Dill 2017 Something's happening here

[Dill]

4 degs when I got up this morning. Supposed to hit 40 but I'm wondering if the trees will thaw. Crazy thing is looks like another 4-5 day freeze coming next weekend. Well I take that back its 11 and we are up to 33 and its an awesome day to work in the woods.

[red maples]

Mine is dark too. went over to very dark on sunday but went back to dark yesterday. so thats nice to see. With these hard freezes I am hoping we can get a little closer to some amber. my pans have really lightened up. sugar is up a bit for me as well. I am gonna filter my back pan tonight before I boil its pretty loaded then then I think I will vinegarize it over the freeze up so I can get rid of the niter build up back there too.

[Dill]

I think Im going to do something I've never done during sugaring season before. I'm going to have to close the copula doors. Holy cow was it cold out there tonight. Ended up with a good run last night. We built the RO room yesterday, and it was wired today, but it was boiling the old fashioned way because it hasn't been plumbed yet. And if I did get it going today I was just going to heat it for the next week.

[red maples]

did you pick up your RO yet? my first couple times I used it I brought it up to 8% then to 12% then 15%. I can;t even imaging boiling raw sap. Didn't have a filter press for the first years of the RO so it was a bit tough going drawing of that much syrup and getting through the flat filters.

If you don;t have one yet I highly recommend a filter press. I got a really good deal on a full bank 7" wes fab with 1/2 the plates. So its a short bank press on a full bank machine. took a little get the hang of it... mostly amount of DE to use so you can get the most of it before you need to break it down. and making sure the syrup stays hot. but I have it down now. I was blowing papers the first few times until I learned. and at the end of every boil I run my entire front pan through the press to get it nice and clean so I can filter longer on the next boil.

but man wait until you can just crack the valve and leave it open and make so much syrup per hour compared to raw sap. especially with that steamaway too. I Don't have one of those.

[Dill]

Yes I picked it up wensday, wired and built the room. Haven't plumbed it yet. I was thinking about doing that today, but its way too cold up at the sugarhouse. I had to light a campfire in the arch. It froze so fast the sap pan float got frozen open and spilled a bunch onto the the floor.
Made a bunch of granulated sugar yesterday. Turned out better than I expected. I picked up a kitchen aid pro mixer a couple years ago on a big sale for this purpose and I have to say it worked well as long as the batch isn't too big about a qt and a pt is about right.
Filter press is going to have to wait til next year.

[Dill]

Looks like we should be able to fire up again sunday. Got the other bush tapped on monday. Haven't turned the pump on there so I haven't been able to chase leaks. Today we are plumbing the RO just been way too cold.

[Dill]

Finally got the Northwood bush online today. The new SP11 setup on the air compressor that I've been calling sucker 2.0 lasted 4 hours before castrophic gasket failure and eruption of vac oil. Good thing I was still there. So I'm back to running the old old RV2. I had it up to 19 with the 2.0. Plug in the RV and I'm at 8. Turns out it developed pin hole leaks in the ballast tank over the winter. Finally found them and patched them with good old black elec tape. When I left that holey old system that I think is a 50/50 mix of tape and tubing at this point was holding 24. Which aint too shabby.

I found some odd saddles in the my backpack. Trying to figure out where I got them. Its a hose clamp with a hole and a 90 fitting and a white gasket. They actually seem to hold strain better than most. And seal well.

[Dill]

Holy cow. I've been around ROs I know how they work. It it's really different when it's your tank of sap that would take 8 hours of boiling that is disappearing before your eyes. Did the first squeeze last night. Took 1.3% to 6. Only boiled hard for 2 hours. Took a long time to come up to temp since the flu pan was a block of ice. Had to put 2 torches and a heat gun on the syurp float box but the time savings was amazing. Hopefully we got a good overnight run.

[Russell Lampron]

My flue pan was frozen solid last night and within minutes of turning on the bubble master it was all liquid. I turned on the bubble master right after I lit the evaporator.

I bet you won't be boiling raw sap anymore.

[red maples]

wait until you bring it up to 15% you boil for an hour. or less (depending on how much sap you start with) The time savings, wood savings, off season time saving cutting wood, stacking wood, saving on gas for splitter , chainsaw etc. awesome isn't it!

I don't even like to turn on my machine until I have at least 350 gallons. and if you are short on sap storage you can always just squeeze a little just to get you through. I am still amazed with it every time I use it.

heat tape man. you can get pretty short wires from home depot or lowes and I just wrap my float box with it when it gets too cold.