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I've never serviced a Sobles releaser, but the build is probably similar to other double verticals.

Is this indoors or outdoors? When was the last time you cleaned / greased the moving surfaces?...

Those who sell sap do, (but usually to someone with an RO.)

A good friend is lending me his vertical electric releaser with an external pump - it's the D&G one... I'm going to start working on setting it up tomorrow.

I've been using a homemade mechanical...

That's a good pattern to look for. I haven't seen any clogs in my setup yet - on year #4 of this 3/16 tubing so maybe I haven't been looking hard enough. I'll head out into the woods and be on the...

I'm putting new drops in and are doing 3/16 laterals with 5/16 drops on most of them for precisely this reason. I'm going to have a batch of droplines made up with 3/16 for places where I'm going to...

I'm going to make a bunch of new droplines this year. I'm switching over to use stubby spouts with the clear CV2 adapters.

Between seasons after cleaning tubing, do you guys put the stubbies onto...

I emailed Steve Childs and he said that he bought one of the refractometer invert sugar testers and it just measured the brix the same as a normal digital refractometer... not the invert sugar % at...

I've been looking at getting a glucose meter but came across a Hanna refractometer that is meant to measure invert sugar - it's more expensive at $175 but I wonder if it would work (no test strips...

Vacuum at the end will help prime the system and make finding leaks in the 3/16 very easy. Without a vacuum if your system is perfectly tight without any leaks, the gravity induced vacuum will be...

Peter Purinton has some in stock in Huntington. At least he did last Friday - my guess is he still does. You could call him up and see.

Most of my lines are clean. I pressure-washed after the first season but not after last season. I just left sap in them.

I use 3/16 drops with a 5/16 piece at the end and checkvalve spouts. The...

Yes, I have done this. I used a 3-way solenoid valve to do it. I have two float switches (high and low) and it cycles in about 5 seconds.

I have a long thread on sugarbush.info where I was...

It froze for a few hours last night at my place, but that wasn't enough to get the trees to run very well. I've got vacation plans so I was going to be done tomorrow anyway. Ground might have been...

Here in Hinesburg it didn't freeze sunday night and so today it was very slow - trickled in. Around 1/2 gallon per tap for 24 hours.

Still clear and still tastes good. I walked the lines today...

How much slope do you have? If you have a decent amount of slope - 3/16 is _definitely_ what you want to do. I built my own releaser and bought a gast 1023 vane pump... but also have a gast 72r...

There some stuff patented in the 1960's that used some micro-organisms to treat buddy syrup. I haven't heard anything about this actually used - I'm not sure if this is the illegal process that you...

I dumped and washed my tank last night around 6pm. In 14 hours I've got 0.8 gallons per tap of clear sap sitting in it. I can see the bottom - which I couldn't before with the cloudy sap.

I did a...

You should get your execs to fly Henry Marckres down for the judging. That guy is a legend.

There's an article called "when to stop" hosted by the proctor maple research center that talks about the economics of making commercial syrup:
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The rate of sap flow is still increasing here. I think the tapholes may be drying up a bit, but the rate of sap increasing after the temperature drops and the sun goes down seems like a lot of what...

It's starting to pick up a bit in Hinesburg - It was about 3 hours to the first time my releaser dumped, then 45 minutes, then 30 minutes, most recent one was 25 minutes... When it runs really hard...

It's 50 degrees in hinesburg, still basically just a trickle. I'm in the banana belt so I would expect to thaw a little earlier than most.

The sap was running harder than this right up until it...

It's like February behavior all over again! (Tomorrow it will run for sure) I think it's supposed to warm sightly overnight so I'm leaving my pump on in case the trees wake up and dump sap in the...

It's trickling in at my place this afternoon - it is 38°F but with some wind and not a lot of sun. The sap that is coming in is mostly stuff that has been sitting frozen in the tubing (it's pretty...

I assume everyone else who is still going is excited about this deep freeze? I really like that it isn't going to freeze Wednesday night in my area - it's going to take a full day for the trees to...