Spring Harvest 2013

[Amber Gold]

Same here. The trees ran for a bit, and gave up some sap. Tank has about 400 gal in it now (started yesterday w/ 150-200 gal), so if we can get a little bit of a run today, we'll have enough to boil. Looking at the forecast, I doubt we'll get much today. May have to carry it over another day and just boil a lot on Saturday. It would be interesting to see 2000 gal of sap go through the RO/evap. Most we've done in a night has been about 1500 gal.

The past two days, I've found the moisture trap full. Today, it worked like it was supposed to, yesterday it sealed off-center, so some sap got in the vac. line. I don't think much got by since I'm still pulling good CFM levels.

Long range forecast looks great.

[red maples]

It took a while but sap is coming in pretty good we actually hit about 38* but its already starting to cool off. a good freeze the next 2 nights which should be good to get things going then its gonna run for several days before the next freeze up unless the forecast changes that is. ended up with 13.5 inches of snow here!!! was expecting 3-5. hmm a little off!!!

[Amber Gold]

Wicked busy weekend. Friday we boiled down a bunch of sap..forget the total. Saturday was a bunch more...somewhere around 1800 gallons...filled two kegs and some containers. Sunday boiled around 1800 gal and filled another two kegs and left some in the canner. At this point, we've boiled more times than we did last year, we're approaching 20gpt of sap out of our vac. woods, and ~260 gal of syrup produced in total. Been making about 10gph of syrup, which is nice since I only boil for a few hours on these 1800 gal runs. Still have plenty of prep. and cleanup before/after though. Spent some time in the woods checking for vac. leaks...not much to find and vac's been holding steady at 26 to 26.5"...I think I see the dia. of the trees getting smaller...

Syrup pan float last night wouldn't seal properly and kept flooding the pan. It made it about impossible to keep the draws consistent. I think these are probably the worst float designs ever.

I thought I was losing sugar, but not sure where...sap to syrup ratios weren't coming out right, but are pretty close now. I tested the perm. and it's pretty close to zero when reduced...same with condensate. If it matters, I haven't tested the perm. when I start getting to high conc. levels.

Brad, I stopped watching the weather for snow forecasts...they can't get it right. Temp's they do a pretty good job on, if you can pick the forecast that's right.

This has been an unbelievable winter for getting sick. My oldest daughter's in first grade and has been bringing cold's home every couple of weeks since December. So far, I'm last in line for the latest one, and crossing my fingers that I don't get it.

[Amber Gold]

Yesterday ran good. Collected another 1000 gal and had almost 500 delivered. Made almost 30 gal of syrup. Down to a DA. Sugar's dropping off too. Woke up to 600 gal in the tank and vac. at 27.25", but not running very hard since it was running all night. If things pick up, this may be a three trip day. We'll pass 300 gal tonight.

[Amber Gold]

Another 1040 gal collected yesterday w/ another 200 gal delivered. Our SSC is holding at 1.7%. Not great, but not bad. Sap total to date is ~18gpt out of our vacuum woods and 303 gal of total syrup produced with at least all of March to go. It looks like we might get a break from boiling on Sunday, which will be nice. Still waiting for the mega 2-3gpt/day run.

[gearpump]

Josh, do you have the old style float with the bushing and thumb screw? I got the new design with the screw handle on the top and it has made a world if difference. I now can run the front pan about 3/4 to 1/2" deep and not worry about it flooding or sticking up. The $79 price tag was worth it.

Marty

[Hop Kiln Road]

I read this thread and went to bed to read on my a current project - the connection between Beethoven's 5th and Moby Dick, when it hit me! 303 gal of syrup ytd with a 1996 600 ro and an old wood fired 2.5x8!! I'm stunned. I'm going to try to grasp this, but I think I need some medication...

[Amber Gold]

Marty, problem at least mostly solved. My float's the old z-arm style w/ the rubber stopper. I had a pan fabbed for me last season. I gave him my grimm pan to copy, but the wire the z-arm hooks on to must be off just a bit. On the new pan, the sap comes mostly out of the back side of the float, and it doesn't seal tight. Last night, I swapped pans...figured 300 gal of syrup on a pan and it's about time to change it...the pan wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. Boiled last night on the old pan and it was beautiful...perfect gradient across the pan, regular draws, and etc. Post-season, I'll run some measurements between the two pans and see what's different. I'll be running the old pan for the remainder of the pan. Marty, running 1/2"-3/4" just seems to shallow to me. If I ran that low, I wouldn't have any room for the float to fall when drawing off because it'd be hitting the bottom of the float box.

Bruce, My evap is from 1994, so we're keeping the 90's going strong here. I'm not going to jinx myself, but we're off to a great start. We collected another 1000 gal yesterday, had another 140 gal delivered, and made another 20 gal of syrup. SSC is dropping off since we haven't had a good freeze in a while.

I ran some projections assuming we run at least until the end of March, and we're going to run short on syrup storage unless we have a monster of a maple weekend in sales. If anyone has extra drums they can spare, I'd be interested in them.

[tuckermtn]

Josh- good to hear things are going well. We took last night off, but plan to boil tonight as we have a tour coming to the sugarhouse. I have the same problem with my Mason pan and not lining up well with the floats. Put the new Leader pan on the other night and its better, but not perfect.

I too wish I had more containers for bulk- especially more kegs! Good problem to have needing more storage...

good luck with the rest of the season...

[Amber Gold]

Collected another 775 gal from our vac. woods. Trees were running OK. Sugar's down to 1.4% which sucks. Hopefully this freeze kicks things back up. Grade's down to a B...early for that. I found setting a tank level when the ground's frozen doesn't work when it thaws out. My new tank was listing pretty good, so yesterday, my daughter and I leveled it back out. Cold today with little opportunity of a run, so taking tonight off (kind of), to make a batch of cream and candy, and do misc. things around the SH.

I didn't realize the float pivot point was so critical for it to work properly. Same to you Eric...finish the season strong.