2018 Season

[sticknstring]

Well, not sure if we did good or not. The finished product was just a touch over or right at 2-1/2 pints of super sweet syrup, but more vanilla tasting to me than maple. Not sure if once it cools the taste changes a little or not. I knew it would be different from the imitation syrup u buy at the store, expected something closer to what you would find at cracker barrel. The 2-1/2 pint yield was out of 15-17ish gallons of sap. Took about 5 hrs and 45 minutes to get it down to where i needed to get it off the fire and into a pan on the stove because it was beginning to burn in my steamer pan a bit. My arch is a little out of level, so the sap was a little deeper on one side, leaving it too shallow on the higher side at the end. My youngest made it to the end and was excited but my 7 year old conked out about 20 minutes before we finished and put it in the jars. She did her best to pretend she was awake and stoked about the final product. She gets zombie like when she falls asleep at night, so im sure til morning she wont even remember taking the picture ;^). Round 1 was a good one i think, learned a few things i gotta try to do a little different next time. I didnt expect to get it all right the first time around. Would like to hear some opinions on the flavor from you experienced guys on the flavor tho, did i do something wrong, did i need to go farther with cooking it? Or did i accidentally tap vanilla trees? Lol


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[Dennis H.]

Good job sticknstring.
How did the syrup look in the end, light, dark.
Don't use cracker barrel as a guide, they do a blend, part corn syrup part maple.

[sticknstring]

Dennis, it seems like a dark color to me. I think i got some "niter" or whatever its called. Its sitting on the counter cooling down and i can see some lighter stuff in there, not necessarily crystals, but kinds of a "milky way" looking consistency swirled about. Trying to get a better pic of a jar, but cant get a good rep of it with my lighting in the house. Maybe in the morning after i get back from sap collection at our ground.


Edit to add picture. I shook the one jar up, you can see the other two have clear separation of the syrup and the cloudy stuff, im fully assuming niter.IMG_3026.jpg

[Kippster]

Been tapped for a few days, but got the first fire under the pan tonight. Boiled down about 100 gal of sap. concentrate wont float the hydrometer yet, but the steam smells awfully good. first boil.jpg farmall.jpg sap bucket.jpg

Good to be back in maple mode!!!

[Paddymountain]

We avoided diaster this weekend, finished boiling at 2:00 on Saturday, filtered and bottled until 5:30
Have a drop flue so plugged the front pan as usual about 3:15. BUT!
shut the arch doors at 4:00 or so, and since it was snowing shut the chimney roof cap around 5:30 and when I went up to the house.
Big Mistake! Went down yesterday and the front pan was almost getting to maple creme stage.
Fortunatley, no scorchng! But had to thin it with sap from the flue pan and build a little fire to get it out.
We now have extra dark syrup for ourselves, (gotta spin the positive some how!)
I think it will make close to 3 gallons of syrup. Anyway, dodged a bullet have everthing cleaned out and ready to go again!

[HondoLane]

I'm hooked!!! First ever boil yesterday. Homebut arch and pan. Boiled close to 14 gallons to get around 14 ozs of finished product from 6 taps. Thanks to this site I now have a new family tradition started! Finish was really clear and light. Had a vanilla flavor which was so good!
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[HowardR]

The sap is pouring out of my gravity-fed lines at the rate of 30 gallons per hour -- and a similar rate should continue, day and night, for several days.

This reminds me of the big run of the 2014 season. The sap kept pouring out. I bought more storage containers. I tried boiling the oldest sap first. I tried sap ice cubes. But after a few days, the sap started fermenting and I ended up dumping hundreds of gallons. After the season ended, I built my RO, which is right now removing 15 gallons per hour of water from the sap. I'll keep it running day and night until I catch up.

[helptheold]

The sap is pouring out of my gravity-fed lines at the rate of 30 gallons per hour -- and a similar rate should continue, day and night, for several days.

This reminds me of the big run of the 2014 season. The sap kept pouring out. I bought more storage containers. I tried boiling the oldest sap first. I tried sap ice cubes. But after a few days, the sap started fermenting and I ended up dumping hundreds of gallons. After the season ended, I built my RO, which is right now removing 15 gallons per hour of water from the sap. I'll keep it running day and night until I catch up.

I've been trying to talk my husband into making one like yours but he's not very handy. Is it hard to do? He is a chemist so he knows some stuff already

His suggestion was to buy a household water filtration system like this since we don't have many taps (as of now!).

[Plutoman15]

Small RO's are easy to build. Most parts you can order from Amazon. You can build a small one for probably $200 and push you sap up to 4-8%. Saves a lot of boil time. I am sure there are plans/directions online somewhere. You need a pump, filter, RO membrane, hose, and a needle valve, and some fittings.

[HowardR]

I've been trying to talk my husband into making one like yours but he's not very handy. Is it hard to do? He is a chemist so he knows some stuff already

He could do it. I put detailed building instructions on my RO thread. I got the design from Bowhunter, a retired engineer who had already built one for himself.