Red Roof Maples 2018

[red maples]

[QUOTE=Greyfox;346237] It looks like this week should tell the tale of it's benefits. I now have about half my bush on 3/16", and I'm going to use my existing 5/16" setup for the other half, so I hope to have some hard data of how they perform side by side. I'll share the results as the season plays out.


thats awesome yes I am familiar with that site. but keep us posted about how it does. Thanks

[red maples]

thats awesome russ. That new arch sounds awesome!!! that is alot on a 2x6. have you tested raw sugar yet? just curious as to what you are getting. we just missed a freeze here last night the lines were frozen but it only hit 32 and was 35* when I woke up and it was cloudy. sap ran the hardest I have seen it run all season so far yesterday but also seemed to peter out earlier too. wasn't impressed with my total total either. but like you had hold over sap.

[Dill]

So you are still concentrating to the same %? And the only difference is the arch? That's impressive.

[Russell Lampron]

The new arch is awesome! I was hoping to gain something when I upgraded but wasn't expecting much because I thought I was doing pretty good with my old one. To gain 3 gallons of syrup per hour and to be able to boil the concentrate from 1,000 gallons of sap in 2 hours is really making me happy.

I still concentrate to 14% like I have for the last 3 or 4 years. I lose track of time and sometimes get up to 18% and like last night 14% was the target but had to send the last batch up at 12% because I was running out of sap. That was only about 30 gallons plus the sugar flush so we only fired the evaporator 2 more times to finish up.

All of my syrup has been Amber so far and if it keeps going the way that it is I may actually make some dark this year.

[red maples]

that sounds awesome... thats not only time but wood saving too. thats gonna cut the wood consumption in 1/2. yeah 1000 gallons for me is 4 hrs. I bring mine up to 14 to 15% as well.

[Russell Lampron]

I didn't have a chance to check it first but there wasn't very much sugar in tonight's sap. We did 750 gallons in an hour and a half and only made 10 gallons of syrup. My syrup has all been Amber so far which is nice. I can't sell the golden even though it is great tasting syrup.

The first tier of the wood pile went down pretty fast but now that we have the new arch figured out the second tier is lasting a lot longer. I had 5 tiers to start with and at this rate I think I'll still have plenty left when the season is over.

[Russell Lampron]

The sap is only trickling in here now, I only got 125 gallons in the last 24 hours. It's looking like I may not boil again until Sunday.

It's only supposed to get down to 32 here tonight but if the clouds blow away it may get colder. The overnight low doesn't look good until Sunday when it's supposed to get down to 27. The daytime highs look good if the forecast is correct.

With no sap to boil I'm taking the night off for some much needed sleep. I have to work tomorrow so I won't be able to do any maple stuff until tomorrow afternoon. I've started on it but still have a lot to do to finish cleaning the firebrick dust off of everything in the RO room. If the sap's not running maybe I'll tackle that tomorrow afternoon.

[Russell Lampron]

I got the RO room cleaned up and jugged up some syrup Saturday. When I went to the house for lunch I noticed that I only had 21" of vacuum at the pump. I ate my lunch real quick and hit the woods. The big leak was a broken Y fitting on one of my end trees. I got that fixed and went through the rest of the woods. I replaced a couple of fittings and repaired a couple of squirrel chews and now everything is pretty tight again.

I boiled again tonight. I was able to gather up 575 gallons that has been coming in very slowly since Thursday evening. I made 8 more gallons to get me to 65.5 gallons for the year and it's all Amber. The new arch continues to impress.

The membrane in the RO started to pass sugar so I changed it this afternoon. The recirculation pump on the RO is getting loud. I hope that it will last for the rest of the season.

[Russell Lampron]

The sap ran pretty good yesterday once it got started. I had 325 that I had been collecting since Sunday and added another 375 to that with yesterday's run. I made 10 more gallons of Amber last night to put me at 75.5 gallons so far.

The high temp for today is supposed to get to 33* but so far it's only hit 31* and it's now snowing. I didn't turn on the vacuum pump this morning and I'm sure that I'm not missing anything. The snow and cold will definitely help get this season jump started. It looks like I won't be boiling again until sometime on the weekend.

[Amber Gold]

I got a bit yesterday too, but not as much as I was hoping. Ended up bringing home another 400 gal with the truckload from the previous day.

Agreed, might be lucky to boil Friday night, but likely Saturday night.