steaming drill bits in Andover-2015

[tuckermtn]

the crew in the woods continues to repair leaks.

vacuum around 20 or 21 pretty much everywhere now.

Have bent shaft on releaser float rod, so releaser is not reliably working yet at Hattan. Dumping every 5 minutes when it doesn't get hung up.

in Boston for a doctors appointment in the morning, but hope to be boiling in the afternoon tomorrow.

[Russell Lampron]

Good luck with your doctors appointment and happy boiling. I'm boiling tomorrow evening.

[red maples]

Hey I was in Boston at Doc's appt ( for my daughter) today too. Where were you Mass general, Beth Isreal? I was at Children's. ITs never a quick trip to boston and the roads suck!!! Hope everything went as good as can be expected.

[tuckermtn]

brad - i was at Brigham and Womens' - good visit- boston roads and traffic are never good - crazy that some people do that battle every day.

we had our first boil last night - after rinsing membrane, we started crunching 1000 gal of sap. a few start up hiccups, but managed to sweeten pans and draw off a couple gallons. have another 1500 gallons to get through tomorrow. State inspector coming tomorrow. like checking in with Vicki - but don't have much syrup to show her yet.

[Amber Gold]

Eric, talk to Dill about bent float rods. He's an expert on 'em. You can order them from Lapierre for about $18 each. For the price and reliability, it's worth buying two and having a spare.

[red maples]

Oh we were right next door. I was one of those crazy people, I used to run one of the restaurant kitchens at the Copley plaza in copley Square, we lived in Newton MA but moved north and I did it for a year, It def. wears on you. Its much nicer to visit Boston then have to go to Boston for appointments those are always stressful and I swear that hospital time if different than anywhere in the world.

My sugarbush is at the house so I can shut things down when it freezes up and I dump the releaser completely before it forms any ice. I assume that is what bent the rod.

[tuckermtn]

We hosted a workshop here on Saturday on pellet heating for commercial applications. Good that the sleet held off till noon-ish, had about 25 folks here and at Proctor Academy's biomass boiler tour.

We finally boiled again last evening. sap sugar content seems to be creaping up - low of 1.0 to a high of 1.7 now...

big news is that we finally went to an auto-draw off unit - a smoky lake mid range model - and love it. with me not being able to physically run the draw off valve anymore, and with a variety of folks helping out this year, i figured it was good insurance.

we have made approx 15 gallons so far...

keep on keeping on...

[R A Powers]

Eric, Great to hear that production has started. I'm going to try to get down and check out the new equipment this week. We used a Marcland draw off and it saved our pans a couple of times when we had float problems.

[tuckermtn]

figured the snow banks were small enough now to hang our buckets. Only doing about 45-50 this year.

we boiled again on Monday afternoon, things seem to really go smoothly. made another 22 + gallons.

between what ran on Monday and yesterday, we gathered 350 gallons from our 700+ taps.

supposed to be cold for the next couple days, a good chance to make up some cream.

Keep on keeping on...

[tuckermtn]

also having problems with our filter press building pressure early in a batch. Used to be able to get 40 gallons of early season syrup through the press with No pressure build up, now we are lucky to get 10 gallons through. It is a short bank CDL with air diaphragm pump.