sugars and a few reds, which I no longer tap.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fort Wisers
You and fam are welcome to come and visit Shack Whacky and the tiny little 8-tree bush I run. If that little blue car is in the driveway I'm home :-)
ETA...peeps, what's the secret to fixing syrup that looks like peach jam? Can't remember if it's just lots of suspended sugar - I finished this batch #5 again over redline at about 5 hashmarks. It's been so long since I've had any that I've forgotten what needs to be done to make it look like syrup again! And am I the only one who notices that syrup this year is really temperamental?
Sheesh Fort. Way to make a guy feel old.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fort Wisers
Maybe we should make syrup together. I can just see the labels now
OLDER AND WISERS.
The best syrup anywhere.
:)
I know you were joking with this but I really like it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Turns out this past week, with the few days that ran I managed to get approx. 240l of sap on my 30 taps. Started this morning at 8 (fire lite at that time) and as I was still collecting from the trees didn't really get it going full bore until well after 9. Finished cooking it down around 7 (although I just leave it to simmer down while I have dinner.). So that's about 225 L cooked down to about 15 in 11 hours.. would have been less had I been more aggressive and collected all my sap last night.
Amazing how spending 12+ hours (including set up time) in the fresh air will tucker you out!
Forecast looking not to bad this week either..which is a nice surprise.
Unfortunately forecast for tomorrow changed so my sledding plans are kaput! :cry:
.... well for a very late start, sure hasn’t been a bad season! The pace had actually been more manageable this year! Had my sister here to help from BC where maple syrup seems to be quite scarce!! She bottled with me last night and is shipping 6 litres back home.. expensive to ship but will be worth it to have homemade maple syrup where it’s so rare out there!!
Still working on our last batch! Maybe another run coming this week? We’ll see..
All finished for the year,made over 1 litre per tap,sap had gotten milky this past week,hung on to boil yesterday and today for maple weekend open house,now for the cleanup
So glad to hear the season seems to be winding down esp for those somewhat local to me :-)
Lesley, you're dead on about the maple syrup in BC. I've seen it priced at $33/l for *organic* syrup. BC does have bigleaf maples but they have a very low sugar content - 1% or so - and the ratio is mostly 70:1. My brother has made bigleaf maple syrup in the past, but in such small quantities that I've never had any :-/
Was talking to sugaring to a vendor at McHaffie's flea market, down near Morrisburg. We were discussing our bushes and he said he tapped sugars, silvers, reds...and black maples. Had to google it but apparently there is such a beast, a subspecies of sugar maple. That's what i love about sugaring, learn something new every day!