Western New York

[Ghs57]

Been busy cleaning up wind damage from Wednesday. Got it all cut up just waiting to hear back from insurance company. Had to take 500+g to the neighbors so it didn't spoil. Now I have to clean up for Maple Weekend.

Holy ****.

[bowtie]

Looks and feels like the dead of winter out there, and is supposed to be that way until at least Friday. What a roller coaster season we are having.so much for saving firewood.

[millscrest]

With this extremely cold weekend, I made a road trip to the Fingerlakes NY area this morning. I found a like new Sunset 545 gallon stainless steel milk tank with the working compressor and cooling unit. Not a scratch on the tank. Perfect shape!!!!!!. When I was talking with the now retired farmer he mentioned that he had 2 surge vacuum pumps with the electric motors on them that he would throw in on the deal as well. I also picked up 3 stainless steel milk pails all for $700. I feel I did ok. Can't wait until next year now. To cold outside to even was the road salt off the tank.

[MapleMark753]

We've been cleaning up storm damage from last week, like lots of others. Wind took down many trees but only one blocking anything so that's good. Roof partially blew off the shack when I was in it (), but it repaired pretty easy. I've never felt wind that strong, and I think it was close to record strength. I've heard 80 plus mph, but am not sure. Finished up some nice tasting Very Dark today, and had power so could clean up with hot water finally. Some in our area had power out for 4 days like us, others had no interruption whatsoever. Very glad that's over. Looking forward to the thaw this coming weekend. We'll see. We will be here and open for the Maple Weekend deal, but aren't officially participating this year. Good luck to those who are, hope it goes great for you.
take care, Mark

[wnybassman]

I spent the evening doing something else sort of maple related I have been putting off, but with this cold weather seemed like a perfect thing to do. Bottled up a five gallon carboy of cider I fermented with five pints of syrup this fall. Man, did that turn out good!! It was a very slow ferment over a two month period before it finally quit. Been chillin' ever since.

[Waynehere]

With this extremely cold weekend, I made a road trip to the Fingerlakes NY area this morning. I found a like new Sunset 545 gallon stainless steel milk tank with the working compressor and cooling unit. Not a scratch on the tank. Perfect shape!!!!!!. When I was talking with the now retired farmer he mentioned that he had 2 surge vacuum pumps with the electric motors on them that he would throw in on the deal as well. I also picked up 3 stainless steel milk pails all for $700. I feel I did ok. Can't wait until next year now. To cold outside to even was the road salt off the tank.

Holy Batman.... How on earth did you find this guy? I have been scouring Craigslist for a while now looking for something nearby. Great find man.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

I spent the evening doing something else sort of maple related I have been putting off, but with this cold weather seemed like a perfect thing to do. Bottled up a five gallon carboy of cider I fermented with five pints of syrup this fall. Man, did that turn out good!! It was a very slow ferment over a two month period before it finally quit. Been chillin' ever since.

Would love to try that. An equipment dealer here made a distilled sap liquor with orange peels. It's very good.

[mudr]

That cider sounds good! I've never made a cider, but a fair amount of beer and wine.

For those of you who are local, 810 Meadery in Medina makes a maple mead, called "maple tap". Mead is just honey wine, and they add some maple for this batch. Pretty good combination. I may be a bit biased, however, as they use syrup from my uncle in-law. He's the guy that got me into this racket.

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[berkshires]

I spent the evening doing something else sort of maple related I have been putting off, but with this cold weather seemed like a perfect thing to do. Bottled up a five gallon carboy of cider I fermented with five pints of syrup this fall. Man, did that turn out good!! It was a very slow ferment over a two month period before it finally quit. Been chillin' ever since.

Wow, that's a lot of syrup in there! That would up the brix by about 8 points! Finished product would be almost like a wine if it fermented out all the sugar.

I used to brew a lot of hard cider, so I'm curious - did you use a very dark syrup? Can you taste the syrup flavor much in the finished cider?

Gabe

[millscrest]

I found the tank on craigslist but he did not advertise a price. He is an older gentleman that had no idea on how to post pictures. I had to walk him through the process of taking a photo on his phone and he texted me the pictures of what he had on Saturday night. I about fell over when he sent me the pictures. I told him that I would make the 3 hour drive in the morning and buy what he had. He said that he wanted to sell some of his belongings before he decided to have an auction in the future. I am going back in a month or so when the weather is nicer and this time I am bringing 2 trucks and trailers. LOL.