Loudon 2007

[Russell Lampron]

Chip,

I collected 170 gallons from my taps on vacuum that ran from Friday evening until 8:00 yesterday morning. Collected another 30 gallons at 11 am and had only gotten about 20 gallons more as of this am. The buckets did nothing.

Did your C grade have a good flavor? Mine was the best tasting syrup I made this season. The same thing happened last year. All of my syrup tasted good but the C grade at the end was the best. Needless to say it didn't go to Bascoms and won't this year.

Russ

[chipa]

Russ

Yes the C tastes very good. Made more tonight.

the sap ran well here today (still running)


My sap sugar dropped (1.6)

Hang tuff


Chip

[Russell Lampron]

I made more good tasting C as last night. The first draw was black as a boot and it took a prefilter paper per draw to get it through the filter.

With the price of grade C rising I am going until the trees stop giving sap. I have enough wood for another whole season on hand.

Russ

[Russell Lampron]

Boiled again for the 3rd night this week and the sixth time in the last seven days. The runs are small but I will take what I can get.

The syrup just keeps getting darker and darker but the flavor is still there. The sap had kind of a sour smell to it and was kind of yellowish so I was surprised at how good the syrup tasted. Should be close to 55 gallons now.

The fat lady is warming up her vocal cords I think. I'm not sure if we will be done after Sunday.

Russ

[Russell Lampron]

Just did another one of those 2 state boiling marathons. "The RO Pirate" (royalmaple) came over to boil with me Saturday afternoon. "The Governor" also came over and we boiled what sap I had left. We took a walk in my woods afterward and the numbers started flying about taps that I can add to my vacuum system.

RO Pirate and I loaded my RO machine into my truck and headed to his place in Buxton, Maine to boil off the 700 gallons of sap he had in his tanks. Made short work of that. After concentrating enough sap to start the evaporator it only took 3 hours until we were done.

Loaded the RO back into my truck even though the RO Pirate wanted me to leave it there this morning and headed back to Loudon. Got home just in time to put my RO machine back into its heated room in my sugarhouse and then go out and gather todays run. Concentrated and boiled that in and was back in the house at 8:00.

I am pushing the 60 gallon mark now. Not the 80 gallons I made last year but not as bad as it appeared the season was going to be. The amount and quality of todays sap tells me the season is done here but I am leaving my taps in until next weekend just in case.

Russ

[John Burton]

russ two states in one day... and i thought I was sick you should almost set that ro up hard mounted in your truck and make it a traveling show...know what you mean about it being over hovering around 29 gal for the season Im goin to memphis for a couple days well se what it does when I get back

[Parker]

Russ -if you want to go on a shorter road trip with the RO come on over,,should have about 2500 gallons of sap toady,,take at least 11 hours to boil,,,BUT,,with an RO,,,,,,,

[Russell Lampron]

John it may be colder in Washington and the sap may run better for you. Mine has been coming in cloudy and yellowish for a week.

Parker at 150 gph it will take a long time to process 2500 gallons of sap. I think you can boil it off quicker with Mighty Marvin. Being just a little farther north than I am are you still getting decent sap runs?

Russ

[Parker]

Still getting decent runs on the north facing bushes,,rte.11 is really suprising me in terms of production,,3rd year after thinning and 22" of vaccum,,Hill is suprising me with how poorly it is running compared to last year,,of course it was a new system last year,,,,,hoit road is really slowing down..south face,,,and putney with no vac. this year has only produces 200 gallons all year!!!!!!!last year I got sevral thousand gallons there with vac.......

[Russell Lampron]

I reamed the taps that I have on vacuum and it seems to have worked. I only pulled in about 20 gallons in my tanks in the woods after running the vacuum Thursday and Friday. After reaming the taps I had 70 gallons in there last night.

I thought that my father had pulled all of the 95 buckets at his house last Tuesday. I was glad to find out that he had only pulled the 11 that were by the road. It took a week to get them there but I found more full buckets yeasterday than I have seen all season.

I have 260 gallons of sap to boil in today and good weather for runs for the next 2 or 3 days. I wish that the sap had run better earlier in the season but it has been 6 weeks now and it is still coming in.

Russ