Schenectady-Albany-Saratoga Counties

[MRFNY]

I've been having a lot of sugar sand this year as well. In fact i will be draining and cleaning the syrup pan tonight as there was a caked on crust on the bottom of the pan that i noticed during my last boil which was causing a lot of foaming. Filtering has been a pain as always but not horrible. I have two Orlon cones that i swap between once one clogs and filter directly off of the evaporator with them. On Saturday i finally tried the trick where you invert the center of the cone inside itself to get more surface area and it actually made a big difference in how long the prefilters and cone was lasting.

So I had boiled on Thursday night last week and on Saturday I ended up boiling 120 gallons of sap that was collected from after boiling Thursday till Saturday afternoon. The sap was flowing like crazy on Friday, definitely the biggest single run I've ever had, plus i ended up making just shy of 3.5 gallons of syrup from that run so the sap was nice and sweet.

Currently i am at around 14 gallons of syrup to date on my 47 taps on 5/16 gravity tubing and the weather is looking great for the 10 day forecast. its looking like Ill be running out of wood before i run out sap, i was worried about this year but its turned out to have been a great year so far.

I had the same issue in my pan which started just a few boils ago. Cleaned the pan, next boil went great until the first draw off then immediately noticed a decrease in boil rate and more foam in the syrup side of the pan.

[The Heldeberg Sapper]

I had the same issue in my pan which started just a few boils ago. Cleaned the pan, next boil went great until the first draw off then immediately noticed a decrease in boil rate and more foam in the syrup side of the pan.

Yeah on Saturday for my 120gallon boil i was only averaging 15gph while i usually get 20gph easily. In hind sight if i had known i woulda cleaned the pan before the boil and woulda saved time overall. Oh well live an learn, i didnt notice the nitre cake until the fire was already going.

[MRFNY]

Congrats! That is an epic season!

We boiled today, another 6.5 quarts in the bank. 12.75 gallons on the year so far. Lots of niter today, but it was being caught by the pre filters and going through the felt filter just fine, so wasn't a big deal when bottling.

I am planning at least one more boil next weekend. Might do another this week just to reduce the sap before the warm weather.

I added a more powerful blower to my rig and really experienced the difference today. Achieved 16GPH evaporation rate and it was boiling with a fury I have not experienced before. I knew my old blower was not powerful enough, but not sure I expected this much improvement.

Pete

Thanks Pete! Congrats to you on a nice season as well! I'm definitely not going to attempt 35 gallons again, lol

[MRFNY]

Hello All,

Surprised there hasn't been any posting activity this year so far! Weather has been interesting, curious what it will mean for the 2024 season.

I purchased an RB15 RO system from RO Bucket this year. After last season I didn't want to go through the time and wood it took to make 35 gallons. Hopefully with an RO I'll WANT to make 35 gallons again, but without one there is now way I am interested in making that much!

For those using an RO, I'm curious how it impacts the boiling and the shut down of daily boils, if any? For example, without the RO i was comfortable doing a draw off from my 2X4 evaporator as long as I had at least 8-10 gallons of unconcentrated sap left. Will that change at all with a more concentrated sap?

[Ghs57]

On my 2x6 hybrid pan, I start to shut down when I have about 20 gallons left. My rig runs at about 35 gallons an hour. This usually works out well, with the head tank empty and a lower pan level than I normally run at. Next run will bring the pan back up to my operating level. This is not an exact science though, and takes some practice to zero in. You really have to know your rig and its boiling rate, cool down time, etc. I have doubled my RO capacity this year, so there may be some variation.

[MRFNY]

Buddy of mine a few miles from me tapped yesterday. Said his buckets were about 1/3 full after 3 hours. Looks like middle of this week could be a decent run for a couple of days but then the overnight temps dont get below freezing and then it appears we are in for a longer cold spell. I still think I'm going to hold off.

[MRFNY]

Got the RO set up and did the initial flush today. Few minor leaks on a couple connections but easy fix!

[The Heldeberg Sapper]

Also holding off here in East Berne. Im sure the sap has been flowing decent the past week or so and it looks like this weekend would be solid. Have about 7" of snow on the ground up here but this winter has been anything but. Last year i tapped on 2/9 and made a lot of early syrup in Feb before things froze up again late Feb and early March and then opened back up again mid march. I am hoping the long term forecast is correct and the rest of Feb is on the colder side. I dont have a lot of firewood this year and ive still got syrup left from last year so while I really want to tap im going to hold off. My plan is to catch up on firewood for the home and syrup the next couple weeks. Hope everyone has a good season!

[MRFNY]

Put in around 40 taps on Friday. Was pretty windy so I didn't want to go deep into the woods so I'll finish up today.

Tried posting some pictures but this site is absolutely terrible for posting photos and they wouldn't upload for some reason.

[Aslowrie]

I put mine in too, just 23 taps, but have plans for a few more after the threat of snow goes away (they are on a steep slope).

Probably will be slow for a few days, but looking forward to Wednesday.