Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[GeneralStark]

Thanks Westford. I think I am all set but will let you know if I want to take you up on the offer.

I boiled about 2000 gal. last night and made 27 gal. of DR. Some real nice Grade B type DR and the first of that for the season. Lots of yeast in the sap tank when I cleaned it out...

Last night's boil puts us at .52 gpt so far. According to our sponsor it looks like many VT producers are doing well this season:

https://www.themaplenews.com/story/s...r-whopper/199/

[DrTimPerkins]

Im wondering if PMRC or anyone has ever charted the additional gallons a tree would give after being tapped a second time? I know re-tapping is not a good idea and I would not advise it.

We are currently in the first year of a 3-year study looking at timing of tapping (fall, winter, spring) and a wide variety of strategies to keep tapholes viable longer. No results to report yet.

[VTnewguy]

Debating whether it's worth boiling off the last run of sap. Sugar content was down to 1%. With no RO that's a lot of wood. Hopefully this freeze will get a few more days.

[MJPJ Sugars]

Taps are dry today... 1st completely dry day since 3-21.

Yesterday, boiled-up Monday & Tuesday's haul -- surprisingly light.

Next few days look like ideal beginning-of-season weather

[alexa.holleran]

32º and barely running here today, but I'm thinking there are a couple of good days left before my trees bud out. I've been finishing all DR lately, and what's in my pans is super dark and cruddy, so I'm considering emptying and cleaning them out before boiling again on Saturday. I'm new to continuous-flow, so I'm looking for a little advice on whether that's worth it. If I empty and clean, and filter what's in the pans, can I stick it back in for the boil, rather than re-sweetening the pans? If I do, and if by chance my sap runs fairly sweet after this decent freeze up, can the process really progress to lighter grade from darker grade, even though it's all mixing like that? I'm having a bunch of folks swing by for an open house, of sorts, on Saturday, so I can't really swing another 15 hours of boiling to re-sweeten the pans. I'd rather just keep pulling dark stuff and scraping crud off my pre-filters. But if cleaning my pan would make a big difference, I'm game. I've only finished 13+ gallons since I last cleaned the pans, but the dark crud buildup is remarkable.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom, folks!

[wurmdert]

Pretty decent run yesterday with almost 1.25 gpt between when it thawed and then froze last night. Coming up on 25k gal. sap for the season. Boiled about 1800 gal. sap yesterday and made about 30 gal DR just over the line from AR. I miss the old dark amber option...

I'm now 20 gal. over last year's production and 5 gal. away from .5gpt. Have certainly begun the slide to the finish, but how long will it be before the trees bud? I think I may have another week.

General, Was your sugar % Low. Seems 25,000 gallons should have done better than .5 gallon a tap.

Great season either way. Congrats.

[Super Sapper]

32º and barely running here today, but I'm thinking there are a couple of good days left before my trees bud out. I've been finishing all DR lately, and what's in my pans is super dark and cruddy, so I'm considering emptying and cleaning them out before boiling again on Saturday. I'm new to continuous-flow, so I'm looking for a little advice on whether that's worth it. If I empty and clean, and filter what's in the pans, can I stick it back in for the boil, rather than re-sweetening the pans? If I do, and if by chance my sap runs fairly sweet after this decent freeze up, can the process really progress to lighter grade from darker grade, even though it's all mixing like that? I'm having a bunch of folks swing by for an open house, of sorts, on Saturday, so I can't really swing another 15 hours of boiling to re-sweeten the pans. I'd rather just keep pulling dark stuff and scraping crud off my pre-filters. But if cleaning my pan would make a big difference, I'm game. I've only finished 13+ gallons since I last cleaned the pans, but the dark crud buildup is remarkable.

Thanks for sharing your wisdom, folks!

I would drain and filter the sweet in your pan and the soak your pan in vinegar/water to clean. Niter builds up on the pan and you need to clean occasionally. How often depends on the amount of niter formed. Last year I needed to clean every 300 gallons of sap, this year I went through 2000 before first cleaning but more frequent lately. You can put your sweet back after the pan is cleaned and go from there.

[GeneralStark]

General, Was your sugar % Low. Seems 25,000 gallons should have done better than .5 gallon a tap.

Great season either way. Congrats.

Thanks. And yes, my sugar content has been a bit lower this year than is typical for me. That said, in terms of what 25k gal. of sap "should have" yielded, I can only say what it did yield. I have given up trying to correlate sap quantity and sugar content with gallons of syrup produced. It just seems easier to make the syrup as the mathematical equation never works out...

[GeneralStark]

I would drain and filter the sweet in your pan and the soak your pan in vinegar/water to clean. Niter builds up on the pan and you need to clean occasionally. How often depends on the amount of niter formed. Last year I needed to clean every 300 gallons of sap, this year I went through 2000 before first cleaning but more frequent lately. You can put your sweet back after the pan is cleaned and go from there.

I personally clean my syrup pans after every boil by soaking them in vinegar for about 24 hours and then scraping any remaining niter off with a copper scrubbie and /or a copper pipe scraper I made. I only occasionally clean the flue pan during the season if it starts to collect lots of niter sludge.

How you clean will likely depend upon how your rig is set up, but as Super Sapper says, the niter scale should be removed on occasion as it will reduce your boil rate and it can negatively affect syrup flavor.

[billyinvt]

This is the same pan that I boil on, and I love it.....but.....It is not an easy set up to clean mid season. There are no valves or gates to separate syrup section from flue section, and no drain in the drop flue. When you are thinking you might like to get some "crud" out, you should run it nice and shallow before shut down. Once cooled you can start draining it by filtering the sweet through cheesecloth into containers. Make sure you know which container you filled first, second, third etc so you can reintroduce them in reverse order to try and re-establish the gradient.