Willow Creek Sugarhouse 2017

[Amber Gold]

Glad to hear things are going well for you. Think you'll have time to get those taps in across the street?

I'm going to have to suffer through another season of making maple cream using a candy machine. It takes a while, but it does work well. Someone posted a thread on all the part/pieces needed to make a gear pump cream machine...it's going to be a cool build.

[red maples]

yeah I am almost ready. but its going to be on hold for another day or 2. got all 21 saddles cut in yesterday after noon. I had to do some major fixes to the slope of the mainline which I knew I needed to do I couldn;t find my site level but found it yesterday. just a few more side ties and about 25 or so drops yet to put in. set the tank and tie in the releaser and should be set to go.

yeah josh I got the CDL 1.25 gallon your more than welcome to come see it if you need to see the components.

still have to get all my buckets and a new gravity line on some of the trees to make collection easier but I think that will be this weekend.

Got a very light freeze last night probably more so back in the woods so should be another good sap day. but sugar on average isn;t very good but there hasn't been consistent freezing nights either andwith 4 or 5 days of warmer weather with no freeze in site until sat orsunday night. buckets and gravity will peter out after a day or 2 anyway. next week looks like it gets back to normal.

not that I am wus but man my hands hurt!!! between water and chapped and cuts, scrapes and splits they are just beat up!!!

off to the day job!!! hope its a good sap day foreveryone.. knock wood!!!

[Dill]

My hands are killing me as well, I almost felt old yesterday. My neighbor who helps, said that this part of sugaring is fun with visegrips.

[red maples]

Well the first boil is done. Had 690 gallons and was able to bring it up to 15% no problem. Love that water sucker!!! (RO) and was able to get everything sweet plus make a few gallons of syrup, first time for me on a pan sweetening. Came out a hair over dark but might be lighter seems like I was drawing off a bit heavy I will recheck and thin later. good to have that sweet smell . had a bit of a foam up I always forget about that first boil heavy foam!!! it was fine forgot to add defoamer and then opened the door on the hood and oh crap... foamed out a bit... oops. happens every year.

but all went pretty smooth still getting dialed in for correct blower adjustment etc.

We weren;t supposed to get a freeze last night but we did!!! releaser was frozen up last night about 10:00. got down to 29* F for most of the night. thank goodness... 3 or 4 days coming up with no freeze so vacuum will be running hard for all that time at this point next week's weather looks perfect I hope they are correct!!! fingers crossed.

Will be able to get out into the woods a bit today.

[Russell Lampron]

Glad you had a good first boil. I love my RO too. It makes pan sweetening go a lot faster. I didn't have it get away from me but I had a lot of foam on my first boil too. I didn't go below freezing up at the house but the releaser was froze up this morning and it wasn't supposed to freeze here either.

[red maples]

well lets hope that we don't get another stretch of weather like that until oh... mid april. I like nice weather too but it shouldn't be like that so early in the year. thank goodness for the snow pack which is almost gone by the way. still managed to get some sap even without freezing and being so warm. thank vac for that one. My one gravity line of about 20 big sugars got nothing since Thursday end of day.

squeezed 525 gallons yesterday down to 75 gallons and made about 8 ish gallons just in the canner haven't offically measured yet but should put me about 10 gallons so far. still dark but with an amber flavor. its pretty nice actually. sugar came up too from 1% last weekend to 1.5+ and actually stayed there without the freeze. so hopefully that comes up even more with consistant cooler temps. Feeling a little better about the season. especially with better temps on the way even a freeze up in the forecast. although every station and every website changes drastically on the hour and are ALL DIFFERENT!!! but we get what we get when we can, Right?

going out in the woods to work on leaks today hopefully get the vac back up where it should be. with all the water from rain and melting snow there are parts that are a bit flooded so won't be able to touch those but I already tightened those up. but they should be going down soon.

I will be able to start taping the new 75 across the street today. there are another 50 or 60 over there but I didn't get that far.(next year) but set the tank and releaser got all tied in yesterday. just have to tie it in to the vac line and find a ball for the moisture trap at the releaser. I think my kids took it out of the sugarhouse last year it was a big bouncy ball but it fit perfectly in the sediment filter. (racket ball was too big.) then tomorrow I can hang buckets and get all that stuff done.

hope everyone is having fun, a little tired but thats maple season.

