Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[DoubleBrookMaple]

Those look like red maple flower buds to me. Typically those appear (swell and open) the earliest.

I pulled the taps on that one. It looked worse from the ground.

[WestfordSugarworks]

One of my vacuum pumps died on me yesterday. I brought it to CDL today and they were able to rebuild it and get it back to me at 5:00 tonight. Ronnie and I were able to get it hook up and running in minutes. Running smooth and at 28.5 inches. Based on the amount of sap I got from my upper woods I figure I lost about 4000 gallons. Can't cry over lost sap. I'm ready for the next three weeks of big sap. I can't thank the guys at CDL enough for all their help.

Spud

28.5"? Get it!!! That's awesome, it's great when people can come in clutch like that. We've had that a couple times this year where someone comes in clutch.

Surpassed last year's crop today with our 19th barrel. Not saying much since it's brand new tubing and boiling off of 1500 more taps or so, but it's a good feeling nonetheless. Check out this video that a friend made for us. Nice little promo. https://vimeo.com/160035148

[JoeJ]

Long day yesterday. The 2,149 trees at my Jericho woods donated 4740 gallons of sap in 24 hours ( 2.20 gal of sap per tap). That is the highest gpt I have seen in 13 years of sugaring in either of my woods. That total would have been even higher if I had been able to capture the sap that was spilling out of my overflowing 3859 gal tank at 6:00 AM yesterday morning. The RO was working 12 1/2 hours yesterday.

[spud]

Long day yesterday. The 2,149 trees at my Jericho woods donated 4740 gallons of sap in 24 hours ( 2.20 gal of sap per tap). That is the highest gpt I have seen in 13 years of sugaring in either of my woods. That total would have been even higher if I had been able to capture the sap that was spilling out of my overflowing 3859 gal tank at 6:00 AM yesterday morning. The RO was working 12 1/2 hours yesterday.

That is some wicked production. I would have been happy with half that. Your trees are sucking up so much ground water that your neighbors wells are going to go dry. What are you getting for sugar? Thanks for sharing the numbers.


WestfordSugarworks- I enjoyed your video. My daughter said you have a sign on your dorm door saying ( Maple syrup for sale). You got to love it. Let's keep this season alive for another 3 weeks.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

We're a bit higher on the hill than Joe, so we didn't see the trees run like that, but they hovered between flow and no-flow most of the day. They sure do want to run like horses chomping at the bit. We made another 135 gal of syrup yesterday nonetheless, mostly from sap from Tues nights run. That puts us at 1,441 gal total on 4,269 taps (0.34 gal/tap). Sugar content from both bushes was running 1.8%. Nothing much going to happen today, but should start running well tonite, and looks like great weather coming up over the next week.

[GeneralStark]

I too had a record run Tuesday -> Wednesday. It finally froze last night after having pulled in over 2gpt in 24 hours. For several hours on Tuesday the sap was coming in at over 100gph from 740 taps. Not bad for my little operation. I have never seen it run so hard here. I'm not sure exactly how much came in but I processed about 2600 gal. (800 from Sat.- Mon) with the ro Tuesday and Wednesday. My original plan was to boil Tuesday but it took so long to get the sap thru the ro, and I burned up the heating element on my canner (don't ask) so I postponed til yesterday after returning from CDL to get a new part for the canner. I agree that CDL is a great company to work with. They have always taken great care of me.

Anyway, I boiled for over four hours yesterday and made over 40 gal. of syrup. The most I have made in one day. All DR though it started right on the line with VD and ended right on the line with AR. The niter has finally shown up. Also using a bit more defoamer. Flavor is still very good and I was able to get 50 gal. (7 from last Friday's boil) thru the filter press. Up to 230 for the season (.31/tap).

It looks like it will start running again later today and go right thru tomorrow. We'll see if we hit 100 gph again but it seems like the trees want to run. Sugar has been about 1.4 and sap has cleared right up.

I was having an issue with the ro shutting off on low pressure when rinsing yesterday. I didn't have time to figure it out yesterday as I had to get to an engagement but will work on that today. I suspect there is a restriction in the feed line as I have a Y and valve in the line right before the ro to purge air and the flow of permeate was much less than usual. Maybe some slime or otherwise....

Red maple buds are visually swollen here, but nothing major with the sugar maples. We'll see how long the trees will go, but I suspect the next warm sunny days we get may be the end.

[northwoods_forestry]

Hit a new production high last night. Also cooked the flue pan...

Damage isn't too bad, caught it in time to prevent major carnage. Still not sure what happened. Either the float jammed or the the feed line was temporarily blocked. Gave it a quick shine this morning and back in business.

[JoeJ]

Spud,
I was hoping that the freeze would help the sugar content, but no, still 1.2%. The sap dropped to 1.2% on the 17th, 18th and the 22nd and the freeze did nothing to help. What the freeze did give me yesterday what my first sugar sand in a rather large dose.

[drewlamb]

Anyone else go fancy yesterday? I made about 30 gallons of some of the lightest syrup I've ever seen. The kids call it Jack Hill SUPER fancy!

[wdchuck]

Pumps turned on just a little while ago- trickling now, but I'm betting on a gusher!