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Thread: Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

  1. #2231
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Location
    Washington, VT
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    138

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    Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this thread. It has been really fun and informative to read how the season progresses for everyone. We first boiled 3/1 and will finish today. We ended up making 100 gallons more than last year ending at around 770. Color and taste has remained good throughout the season. Early and mid season runs were average. Late season runs were below average. We utilized a one post RO to the fullest using various batch and recirculation tanks. Boiling at around 16-18% sure saves the wood. Another post would sure be handy. The bottleneck in the system is waiting for concentrate. We switched out a Filmtech 270 membrane for a MES. Performance was about the same. Best to you all and stay safe.
    3x8 Algier Evaporator. 600 gph Lapierre RO. 10" Filter press. We buy sap.

  2. #2232
    Join Date
    Nov 2010
    Location
    Bakersfield, VT
    Posts
    241

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    Shut the pump off last night. Still making good dark syrup but the sap just wasn't coming. Finished a little ahead of last year. Overall good season for us. Now to start the clean up, tap pulling so we can move onto filling the woodshed.
    54 Acres bought in Sept 2010, hope for a lot of fun
    Kabota 3400 w/ bucket
    couple Husky chainsaws and a couple of Stihl
    Big dream
    2011 = 106 on gravity tubing, 100 bucket
    2012 =700 vaccuum 100 gravity 80 bucket's
    30" x 12' Vortex with Leader Revolution Max Raised pans
    2013 = 1200 vac, 200 gravity, 5 buckets, buying from 300 buckets, 500 vac
    Springtech RO 600 Deluxe
    2015= 1800 all vac @ home, buying sap from 1200.
    2017= 2200 all on vac. no longer buying sap

  3. #2233
    Join Date
    May 2009
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    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    Flow has slowed quite a bit. 1,768 gal at 1.5 Brix overnight. Boiled some test concentrate and it was quite good, so will send it off to the bulk tank to boil today starting around noon. Should make about 170 gal of syrup from what we collected from Friday until today. We're getting really close to 3,000 gal (4,929 taps), so as long as it isn't buddy or off-flavored (sour), we'll keep the pumps running. Given the high temps forecast for today, I can't imagine it going much longer, but we'll see. Likely we'll see what we have collected again in the morning and either RO it and boil to finish up the pans, or boil Thurs.

    Afternoon Update
    Made a bit over 150 gal of Amber/Rich syrup. Flavor was nice, but still a bit mild. Very little niter. All of it went in the drum. Total is now 2,963 gal or 0.60 gal/tap. Sap is still running from some sections of the woods. We will collect in the morning, concentrate and do a test boil again. If the sap is good, we'll boil it -- if not, we'll dump it. Either way, we will boil out the pans and call it a season. Hoping to crack that 3,000 gal mark first.
    Last edited by DrTimPerkins; 04-24-2018 at 03:29 PM.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  4. #2234
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Central Vt
    Posts
    402

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    Pulled more buckets yesterday and was amazed to see clear sap still dripping this late in the season from taps that went in way back in Feb. Pretty amazing year for production !
    31 Taps in 2011 with buckets, Barrel evap
    45+ Taps for 2012 with buckets, 2x5 Dryer Arch with steel pans ! 8x11 Sugar Shack, Dump Stations,
    60 Taps for 2013- Insulated Dryer arch, AUF,
    2014 watched from sidelines...
    70 Taps for 2015 - dryer arch, new 2x5 divided pan from Smokey Lake with a float box !
    70 Taps for 2016 - added a preheater and new grates for the Dryerator.
    80 Taps for 2018 - Dryer arch got new front and door

  5. #2235
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    Westford, Vermont
    Posts
    238

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    Just finished boiling out the rig and ended up with 0.53 gals per tap for our Westford production on our 3000 taps here. By far the best production these woods have ever seen. The last 40 gallons of syrup ended up with definitely a strong taste, a bit raisin-like. I bet we will not get knocked on price though, it still tasted pretty good to me.

