Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[PATheron]

My last electric bill was 3400$ and I don't mind paying it. I can only Imagine what it would cost to run everything on a big diesel generator. Cost of doing business. I can see if your hobbying and you get a big bill it would suck. Theron

[Buffalo Creek Sugar Camp]

I can't believe how much money you guys are paying for electric. I have one pump shed that has a 10HP pump, a 7.5 hp pump and a 1000GPH RO with an electric heater to keep it from freezing. The pumps run 24/7. The electric bill last month for that shed was $550.00. Maybe it is because we are closer to the coal fired power plants?

[bstewar]

Mike, I believe there are pics floating around of you sporting your best polyester too. Talk about scary!

[DoubleBrookMaple]

Boiled last night never boiled ropy syrup. Never will again pan has black burn spots all over the bottom, not worth it to me. Made 10 gal of mersh.
Collected 120 gal today on 400 taps, we are going to gather tomorrow finishboff at night call it a season. GMP is really putting the screws to us so going to cut our losses for the year and try to figure out for next year.

I will dump all my sap and pull the taps tomorrow.

Test boil on the stove was bad. Never bad odor from boiling, but syrup had no maple flavor whatsoever, and was a bit unpleasant, even for me. Second opinion conformed. After cooling, the syrup poured like it was a bit ropey as well.

[Amber Gold]

Jeremy, energy prices in the NE are expensive in general.

Had a thought this morning as a friend was sending me pics of his tour of Goodrich's operation: VT is kind of like Texas, everything's bigger. Cool pics...quite the operation.

[Randy Brutkoski]

Boiled crystal clear sap today and it was garbage. Made 2 barrels . Tomorow morning i will boil up the last 3000 gallons and call it a year. The sap is still running real hard. At 1 bush i got 2 gallons per tap yesterday and the same today,

[chevypower]

The sap came in hard starting yesterday afternoon and was still coming in strong (although at around 1.2% or so) when we finished up tonight so we could head to work. We gathered the buckets for the last time and the sap was testing around 2.6% although there definitely is some budding going on. We decided to dump the nasty sap in one of our storage tanks yesterday before the sap started running again and this morning we dumped and cleaned out everything in our evaporator as it had become quite nasty. We only had time to re-sweeten the pans tonight and draw off around 20 gallons of commercial grade syrup. We didn't run it through the press since we knew we wouldn't have much and wouldn't have the time to clean it up before having to leave. We should have around 5500 gallons of sap in the morning which we'll try to boil and hopefully get through the press, tomorrow might be it for us...

[spud]

I shipped 7500 gallons today. Sap should run all night and then freeze tomorrow night again. The sap is clearing up but still cloudy and testing 1.2%. I was told the syrup boiled ok and filtered ok but the taste is nothing to write home about. I hope for another few days.

Spud

[wiam]

My sap cleared up yesterday. Commercial at first then came back to B. Flavor was off at first and then got better.

[wdchuck]

Looks like we're all in the same boat in these parts. putting 2500 gallons through the RO as I type, boiling in a few hours. Yesterday's syrup was B flavor, lighter color. Blend it with something to give it some color and it's OK!