Never give an inch!!!!!,2014,,,,salisbury sugarworks

[MapleCamp]

Love the golden road, used to hunt the area as a young man. What a great idea to tour the sugar ops up there. Can you post any pics?

[Parker]

On the golden road i was real suprised to see almost all the sugarmakers had the same r.o....what were they you ask? A new cdl? Big 16 inch rigs? Something space age from qubec? Nope...they were la peirre's from the early 1980's with piston pumps and i was even more surprised to see that all of them were running 650 lbs of pressure on the membranes..all of the producers had 2 ro' with 1 cutting the water and the 2nd spikeing the sugar,,,there was one place with 12,000 taps that had a singel 4 post DG out of the late 80's that was bringing the sugar to 18% and boiling on a 6x16 thunderbolt from the 80's,,they said if they went higher than 18% bad things happend. The paquetts did have a newer cdl along with 3 of the old lapeirres...
It was getting late but we wanted to see more and we had been told that the big boys were "up in the "big 6" which is the township above the golden road. We headed to the road leading north and were not on it very long befor we met or next producer, Simon Carrier. I think Simion was the yongest producer we met. I would guess he was in his late 20's or early 30's..his equipment was a little diffrent than the others. We were surprised to see a 3x16? H2o high brix evaporator. The r.o's were a newer DG 8? Post and an h20 high brix. He was boiling off of 19000 ad doing the woods work and boilg by himself. He did have the h2o tap trac system on his phone that he was constantly checking that he said enabled him to take care of all those taps by enableing him to direct his attention and time in the woods to where it was needed. Simion was also diffrent in that he had a gallon per tap of storage. He also had something ealse i had never seen befor. 2 400 gallon bulk tanks with the refridgeration still working. He would crunch the sap to 45% then fill the refridgerated tanks which were colled to 30 deg (i think,,he was talking in celcius). He said he could keep the 45% for a few days if he had to.. we stayed at siminons for a while trying to wrap our minds around the concept that he was turning 19000 gallons of sap into those 2 small tanks of concentrate...and trying to figure out how 1 guy was maintaing 27.5" of vac on 19000 taps...that guy was on heck of a go getter..as we were heading out he mentioned that someone a little further north was doing high brix and boiling on electric. We had our next destioation! North we went,,now i dont know if it was thd herds of deer in the road that we had to navigate around or all those roads branching off but we got turned around,,but, we got turned around and were not able to get into the six, it was around 11 pm and by that time we figured folks would not be up and we needed to get some sleep so we headed to the pitsson (spelling?) farm were we stayed for the night.
I failed to mention on our way across the G.R. we stopped at the pitson and arranged a room for the night. The farm is located just a bit south of the G.R to the south and heading east to west just befor you get to the sugarhouses. Super nice folks and a butiful set of buildings built by great northern paper back in the day.
More later....

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Nice country up there for sure, sounds like you had a great trip.

[n8hutch]

Glad you had a good trip Parker, I was kinda curious how the roads would be, I know when we go up in early June some places the frost is just going out. When every Colvert is lifted it can seem like a long ride. Did you go out 20 mile/ demo rd to jackman on the way home? That's always plowed.

[Parker]

Yes that how we headed out. We would have gone in that way but no one was sure it was plowed out.
When i go to most vt sugarhouses often i get an inferiority complex looking at all that new stuff..the golden road showed me skill trumps new stuff, the biggest producer was boiling on 2 thor/ioxy 6x16's out of the early 80's...i have to say all the syrup i tried on the GR was excellant,,and i always thought i could tell when syrup was crunched over 14%,,,,wrong....i was surprised to see all the syrup on the GR was organic.
So we left the pittson farm and headed sout to moosehead. I wanted to take the kelly dam road as i herd there were some sugarmakers out there but we missed it. When we got to jackmam we headed nort on 201 and saw arnolds operation, georgous huge sugarhouse on hilton land, like 60k taps all running into it. From there we went down the road to carriers,,,WOW,,,like 30k taps...a 4x16 high brix lappier evaporator and idk how many posts on the r.o......alot... plus a high brix r.o spiking it to 38%...great tasting syrup.(i still cant believe how good it was)...most complecated set of valves and pipes i have ever seen on an evaporator. He was running the rig as 2 seperate evaporators and drawing from 2 points on the evaporator,,,absolutly cranking syrup out..im still scraching my head on how that evapoator worked,,but it was fast....1 guy crunching and boiling,,,really a sight to see...super clean place...they took some real pride in the opperation...
More later

