What's new to you this season

[bcarpenter]

Smoky Lake Water Jacketed Bottler for us here in Bedford.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Smoky Lake Water Jacketed Bottler for us here in Bedford.

Have a great season from your neighbor in Merrimack!

[johnallin]

I had Bill Mason build me an air tight arch for my Algier pans. I did a test boil last Sunday and I have never seen my flue pan boil as hard. I cant wait to boil some sap in it.

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Russ, is this the 2x6 beast that gets you 65 gph? Wonder what that could do for my Leader raised flue Patriot 2x4 flu and 2x2 Revolution set of pans...

[Russell Lampron]

Russ, is this the 2x6 beast that gets you 65 gph? Wonder what that could do for my Leader raised flue Patriot 2x4 flu and 2x2 Revolution set of pans...

Yep that's the beast! I've got a set of Algier pans on it. A 2x4 raised flue pan and 2x2 syrup pan. I built a bubbler for both pans and it has a steam hood and pre-heater on the flue pan.

Some action photos.

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[Mark-NH]

We added a Wes Fab short bank filter press to replace the flat filters we had used for 15 years. Took a night or 2 to dial in but she is up and running. Very happy with the addition

[Benny8]

Well, we are just getting started for our first year. We have 3 trees tapped at our house(silver maples) and 3 trees up to our camp property(sugar). Seven taps total. Last weekend we built a block arch and I ordered a pan from Silver Creek Maple Equipment. The pan is 18x34. Looking forward to boiling some sap this weekend. The camp property will hopefully become our permanent residence(still trying to convince the wife), where we will build a small Sugar House. The land will work out nice as there is a steep down hill run to the proposed shack site. Potential for a large number of taps on this property.

[whity]

Yep that's the beast! I've got a set of Algier pans on it. A 2x4 raised flue pan and 2x2 syrup pan. I built a bubbler for both pans and it has a steam hood and pre-heater on the flue pan.

Some action photos.

Attachment 17988Attachment 17989Attachment 17990

Looks good Russ! We got our AOF all installed and dialed in. Works great. Getting an average of 60gph with no ROEvaporator.jpg

[DrTimPerkins]

We started on a retrofit of our sugarhouse late last summer. We weren't able to finish up due to a new grant we received that required us to drop everything and get it set up for the fall/winter/spring seasons.

Changes so far include:

Two 3,000 gal Lapierre sap tanks (previous 3,000 gal H2O tank moved to secondary permeate storage)
1,500 gal Lapierre primary RO permeate tank
1,200 gal Lapierre HOT permeate tank
(the hot permeate tank sits on a custom-welded steel support frame above the secondary permeate tank)
Customized 60 gal Lapierre Barrel Filler to allow for temporary syrup storage/heating
2 x 60 gal Lapierre Drawoff Tank for Pan Sweet Storage during pan cleaning
90 gal Lapierre RO Wash Tank for hot water storage.
6th post for Lapierre HyperBrix RO
Inline Refractometer for RO
H2O Pan Wash Tank/Pump
Hydra Releaser (for testing)
Two D&G 10" Extended Filter Presses with Diaphragm Pumps/Support Stands
Two SS 10' Grizzly Storage Benches
SS 12' Grizzly Workbench
Double Sink
650 gal refrigerated bulk tank (concentrate storage)
Motorized ball valves on concentrate tank and primary permeate tank
Hot and cold permeate distribution plumbing with pumps
Washable walls (about 1/3 done)
Expanded upstairs catwalk area with metal grating floor
40 gal Lapierre jacketed canning unit
1142 Busch Vacuum Pump (Lapierre) with VFD and auto-start stop (normally we don't use temperature based start/stop, but this pump is for a research project running from Oct-Apr, so it needn't be on during the extreme winter months)

The goal is to optimize the throughput, efficiency and appearance of our operation. Everything is workable right now, but some tweaking to do after the season is over.

When that is finished (next summer) we move on to Phase II (summer/fall 2019), a new sugarbush installation (about 1,200 taps), storage/pump facility, and capacity to pump sap from this site, and the shed across the road, directly to the sugarhouse. Currently we truck sap about 1/3 mile up from one shed, and we want to eliminate that. When all is finished, we'll have ~6,000 taps (we had ~1,400 prior to 2004), and all sap will be pumped directly to the sugarhouse.

When all is done, we will likely have some surplus equipment to sell (tanks, filter press, pump).

[johnallin]

Wow! 21 line items....that's very impressive and will likely help the rest of us.

But I still want one of those Mason 2X6's that will boil off 65 gph! Russ fill us in on the details.

[Russell Lampron]

Wow! 21 line items....that's very impressive and will likely help the rest of us.

But I still want one of those Mason 2X6's that will boil off 65 gph! Russ fill us in on the details.

It's not a true AUF/AOF arch because the AOF is only blown through the front and not from the sides too. I also only has one blower for both, not a low pressure blower for AUF and high pressure blower for AOF. The pre heater and bubbler help with the evaporation rate too. Boiling 14% concentrate helps too. I don't remember the formula but I think that it went something like this. Discount the first and last hour for heat up and cool down and subtract the amount of syrup that you draw off in an hour. That formula doesn't work for me so I have to estimate. The longest that I have boiled this season has been 2 hours and 20 minutes. I had 1,100 gallons to start with for that boil. I figure the amount of concentrate that I start with and divide it by how many hours that I boiled from start to finish minus the gallons of syrup. Last night I started with 700 gallons of sap, concentrated that down to 105 gallons of concentrate, made 10 gallons of syrup and boiled for 1.5 hours. That included start up and shut down. The sap wasn't very sweet to start with either.