1.7% today, last boil tomorrow. Started pulling taps. It was an intense 2 weeks in the sugar woods.
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1.7% today, last boil tomorrow. Started pulling taps. It was an intense 2 weeks in the sugar woods.
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I'm up in Madison County, my lease of about 500 taps gave me 900 gal today at 1.7% with just 17" vacuum but about 1/4 of the taps are also on 3/16, they would have been at max, My 3/16 have a 25'+ fall, the lower taps are on 5/16 lines with the vacuum helping all. My home bush at the sugarhouse was about 400 gal in 24 hrs on 314 taps. There I have 26-27" vacuum.
Looking at my forecast, I suspect I will get sap thru Saturday morning and that will end it here. Last freeze Friday morning, then none until Wed when it might get to 30 F. Not good enough.
However, I had 14 days in a row with good sap flow and starting March 20-28 it flowed harder than I've ever seen for that many days since I began in 2003. It will end up a good year here. I don't have a count yet, I'll add it up after the season. I just keep a log book and do not usually tally it until the end.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
Last boil went quick this mourning . waiting for pans to cool down so I can drain front and put it in propane finisher ( 16 x34 ) Attachment 0
Bottled the last of the season today and cleaning up. Intense 3 weeks. We collected 10 gallons sap per tap and bottled 23 oz syrup per tap. Had filtering challenges the last 2 boils. Checking out a vacuum filter setup for next season. Gravity filtering works most of the time, but when it does not ...
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Saturday was my last boil. Ended with 22 gallons for the year. Washed and dried all my buckets in yesterdays warm weather.
100-110 buckets
Leader 7.5" 3 Bank filter press (2023)
RO Bucket RB10 (2017) upgraded to RB20 (2020)
Homemade oil tank arch
Homemade stainless pans
12x16 Sugar Shack (new 2020)
Finished pulling taps today . rear pan is filled with sap to do its thing . was lucky and found another 200 gal. milk tank cheap . this will replace a plastic cage tank , there was a time I liked those cage tanks , they are a pain in the ------ to keep really clean . My arch needs to be rebuilt and again was lucky and found an old Ice bank milk tank shell . More than enough stainless to do it . Enjoying the warm weather !!!!!!!!!!!!!
[ATTACH=CONFIG]20085 DSCN0462.jpg DSCN0463.jpg DSCN0464.jpg Here is a few photos of that ice bank milk tank shell that I am going to rebuild my arch with . It is 20 gauge and I am using Milwaukee 7 1/4 saw with Dewalt metal cutting blades to cut it apart . So far it is cutting apart pretty well .
DSCN0465.jpgDSCN0467.jpg DSCN0468.jpg DSCN0469.jpg DSCN0466.jpg Got back to work cutting this mourning , just got to cut around the legs and get that part off .
DSCN0471.jpg DSCN0472.jpg Resized_20170302_093914.jpg One stripped ice bank milk tank shell
DSCN0473.jpg Got the rear pan up and hanging from the rafters , and all fire brick and ceramic blanket removed also .