That’s insane about the prices in BC, no wonder she was over the moon to get free syrup from us haha!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
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That’s insane about the prices in BC, no wonder she was over the moon to get free syrup from us haha!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
That always makes me laugh " Organic" maple syrup.
If its 100% pure maple syrup is it not all organic. It comes from trees!!!! Cant get more organic then that!!!!
I know my syrup is 100% maple, I only use maple sap not distilled water to bring to correct density.
So can I relabel my syrup and call it organic and fetch higher prices from they city folk or the health nut !!
LOL.
ON A BAD NOTE......
Looks like the season is going to be a bust for me I can't imagine the weather is going to turn enough to get another 2000L. So drain the pans and finish the concentrate, and hope for a better season next yr.
Worst part is going to have to telling my loyal customers i can't fill the orders they have requested.
On a good not we did get a new sap hauler/playtoy/work horse polaris ranger side by side for future maple bush expansion as well jobs and chores around the property.
After about five days I am finally getting a chance to catch up on all of the news. My season has been INSANELY good! Boiled down 270L yesterday from 10am to 12 midnight. Finally all caught up with boiling the sap in storage but I have an indoor pool's worth of nearup to finish off in the kitchen. Haven't updated my stats yet for this year but I have made more than any other year. More than the last two years combined.
Sorry for not responding to the message yet Paul. So great to hear from you. I'll get to it ASAP!
Busy weekend. Just finishing off the last of 800 gallons collected from Friday til today. Thinking this is the end for me. Weather forecast has changed and all the below zero nightly temps have gone away. I’m ok with that as I’ve made a little over a litre per tap. A little disappointing because I’m on vacuum and should be almost double that but I’ve got all that I need anyways. Probably leave taps in for a couple days in case forecast changes. Trees still showing no signs of budding.
JeffB, if you need some syrup to fill some orders I will give you a good deal on some.
Hey c'mon. Be nice. I use distilled, in small amounts, to correct density only when absolutely necessary. I know I can use fresh sap instead but I don't believe in robbing Peter to pay Paul. And keep in mind that it's in BC health food/organic stores (and it was on the artsy-fartsy Southern Gulf Islands where I saw such prices) where they are willing to pay stupid prices for syrup. And finally I do believe that in order to be truly organic, you cannot have used any kind of chemical weedkiller or pesticide around your trees for 5 yrs or more.Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB
Just my .02 cents worth if anyone's listening.
And Karen, huge congrats on the figures! They're great!
That is fantastic Karen!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Has anyone else seen the Organic Maple Water that President's Choice has on offer?
On sale it's $3 per litre.
Going by that.... I should be asking over $100 per litre of finished syrup!!
Thanks Leslie. I've now updated my stats. I am getting 33:1 this year. Best average in eight years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lespetras
Nice job Karen
Thanks Someclown. By tomorrow I should be able to update yet again.
Add some numbers to your signature too. We always love to see stats. If you aren't sure how to do that we would be happy to explain it.
Wow Karen! That's a lot of syrup! Unless the few days this week with slightly below zero nights are huge sap days, I'll definitely be struggling to get to last year's numbers.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
And I was wrong about the info in my pm to you.. didn't do anywhere as good as job as I thought! LOL...
Paul.
Yes, I will try to keep better track next season and add to my signatureQuote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
I am just starting to take note now
HAHAHAH sorry for the delay Big Eddy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
First, certainly wasn't trying to make you feel old but I apologize for doing so.
Second, no matter what I bow to your marketing genius, truly love it! We can't forget to leave room for the 100% organic note as well lol.....
Cheers
Another huge day Saturday. Had about 425L in stock when I started around 6AM. Lost about 100L (one tote) to spoilage. Not sure what happened. Taste and smell was way off. I did a collect around 2PM and picked up another 200L. I finished up late on Saturday night. Dad was going to verify density then re-heat and bulk bottle yesterday. I didn't hear what our final total was but hoping for 15L.
That is us done for the season. On my afternoon collect I noticed 2 things. Moths in a couple buckets and a lot of spiles with curdled looking sap on them. Sap was starting to spoil in the sun before it was dripping into the buckets. Bittersweet in a way. A lot of buckets were still overflowing with sap but the forecast just doesn't look to be wroth it for us. We pulled all the gear and started to wash up buckets/lids/spiles.
It looks like we'll still be in our 40-50L annual target range. The only difference this year was that we did it in 2 boils not 3.
Hope everyone had a safe and successful season.
Drew.
So this note got me thinking, and the engineer in me couldn't let it go, and besides - I had 24 hours of watching water boil ahead of me and I needed to do something to amuse myself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Big_Eddy
Friday I stocked up the wood wall in the sugar house, and leveled the top out. My wood wall is 12' wide, and I had 66" of wood stacked. It was all hardwood, mostly beech and ash with some maple and hickory. Lengths vary from 12" - 18", averaging about 16". Nothing over 4" in diameter, lots of it ~1". Bone dry. My kids call it "rocket fuel". Total wood to start was a tad over 2 face cord (2/3 full cord).
