Karen, I was hoping it was just me, really. Then there'd be some hope that maybe I was just having equipment failure - like maybe I need a new prefilter or something.
I was even thinking I'd go the jelly bag route, if it was a problem with my thick wool filter.

The other thing I'm struggling with is figuring out when to finish. Use my hydrotherm or my thermometer? I was boiling to 219/220 but my hydrotherm would say it's not quite ready. But I'm getting the sheeting and my finished product looks really thick going by my hydrotherm.

If I am on the thick side, then maybe my sugar content is a lot better in my sap than I'm calculating it to be.

I say filtering is the thing I love the least with sugaring. Maybe someone can come out with a marketing scheme where we can all sell unfiltered maple syrup and tout it as a health product. Charge more too since it's all natural. Oh wait, I think there was a guy on kijiji last year or the year before who was doing that. Wonder if he's on there again this year.