WV MAPLER TAPPED 02/11/06

[Russell Lampron]

Brandon it looks like you need an RO machine to cut that 18 hour boiling time down to about 5 or 6 hours.

Russ

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Russell,

I try to keep the boiling to Fri evenings and Saturdays and not boil during the week any. That is reason that sometimes I have long boils on Sat. Work thru the week, church on Sunday and rest, and live almost 30 minutes away, so I try to collect and hold until weekend and it usually works good. I am getting 50+ gph including startup and shutdown out of my evaporator, so it works good enough for me not to need and RO.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Went over this evening to collect, but not much sap. The sap was running very good, probably about 75% of full bore. The ground is still frozen quite a bit from the very cold temps we had. It hit 50 today and got the trees awake some. I hope it runs nearly all night tonight and fills up the tanks at least 2/3 full. I would like to have at least 1000 gallon to boil off this weekend, but will have to wait and see. Wind mainly out of south, so might not be much. Supposed to be 55 tommorrow, so hopefully they will pour and then get cold again on Friday.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected 500 gallon from what it ran the last two days. It is not supposed to freeze tonight and gradually get colder until it hits freezing probably by 8 or 9 tommorrow night. I am hoping and praying it runs all night and all day tomorrow even though it will probably gradually slow to next to nothing. I hope to have another 500 gallon by tommorrow evening so I can have a good boil about 8 hours tommorrow night and all day Sat.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected another 380 gallons this evening and cold temps now for several days. I am boiling as I am typing this. I am hoping to boil off 350 to 400 this evening and boil off the rest of it tommorrow. It doesn't get much better than being able to get onto the trader via company computer and wireless card out in the sticks and making syrup at the same time. Sure is wonderful to be able to have my own sugarhouse for the first time in my life. God sure is good!

Watching that light amber trickle out of the evaporator!

[brookledge]

Well Brandon you pulled it off. Building a new sugarhouse plus a new child in your family all in one year. Congats!! I did the same in 2002.
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Boiled off 880 gallon Friday evening and all day Sat. I drew off around 15 gallon and stored it in bulk. Will try to get at least that much more before filtering and canning it. This way, nearly all the sugar sand settles to the bottom and it makes for much faster filtering and canning in a couple of weeks. I didn't grade any of it, but it was all light amber or very close if not.

It got to -1 where I live last night which was a record and probably at least -5 or -6 at the sugarhouse as it is always a few degrees colder there. Sure was probably the coldest day I have boiled in before as it was in the single digits last night when I finished. Looks like a pretty cold week with a couple of days barely above 40. Hoping for a few hundred gallon so I can boil Sat.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected 2 of my 3 bushes this evening and got 280 gallons of sap. It looks like it will run a little tommorrow and Sat, so hope to have 500 to 800 gallons to boil off on Sat.

[mapleman3]

Hey Bud congrats on your first boiling season in the new Sugarhouse... your right , having the wireless card is great, I'll have the web cam on again this season when I boil.. so I take it everything is working flawlessly? I'll try to give you a call today to chat with ya. doesn't look like I'll boil till next weekend but thats okay as long as I get at least 4 weeks in this year!!! 5 - 6 would be better 8O

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Didn't collect anything today but it looks like somewhere around 600 to 800 gallon of sap to boil off tommorrow. Start about 600 in the morning and boil and collect until it's all gone hopefully.