As mentioned earlier, we fire an armload every 8 mins on a timer. (see Pic)
I started Saturday morning with 170 US gallons (650litres) in the tank. When I ended for the day, I had boiled 120 US Gallons and consumed ~3/4 face cord. I averaged 16gph and made 20 litres of syrup. By the end of the day, the coals were getting away on me and slowing down the evaporation rate.
Sunday morning I pumped another 130 Imp gallons into the tank and started boiling again. Sunday I boiled until the tank was dry (180 gallons) averaging 15.7 gph and used another 3/4 face cord of wood, producing roughly 22litres of syrup.
At the end of Sunday's boil, I leveled out the woodpile, and there was 18" of wood left. So almost exactly 1.5 face cords (1/2 full cord) consumed for 300 gallons of sap boiled off, and 42 litres of syrup produced.
Sap to Syrup 27:1 (22.6:1 Sat, 30:1 Sun)
Sap to Wood 200USG or 750l / face cord or 600USG (2250l) / full cord.
At local firewood rates of $300 / cord, it would cost me $5 / litre if I were to buy firewood. (And then I would need to split it down a few more times)
(And yes- I know, I mix Imp gallons, US gallons & litres - I was schooled in Canada during the 70s and 80's - what can I say? My bulk tank is marked in US gallons, so that is what I use for evaporation rates. Makes the maple math easy though- it takes 10 gallons sap to make a litre.)
Big_Eddy, $300 a cord for firewood....holy liftin. Is that a full cord or a face cord cut, dried, split, delivered and stacked for you? I go in with some friends on a load of log length wood and we do all the work, but at $1000 for approx 22 cord wood (12 for them, 10 for me) it still doesn't come anywhere near $300. And there is enough deadfall around that I can buck up for kindling.
Slowly fixing my sap with distilled....oh jeez I'm such a bad person, my syrup's not 100%....*eyeroll* and it's only 2 batches that are getting this treatment. All the others are fine and 100% pure syrup.
Going rate around here is $300 full cord (4'x4'x8') seasoned hardwood cut & split including local delivery. Stacking is extra. My son has a small firewood business. Buys 6-8 trucks of logs a year. Logs are a lot cheaper, but harder to fit in the fireplace. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Lmao Galena
Why you gotta be like that with the eye roll ? Lol
The eye roll looks very familiar tho. Especially when i say " hey i found a new piece of sugaring equipment" :cool:
Lol
Big Eddy
Send me info on firewood im in the marked for 2 bush cord for next season already
Clinkis... i mailed you about syrup
Yeah hehe...I figured it was time for my annual eyeroll :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by JeffB
Soapbox time. Batch #6 was cookin along nice and slow, I tested it with the hydrometer, it red 3 hashmarks of red over the top of the syrup. Yay! So I take it off and .....it's sugared.
That is the third batch this year that I have gone over. I don't know if it's the crazy sugar content throwing off the equipment, or the slower way I am bringing the syrup to temp, or if the hydrometer is defective....but for the last 2-3 seasons I have used only the PQ hydrotherm, and so long as that little red line is showing at syrup level or just over, for hot syrup or room-temp, the syrup is perfect.
So I have put the hydrometer into storage, and then went and GOT SOME FRESH SAP from my holding tank, just so the purists quit pickin on me ;-) Taking a break before I go back to the kitchen and fix syrup. Again.
So I'm now officially exhausted...
We got the new high pressure pump for the RO to the sugar camp by 11pm on Friday night. We had a few challenges with getting it installed so it wasn't running until 12:30am. At that point we had 3500 gallons in the tanks at the sugar camp and all the tanks in the bush within 6 inches of running over - and 2 of the pumps had been off for 6 hours! We gathered a full load from each tank between 1:00am and 5:30am while the RO chewed through sap. By 6:00am the concentrate tank was full and we rinsed the RO. I left the camp at 7:30am and my brother showed up at 7:45 to start boiling! We boiled until out of concentrate at 1:00pm, shut down The Beast, kept concentrating sap, changed syrup pans and fired back up at 4:30pm. By the time we shut down again at not long after midnight we had made close to 0.3L/tap in a single day! Yesterday was an "easy" day with a 10:00am start and the sun was still up when we left the sugar camp!
With the best 5 day stretch in our history behind us I am no longer worried about the season. This week's weather looks good and we still have a lot of snow in the woods so we should make syrup well into next week.
Congrats Ennismaple! Things have been so exhausting around here that I went to bed early and slept ten hours straight last night. If there is another gasp of sap I'm ready for it. If not, I've had the best year ever!
Thanks Karen. Our total sap gathered hasn't been that high but when you are concentrating 3.0% sap into 15% concentrate it comes off the far end of the evaporator fast and furious! I haven't done the math yet but I'm guessing we are between 175 and 200 gallons of syrup made per chord of wood this year. I've had several days I couldn't filter fast enough and was thankful we have a 60 gallon syrup tank that feeds the press! I was about to start putting unfiltered syrup into a drum that would be filtered later.