    Sap is still being trucked out of Jericho woods to our buyer in Fairfield but the last load will be taken tonight or tomorrow morning. Will be a bit before production numbers come in there. Good season overall. Very smooth boils. We only used 1.5 bags of DE all season. I think for us, using less DE really helps increase the volume we can put through our press. We still have crystal clear syrup too.

    Sap flow decreased quite a bit in the last 1-2 weeks. I don't know if tapping a bit later would have made a positive difference in our production this year. But tapping when there is no snow on the ground and getting those early season runs and having vacuum tight for the big runs is worth it to me. Rather than tapping a bit later and getting the end of season runs. This year maybe it would have been worth it, but it's a gamble and this season was an anamoly.

    Starting to pull spouts tomorrow. Luckily have a few people lined up to help.

    Good luck to all those still going and to everyone else with clean up, etc.

  6. #2236
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Calais, VT
    Posts
    85

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    Remarkable to read all these numbers. Just a fantastic year. Felt real good yesterday pushing last sweet through the pans as the sun rays did their god-ray thing through the steam in the cupola. Nice small mellow boil to reflect a bit on the season. For us, it won't be the big numbers we remember about 2018, but rather the first year with RO. What a game changer. RO brought other changes, like the need for a different filter press. Went from the SIRO to a plate press - another game changer. Less time in the sugarhouse with the RO this year also gave me more time in the woods to walk lines. Found a lot of clogs in my 3/16 lines, mostly in older tubing, so got a lot of practice chasing those down. One big change for me for next year will be experimenting with CV spouts. Even though all spouts were new, sap yield from older tubing, not surprisingly, slowed significantly at the end of the season. New tubing flowed equally well all season but older stuff tapered big-time. I have no mechanical vacuum so probably have higher taphole contamination than most, and thinking CVs for 3/16 gravity might be particularly appropriate.

    We ended up with just under 700 gal from 1711 taps, or about 0.4 gal/tap. Not much compared to many of you on mechanical vac but our highest yield ever.

    Thanks to everyone for their posts. Fantastic community here. Great to be able to connect with the greater maple community on a daily/weekly basis instead of just at open houses, meetings, or at the supplier shop. Have a great summer.

  7. #2237
    Join Date
    May 2009
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    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    The fat peepers have sung (I have no idea whether they are female or male). Only 1,006 gal at ~1.4 Brix overnight. Sap is just a tiny bit sour (60-70 deg F and sunny will do that), but will make fine syrup (we did a test boil with concentrate already and we need some dark syrup). We'll start boiling the little concentrate we will got from that last run, and will put it and the contents of the backpan into the frontpan and boil it all out later this morning (with permeate running into the backpan). Will update this pm after we boil.

    Afternoon Update
    Boiled the concentrate and finished off the sweet in the pans. That's it for us. Total of 3,038 gal off 4,929 taps, or 0.62 gal/tap (6.8 lbs/tap). Slightly above our 0.59 gal/tap average. First time we've broken 3,000 gal. All syrup was either Golden/Delicate or Amber/Rich. Normally we start at Amber and go down from there. Never dropped below 60% light transmittance. Sugar content was average or slightly above average most of the season. Hardly any niter most of the year. I think I only switched sides (during a boil) 3 times all season.

    We made a lot of changes to the sugarhouse this year, with more planned/coming this summer/fall. We pushed the new Lapierre HyperBrix RO hard just to see what it could do....we were NOT disappointed.

    Hope to see folks at the Open Houses this Fri/Sat.
    Last edited by DrTimPerkins; 04-25-2018 at 01:25 PM.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  8. #2238
    Join Date
    Feb 2015
    Location
    Westford, Vermont
    Posts
    238

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    Dr. Tim, when you boil out the rig do you just start introducing water once the last of your concentrate is boiled out? And do you end up with the contents turning abruptly from syrup to water at the end of the boil?