[Parker]

Holy smokes......2018........looks like we might have some sugaring weather sat thru tuesday,,,,,whats a guy to do? My woods are looking a little rough and it looks like im on my own this year so....im headed to sanborns 800+ to get going...woods repair then mabey,,,probably tap on friday.....if i just get the repairs made and vacuum tight their it will be a load off my mind and i will be able to concentrate on rte.11 where there was lots of damage this summer.....
May the sweet goddes smile on you this season and you find a willing buyer paying a fair price (ha ha ha)
(I have been amazed in my travels this summer to see aand hear about all the expansion this summer...with butternut only buying 90% of what they bought last year and other packers not planning on buying more than what they bought last year where do folks think they are going to sell the added production?)
Its going to be real real interesting,,,,,,,,

[Parker]

Good going in the woods yesterday with much progress made..the snow which had been over my knees is down to my ankels after the rain we had...i hope to finish repairs and get new spiles on today...

I was thinking as i was looking at my system at sanborns yesterday (wich would have been cutting edge 10 years ago) how much more efficiant cutting edge tubing systems, vac. Pumps ect are today.......i know in computing there is a princapel that the speed of computing doubels every so many years......seems like the efficency of tubing systems must increase by some factor every so many years.......so...most sugarmakers if they keep up with tech. Must make more syrup per tap every so many years....so.....its not nessacarily the ammount of taps added that contributes to increased overall production but also the efficancy of the system (pulling 28.5 inches compared to me pulling 23 inches).......
The end result is lots more syrup per tap.........
The industry is going into this season with a big surplus of syrup...............and low prices.........its going to be interesting to see what the price and demand for syrup is at the end of march

[red maples]

but all it takes is one bad season and the surplus can be gone. While selling wholesale to the suppliers like bascom's seems to be getting worse and worse for the producers, the prices they are selling it at doesn't seem to change if anything it seems like its going up. but their sales increase annually, and their bottom line is only effected by investment in stock of purchased syrup. but when you can build yet another 30,000 sq/ft storage facility your bottom line isn't hurting that much.

[Russell Lampron]

but all it takes is one bad season and the surplus can be gone. While selling wholesale to the suppliers like bascom's seems to be getting worse and worse for the producers, the prices they are selling it at doesn't seem to change if anything it seems like its going up. but their sales increase annually, and their bottom line is only effected by investment in stock of purchased syrup. but when you can build yet another 30,000 sq/ft storage facility your bottom line isn't hurting that much.

With what Bruce is paying for bulk syrup and what he is selling his finished products for he has to build new 30,000 sq/ft buildings and install new side by side bottling lines so he doesn't have to pay Uncle Sam.

[Parker]

Well i dont think we are going to have bad years going forward...with folks tapping in january and modern tech all it really takes is ten decent days to make alog of syrup...
And bruce and other packers are in it to make money,,and they are good at it...cant take it away from them
But
What i just xant figure out is why people would add many many thousands of taps knowing what the price is now,,,and knowing that supply is increasing exponentially,,,which will result in lower prices and difficulty moving syrup in genral........got to be some reason.....
The packers work hard for their market share and bulk sellers would be in real trouble without them,,,,but .......where is all that extra syrup from all those taps going to go??? Really really interested to see what the market looks like in may