2018 Spring Harvest

[Amber Gold]

I did see that feature. I checked it out over the weekend, and plan to start using the sap log feature this week. Thanks Russ!

Sap ran Wednesday through Friday. I think it was about 1500 gal both Wed. and Thurs, and I had the bright idea of holding over a truckload from Thursday to process Friday before the big freeze, and it turned out not to be a good idea. Thursday night and Friday ran unexpectedly well…had another truckload Friday night to bring home…wasn’t planning on having anything. Since my sap ran well, so didn’t Sean’s…he brought over three truckloads. All told, I had 2600 gal of sap to process that night. RO was started at 4pm, and didn’t get the concentrate to 11% until 11pm which is when I fired the evaporator up. The sap was cold, so it slowed the RO down. At that point, I thought it was better to just deal with the sap that night instead of spending the majority of my day Saturday boiling and dealing with possible freezing issues. Boiled from 11-4am (I think…or maybe it was 3:30) either way, I didn’t make it to bed until after 5am. Couldn’t get the concentrate past 12%, but the evap. was cranking that night. At 2gpm, the RO was barely getting ahead of the evap. I wish I’d started with fresh canners because I don’t know exactly what my syrup total was for the night, but it must’ve been 50+ gal. Biggest night ever at SHMF!

I do need to find a better way to process sap more efficiently for next season. These late start times are getting old. I don’t mind going to bed at midnight, maybe 1am, but much later starts to wear on you. Option 1 is a 600 gal bulk tank that I forgot about. I can use this as a permeate tank set up behind the sugarhouse and use the current permeate tank as a concentrate tank. I need to think about how much this really speeds up my process. Option 2 is a bigger RO...either add a post to mine or sell it and get a 1200.

[red maples]

thats cool russ.... I just checked it out quickly. but I will play with it once I have a little more time!!!

[Amber Gold]

Frustrated. After the deep freeze, there were drop lines off spouts everywhere. I expected it, but not the extent. I bet I had at least 5% of the drop lines off the spout, maybe even more. I ran around the woods (literally) to get things buttoned up before dark (I wanted to be prepared for big sap today). Got the woods back up to 26.5" at the ends of the mains after two tours through the woods. Also, I found some drops that weren't off, but close to it. Wondering if I'll get anymore today.

[Russell Lampron]

From what I've been reading others are having problems with drop line popping off of the spouts. I haven't had the problem here and hope that I don't.

[Amber Gold]

That's what I've been reading when I've skimmed the VT page. Saw Larry at Sunnyside on Sunday, and he's finding the same thing. I've never had a problem like this...might find 10 in an entire year, now I find 10 every time I go out it seems. One idea I have is maybe the nipple the drop fits on is a little bit smaller this year, so it's not gripping as well. There has to be something different. It's not like this year is abnormally cold or anything.

Got to the woods in the afternoon and had about 300 gal in the tank...good. Only pulling 5" of vac...bad. Ran the woods...again, and found at least another 20 drops off spouts. Had to make two tours of the woods to make sure I got them all and feel comfortable going to work today. Got the woods up to 26", but feel like I'm missing something because it should be higher but it was getting dark, and I needed to get the kids. I bet in the last two days alone, I've fixed drops on at least 10% of my taps. This doesn't count all the other ones I've found before this.

[Russell Lampron]

That's what I've been reading when I've skimmed the VT page. Saw Larry at Sunnyside on Sunday, and he's finding the same thing. I've never had a problem like this...might find 10 in an entire year, now I find 10 every time I go out it seems. One idea I have is maybe the nipple the drop fits on is a little bit smaller this year, so it's not gripping as well. There has to be something different. It's not like this year is abnormally cold or anything.

Got to the woods in the afternoon and had about 300 gal in the tank...good. Only pulling 5" of vac...bad. Ran the woods...again, and found at least another 20 drops off spouts. Had to make two tours of the woods to make sure I got them all and feel comfortable going to work today. Got the woods up to 26", but feel like I'm missing something because it should be higher but it was getting dark, and I needed to get the kids. I bet in the last two days alone, I've fixed drops on at least 10% of my taps. This doesn't count all the other ones I've found before this.

What others have been saying is that it isn't one type of spout or tubing. They think that the mainlines are frozen and the sun is heating the trees up enough so that they are trying to run and the pressure is pushing the lines off of the taps. I haven't had the problem here because most of my trees are reds and they won't run without some help anyway.

[Dill]

Ive put 30 drops back onto tees in the last 2 days I've never had this happen before. But I had mainlines full and froze solid. Guessing the snow drift didn't help the situation either.

[Amber Gold]

Been a while since I’ve updated my thread.

Maple weekend was great on all fronts. Great turnout, weather was good overall, help was awesome and did a great job, everything worked smoothly. It was nice making almost 30 gal syrup both Saturday and Sunday and at least getting something out of all the wood I was burning.

Sap flow has been slow and steady. Trees really haven’t kicked back in since the big freeze. Not sure what’s up. I thought 20/40’s were perfect flow temps, but I’ve been getting about 0.75gpt since last week. Kinda stinks. Sugaring’s hanging in at 1.4%. Unless daily sap flow picks up, I’ll probably go into a boil every other night schedule until the end.

Syrup total for the season is unknown. I think I missed recording a couple of bottling session because my sap to syrup totals don’t make much sense. Sap processed for the season is approaching 35,000 gal and should hit 40,000 gal before season’s end. I’m thinking I’ll be making syrup through next weekend (still showing freezing nights in the forecast), and I’m still making a lighter DR syrup, so plenty of grade to drop.

Noticed this year that I’m making lighter syrup than I have in years. Halfway through the season I changed a few things. No longer recirc’ing at 5/5 (P/C) and 250 psi on the RO. Generally, at 5/3 and 300-350psi until I’m ready to boil, and then I change it to 4/2 and 450psi when I got to boil. I think reducing the number of times the sap goes through the RO is reducing bacteria growth in the sap?? That’s my logic anyways. Additionally, something I started last week, which I think has helped is to take the first 5-10 gal of syrup off the evap and put it in one canner. Once the grade lightens up, put the rest of the night into another canner. When the evap cools down, it darkens the syrup a lot, which throws off the grade for the entire night. I’ve done this the past few boils, and I’m still making almost a Amber, Rich. My electric canner has 20-25 gal of what should be a very dark syrup ready to bottle this weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

I play with the pressures and flow rates on my RO all the time. If I need it sweet fast I crank up the pressure and reduce the concentrate flow. If I'm starting a first pass before I go to work in the morning I will set it to a gpm on the concentrate side that won't overflow the sweet tank and run it at 250 psi. When I do a second pass I set it 50/50 and set the pressure at 250 and let it climb as it gets sweeter. When I need concentrate in the head tank fast because I'm running low I crank the pressure and increase the concentrate flow. I've had to do that a couple of times when I was getting used to the new arch. What used to be the hour to go mark on the wall for my head tank depth has now turned into the "last fire" line.

[red maples]

as far as grades go I do the same thing. the first draw goes into one canner and after that the remainder goes into the other canner. Do you have a grade checker? those are great it really takes out the guess work. The other day I tested 1st draw vs. last draw and it was a very short boil only an hour and it went from 38 to 47. with 25 as the bottom end of dark and 49 as the bottom end of amber.

I have also notice a major drop in niter with 20/40 temps. although the sap flows have been pretty slow considering the good temps (not sure whats up with that either) but after maple weekend I did a full evap clean out and strained out the back pan. to remove the extra load of niter from maple weekend from boiling a deeper level and little slower than normal. and that may have contributed to the lighter syrup as well.