[Russell Lampron]

The sap has been running good here since Thursday on the vacuum. With no freeze and temps in the 60's I got just over 1 gallon per tap for the 2 days. Get your vacuum leaks under control before you add more taps.

I don't know what you're using for taps but using the cv2's has been the best thing I've done here for leak control. They don't loosen up on hard freezes, you can tell immediately if you have a hollow tree or if it's just gas and micro leaks are non existent at the tap. My system is so tight that the flapper in my releaser doesn't tap at all most of the time.

[red maples]

Not much for sap yesterday. too cold in the woods and no freeze for a few days.

Agreed russ. I spent 1.5 hrs in the woods yesterday walked down the mainline checking every lateral line for leaks in 2 sections. I got things pretty tight from 21.5 up to 24.75 I still have one section to check on but it still has too much water in I know there are some smaller leaks there. I have been switching to the CV2s this year. put in 250 new drops. and getting rid of the stubby and adapter(which I still have a few 100 on the stubby) I will be changing out 100 per year. the first year I tried the cv2s I had some issues but I think they fixed them. hoping to hit that area maybe today to check for leaks if the water goes down enough. then finish the new section and get it turned on. just have to puck up a fitting from the store and then should be ready to go.

also found a lateral that I missed when tapping with 5 trees. oops.

Got about 50 of the 75 taps in for the new section. Stomach wasn't feeling well so didn;t get out there until later has a few more things to finish up over there too.


not sure what to expect today... got down to 25 last night and its 44 and windy now but nothings coming into the releaser. light frost tonight not sure if it will get down far enough to be effective I hope so. then no freeze again until thursday night. then a quick freeze up. sucks...

I hope we get some good consistent sap weather soon.

With the way the weather and climate are changing so rapidly I have made the decision for next year to start tapping in mid january. just vac tubing. with the new technology in the Check valves the holes say active much longer due to less bacteria. besides many of the bigger producers with thousands of taps start tapping in the beginning of january. the last few years I have had some of my bigger runs towards the end of the season proving that fact. I held off this year from tapping simply because I wasn't ready. but I feel I missed a week or 2 of sap and that might have only been 10 to 15 gallons but for a small producer thats a lot of syrup to miss.

[Russell Lampron]

When I changed over to the cv2's I bought 100 the first year and those worked so well I went 100% the next season. I have been swapping in the cup tees when making repairs and when adding new drops. I've only got a little over 100 of them swapped in so far and still have a long way to go before those are all in.

My son in law came over this afternoon to pump out the tank and found that we only had 18" of vacuum. He found a lateral that was chewed through and a lateral that had pulled apart. A couple o quick repairs and we're back up to 26". I don't know how much sap I didn't get because of that. I'm glad that he was able to come over and take care of that for me. It would have sucked to try and find those leaks after dark. It was coming in at better than 50 gallons per hour when I checked it at 6:00.

[red maples]

collected everything and boiled out almost 700 gallons yesterday morning well by the time I got started and lit the fire it 12:00. had to do a little cleaning in the sugarhouse just a mess from thrashing. Just in case someone wanted to stop in for a visit. Ended up with about 12 gallons of syrup putting me about 22 gallons so far this season. it should be more but its just been too warm down here.

There is no sense in hanging bags now they are just going to get blown all over the place this weekend and the gravity isn't pulling anything right now. I have about 250 gallons from yesterday afternoon and last night so I might just run that through the machine with what ever I get today it won;t be much to boil since the sugar has bottomed out but at least everything will be ready to go for next week. not sure exactly when the next boil will be probably tuesday or more likely wednesday to give the trees a chance to thaw. don;t want to hold on to sap that long. looks like there will be a big run next week I just hope the temps stay cooler. Can;t seem to hit that sweet spot, Pun intented, of the 25/45 temp swing. its just been too warm the temp swings are there but with warmer temps creating low sugar. I can usually boost the sugar quite a bit with the gravity sap but its just not there.