Spring Harvest 2013

[Russell Lampron]

I have to admit, I was saying to keep the pumps on and the sap flowing. But I started pulling taps this morning and the stuff coming into the releaser is looking really nasty today.

I had to unplug my vacuum pump yesterday because the front bearing failed in the motor. The sap I got before I pulled the plug was real cloudy with some cottage cheese mixed in. I don't think I missed much today.

[red maples]

Trucked in the last load of sap yesterday. It went from being cloudy the previous day to snotty the next. Picked up 660 gal yesterday and boiled it down last night. It was a bear trying to keep the foam knocked down in the flue pan, before now it's boiled nicely. Odd thing is as we were wrapping things up, the syrup pan lightened up considerably, and very noticeable when we shut down. Also, wasn't getting the mud in the syrup pan like we have been...makes me wonder what's in the last batch of sap to make it change so much. Weird. Boiling off the flue pan in the syrup pan and will have final numbers and thoughts on the season later this week.

One good thing about having a cold right now is I can't smell the sap as it's boiling off...my wife says it's pretty strong.

You still have a cold.... geez you got hit hard this year!!! but your lucky about not being able to smell end of season sap boil....man it gets stinky!!!

[Amber Gold]

Russ, I saw that the bearing went...good timing. Do you have a backup in case something happened mid-season? After thinking about what I'd lose from not having a spare pump, I bought another LR pump I can just connect and go.

Brad, this has been something else. I got a cold during the cold spell (great timing), got over that in time for maple weekend, only to have my daughter get sick again the following week. I thought I was in the clear, but then got sick last week. I think anyone who has kids in 1st grade, should keep them quarantined somewhere else. They're a breeding factory for germs. I wasn't complaining then about the cold, and I can't taste much, so I had Lisa taste the syrup...guess it was pretty bad

Shut the pump off late yesterday, and still got 0.5gpt! They just won't stop. That sap looked really bad though. Brought it home to leave in the pans for a month or so.

Season total of 538.7 gal of syrup produced and ~34k gal of sap processed. In breaking out our vac. woods, we collected almost 33gpt of sap, and produced ~450 gal of syrup...not bad out of ~830 taps...final tap count to be determined when I pull taps this weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh you sure had a good season. The bearing that failed is the front one in the electric motor. I found a replacement motor online for $153 with free shipping and will order one soon. They also stock that motor at Tractor Supply and if it was an emergency I could have the pump running again in a couple of hours. As it was it was late Saturday afternoon when the squealing got bad enough for me to have to shut it off. The bearing had been making some noise off and on for a couple of days.

The last sap that I boiled really stunk up the sugar house. The syrup has a bitter bite to it too. I don't think that it was much of a mistake to turn off the vacuum when I did. I heard that Bascoms is only going to pay $.75lb, minus $.05lb for 5 gal containers, for off flavor syrup so I don't want to make it anyway. At density that comes out to $8.25 per gallon.

[Dill]

Guess the season is really over, I just took the tank out of the truck. Which means I have to cart the giant pile of trash I've accumlated to the dump.

[red maples]

8.25 a gallon for mersh....not worth the time, energy, wood, electricity etc. in my opinion anyway.... thats only 41 for a 5 gallon!!!

[Russell Lampron]

8.25 a gallon for mersh....not worth the time, energy, wood, electricity etc. in my opinion anyway.... thats only 41 for a 5 gallon!!!

That price is only for buddy and off flavor mersh. The good stuff is still $2lb.

[jgrenier]

The lowest price Bascom's quoted me less than a week ago was $1.75 per pound for unfiltered commercial syrup.

[Amber Gold]

I was planning on it being $2/lb which is why I was making it. $2lb is worth it, anything less no...especially at $0.75/lb. The mersh I made actually filtered and fine, and didn't boil as bad as mersh in year's past.

[Russell Lampron]

The lowest price Bascom's quoted me less than a week ago was $1.75 per pound for unfiltered commercial syrup.

Did they say anything about buddy or off flavor syrup? Last season they said $.75lb for buddy and a friend of mine said that that will include off flavor syrup this season.