Ulster County Catskills

[Ghs57]

Getting closer to ready. Will start tapping tomorrow. I should finish the evaporator install tonight.

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Made a run down to Justus Asthalter Maple near Neversink for RO supplies yesterday. Sean has most Leader supplies in stock. He has the biggest Leader evaporator I've ever seen. Must be 6 feet wide. As configured, he can boil 450 ghp.

[Pdiamond]

Did you happen to take a picture of that big evaporator?

[Ghs57]

Did you happen to take a picture of that big evaporator?

I wish I had. It never occurred to me to do so. Maybe it's not 6 feet wide overall, but still impressive. I do know it was wood fired. The loading door was the widest I've ever seen. It has Steamaway, 2 steam stacks, and probably a 20-24" smoke stack. They also run a big RO.

Will do better next time. I may run down for a SS drum or 2 at the end of the season.

[Ghs57]

Man, the wind overnight was fierce. I have a big tarp over the new addition, and it came undone on one side. Hopefully not ripped to shreds.

Got the new arch bricked yesterday, and today the stack get installed. Still no taps in. Should start that tomorrow.

[Ghs57]

I was derailed on Tuesday when my ladder fell with me on it. Ended up at urgent care with a badly bruised ankle, but nothing broken. I’m hoping to get back into the season in a few days. I’m not happy sitting on the sidelines with all my new equipment idling. But with this weather, seems not much has been happening here.

[Ghs57]

I have had a tremendous amount of help with tapping and boiling, and even with some work that needed to be done on the shack, after my fall. This season would have been a total loss without it.

I have about 250 gallons to process today, then it's wait until we see some cold weather again on the weekend. There may be a little more usable sap this year.

I'm at a little more than half of my goal.

[Ghs57]

Sap is running just enough to keep pushing stale sap out of the lines. Red maples stating to flower, but that has no effect on the flavor of the syrup (see Dr. Tim). So, I'm hanging on until the cold weather returns. I have maybe 100 gals that has not spoiled, but with low sugar content (just over 1%). It's been low all season for me. I will be test boiling from here on out before processing anything new. I'm even tempted to drain the good stuff out of the pan and finish it. Probably another 3-5 gallons there.

Forecast for next week looks promising if the trees can hold on. No peepers or other frogs here yet.

[Ghs57]

Made a few gallons of very dark yesterday. Sap was about 1.4% and cloudy, RO stopped at about 5% to leave enough to fire up the evaporator.

We had a good freeze last light, and there are a few more in the forecast for the rest of the week. All tanks clean and ready, so we will push on to the end.

[Ghs57]

Looks like one more short boil this season tomorrow morning. My local trees have called it quits, but my remote trees started up after three nights of freezing temps. Test boil went ok, and the syrup actually looks pretty light considering late season syrup here is usually dark as molasses (but the customers love it). After that, it's clean up time and finish the work on the shack. I still have quite a bit of framing to do, then the permeant roof/skylights/siding. Also expanding the RO to 2 4x40 membranes.

They'll be some time to reflect on the season then. And what an unusual season it's been.

[Ghs57]

Last boil yesterday. Produced about 5 gals of flavorful dark syrup. Unlike others who have noted extremely foamy late season sap, mine was normal, not very clear, nor very hard to prefilter off the evaporator. Draining the pan today and expect a few more gallons hiding in there.