Stick with it! I know that people who are in this for a hobby don't see the extra syrup made as a return on investment but you'll be glad you made the extra if you can sell some of it and make a bit to pay your expenses. That's how folks like you upgrade to a 2x4, then a 2x6, then a 3x8, then get a hobby RO... it never ends!!! I'm already planning what equipment we need to make next several seasons bigger, better and less effort.
Still pushing sap here, expext to get around 6l from current (last?) batch of 114l. Ratio been consistent 17:1-19:1 so about 18:1 overall. Too soon for final tally but around 500l sap. Just grinding away at it, trying to run Shack Whacky and do taxes at same time. Fun!
Im glad for you all that your sap is still pumping but i will admit I'm a little jelous and fustrated at reading about it .
It just wasnt in the cards this year i guess.:cry:
JeffB, if it's any consolation, last year Karen's area got very little, and we got a lot. This year she's swimming in it and some of us are lucky to be part of that surge, others not so much. Don't waste time being jealous. Make the most of what you got.
Galena is right JeffB. Check my sucky stats for 2018 and 2017. It was a good thing that I kept a stash in reserve. I was like a mini-Quebec - without the infamous heist. ;)
Lol its the nature of the beast but like ennismaple says it never ends so maybe look into a vacuum set up for next year.
Your numbers are not to bad karen but ya your 1 year looks like it was a tough year for sap
Well, Our clan is certainly exhausted too. Finished our last batch this morning. Not a bad season at all! Average sap/syrup ratio this year was 31:1, Amazing really!!
Gonna pull spiles now.. hope you all finish up as happy as we are!
Great numbers Karen!! What a fantastic run you’ve had!
Thanks Les. I have more syrup finishing on the stove that looks like another 8L - but I don't want to jinx it. Dare I think that I could be at, or near, 40L for this year......? :cool:
My ratio this year is close to 33:1 with only one small sugar maple in the bunch!
Enjoy your golden harvest for 2019!
You sure did well for a bush that is so mixed, Karen! Well done and I hope you get your 40l :-)
Well crunched some numbers and here's what I got so far....318.7l sap made 15.9l syrup. Ratio went from 16.5:1-29.6:1, averages out to 20:1. Have no idea how this last big batch of 114l is gonna pan out (haha yeah I'm funny) but think I'll get 5.5-6+l finished. Stay tuned!
All of your sugar numbers are amazing!
As much as I may complain about the weather, sap brix, lack of sleep or my wife what I love most about sugaring is how little control we have over what we get. Makes is that more special if you ask me.
And I’m moving over here. Southern Ontario is a bit of a snoozer.
Are you really moving out this way, Smokeshow? And just curious, would Southern Ontario include Port Colbourne? I have friends there who want to sugar but aren't really set up for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Smokeshow
Those are nice numbers Gelinas, is that before or after the poor man's ROing. Just curiousQuote:
Originally Posted by Galena
LOL actually only made one batch with the poor man's RO - and that one is the pissiest little b*****d of the bunch. Mind it was made from only a one-day run of 22l and change, so maybe that's why I'm getting so much attitude from it. I took off approx 16l straight liquid sweet, 3' sweet trapped in ice, and the last 3l were straight ice.Quote:
Originally Posted by Someclown
But I have to spiff it up and make it look less cloudy somehow, or it'll be like the little kid with their finger stuck up their nose during the annual family portrait. Have to do SOMETHING to it to make it behave.
ETA...isn't Gelinas a hockey player?
Galena I didn’t mean in the physical sense. Just the thread I post most often in.
I’m in Halton so could be considered central Ontario but I’m on the cusp for sure.
I had a short run. Only collected sap for two weeks, probably could have for a couple more days, but I would have had to closely monitor the sap as it was turning fast.
Adding up the numbers, it looks like I did fairly well.
I finished about 33L of syrup, not counting a couple of boil overs. And what dripped out of the filter, that is in an open jar for immediate use.
Those 33L came out of ~954 litres of sap. Putting me at about 29:1, which is nuts.
I collected more sap than that, but I gave away about 125L of sap. Putting me at about 1080 litres of sap collected, in two weeks, from 20 taps (all sugars).
Hahaha, rightQuote:
Originally Posted by Galena
Sorry Galena
I need to find some trees like that
Hehe no probs, better than last year when someone's autocorrect kept calling me Glenda!Quote:
Originally Posted by Someclown
In terms of trees...all I can say is that when I saw the listing for me house, the words 'Mature maples' leapt out at me like a flashing neon sign. There were other reasons why I bought my place but that was definitely a factor in its favour!
Plan to leave the spiles in til the weekend, more out of curiousity than anything else. My reds aren't budding yet, adn the sugars nowhere near close to. Yet I was fishing sap moths out of buckets this evening. Not a lot but still. Didn't collect today, thank gawd.
Think I got through about 70l sap today. Plan to wrap it up for tonight sooner than later so I can actually relax. Also, have to work tomorrow so can't stay up til 1am running on Fireball and drips of syrup!