    We used that technique yesterday but it seemed that the water just blended with syrup and it took forever for us to draw off. We are thinking of draining the back pan next year and then filling the back pan with water. Then adding in the back pan contents slowly to the front pan to boil it all out. Then maybe add water to the front pan once all the back pan contents are gone. Still seems like we would end up with a bit of semi-sweet stuff in the front pan that would go to waste.

  9. #2239
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    May 2009
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    UVM Proctor Maple Research Center, Underhill Ctr, VT
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    No, that approach is called "chasing the sweet", and as you experienced, it is not extremely effective (I can explain why, but it is a bit long and complicated....the short version is that you're simply changing the "steepness" of the gradient, so forcing a little more sugar from the pan, but not a lot). The time between draws gets longer and longer, and the draws get smaller and smaller, and you're still left with a lot of syrup in the pan.

    The way we used to do it was to empty both front and backpans into our finishing pan. We stopped using that the finishing rig this year and went to filtering directly off the evaporator (from a drawoff container), so there is no longer a finishing pan to use in that fashion. As an aside, at the rate we're making syrup (75 gal/hr), I'd never go back to a finishing pan again. Pretty sure it was making our syrup darker reheating it again.

    Instead, the approach we use is to shut off the valve from the backpan to the frontpan, then transfer all the contents of the backpan to the frontpan (it ends up fairly deep). We then fill the concentrate tank with permeate and have it feed the backpan (we run it rather deeply....it helps to start the cleaning process) and boil. Since there is no incoming concentrate, the entire frontpan essentially ends up at the same concentration as you boil. It is more like boiling in one large flat-pan and no gradient forms. We will draw off with buckets (if necessary) at various points in the frontpan and pour it back in the frontpan across the partitions to make sure that there is no variation in density. We keep checking density in the pan (we can monitor temperature in all our partitions, so that is easy) until it gets to syrup. We boil until the syrup (across all pan sections) is a little bit dense, then shut off the evaporator and drawoff all of it into a drawoff container over about 30 min time, adding hot permeate from the backpan to standardize to density, then run it through the filter press. The only syrup we miss at that stage is what is held up in the press. If we really are eager to save that, we will flush it with hot water and run that into a turkey cooker (propane) to boil down and filter through a cone filter. We didn't bother with that today, and just let the last 2-3 gal of syrup caught in the press go in the garbage can (horrors!). We knew the total amount we were going to make was only going to be a few drums (75 gal), so we blocked off (with a flat SS flat plate) the back 1/3 of our press, so it didn't hold up as much syrup as usual. Done and done.
    Last edited by DrTimPerkins; 04-25-2018 at 05:58 PM.
    Dr. Tim Perkins
    UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
    http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
    https://mapleresearch.org
    Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu

  10. #2240
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    Knapp, Wis
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    1,872

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    Quote Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins View Post
    No, that approach is called "chasing the sweet", and as you experienced, it is not extremely effective (I can explain why, but it is a bit long and complicated....the short version is that you're simply changing the "steepness" of the gradient, so forcing a little more sugar from the pan, but not a lot). The time between draws gets longer and longer, and the draws get smaller and smaller, and you're still left with a lot of syrup in the pan.
    I don't know....I chase with permeate after every boil and can usually get the contents in the flue pan down to 6% sugar, (don't want all that concentrate sitting in the flue pan to darken) versus when I boiled raw sap only and shut down, the content in the flue pan would be 12-14% after it cooled down. I only boil 30 to 40 minutes of permeate max to achieve this. At the end, as others have said, I empty the flue pan into pails and milkcans, refill with permeate and cook the contents in the front pan treating it as one big flat pan.
    Mark

    Where we made syrup long before the trendies made it popular, now its just another commodity.

    John Deere 4000, 830, and 420 crawler
    1400 taps, 600 gph CDL RO, 4x12 wood-fired Leader, forced air and preheater. 400 gallon Sap-O-Matic vacuum gathering tank, PTO powered. 2500 gallon X truck tank, 17 bulk tanks.
    No cage tanks allowed on this farm!

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