2018 Spring Harvest

[red maples]

yeah saturday looks really good. I just hope I get a freeze tonight. that will make tomorrow even better.

[Amber Gold]

Walked the woods Saturday and got the vac from 25" to 27.5"+. 2100 gal of sap got brought over Saturday between me and others, and boiled down that night. Made dark syrup...only got two runs of amber...oh well.

Surprisingly, the sap actually ran from Saturday afternoon through this morning. I was able to bring a load home this morning, and it's at the sugarhouse ready to go. I'll have at least another load in the woods after work to get with another 300+ gal being delivered.

My digital refractometer is AWOL after last maple season, so not sure what SSC is.

[Amber Gold]

After hauling a full load out yesterday morning, I thought it was going to be a promising day. Got to the woods after work and only found 300’ish gallons in the tank. Turns out I was only pulling 15” of vac, and the sap wasn’t running that well, so I walked the woods and found two spouts had come out. Fixed those and a few other little ones, and got the vac back to 25”+. Sap flow picked up dramatically…more vac really does equal more sap. Total for the day was ~1000 gal of my own and 340 gal of others. Syrup total is about 140 gal so far. Propane bottle ran out yesterday, so need to make sure I get it filled tonight, so I can empty the canner.

Per usual, the lighter syrup didn’t last too long, and I’m making Dark, Robust syrup. I think it’s mostly due to the short boils. I’m fine with it because it tastes great and sells well. I may, may look into building an air injection system for the flue pan, mostly to keep the flue pan cleaner because it’s a project to clean it during the season when working full time. If I did it, I’d want to find a way to tap off my high pressure blower that feeds the evaporator. I don’t want to listen to something else in the sugarhouse.

[Russell Lampron]

You definitely need a high pressure blower to run a bubbler. I tried to run mine with the blower that I had on my old arch and it didn't work. How many gallons per hour does your evaporator boil off?

[Amber Gold]

Somewhere between 90-120 gph. I remember reading your bubbler thread and the low pressure blowers not working. I think the hard part of using my HP pressure blower will be can I filter the air and is there enough surplus air for the bubbler and the evap.

Got a truck load hauled out yesterday and made about 15 gal of syrup. Skirting the edge of a Very Dark right now. Temp's dropped below freezing around 8pm last night, so that was a pleasant surprise.

At yesterday's' pickup, I caulked up some vac. leaks on my releaser and gained an 1" out of it. Well worth the 5 min it took. Still have a leak somewhere in the bottom because there's bubbles forming in the sap with no flow.

This morning I had about 300 gal in the woods tank, so should be a two load day today. Rising dropped off almost 300 last night for processing today and should have another load this evening. Might see Madbury too.

[Dill]

You opening up this weekend? I just noticed "Maple month" doesn't actually start til next weekend.

[Russell Lampron]

Is your HP blower noisy? I'm looking for something quieter than the shop vac. Your evap numbers are quite impressive for an evaporator that size. When I was looking at larger evaporators before I got my RO I think a stock 3x10 was getting 100 gph. Needless to say I'm glad that I got the RO.

How long did it take to make the 15 gallons of syrup? Light the fire, get the evaporator up to temp and shut down?

What are you using for sealer on your releaser? I had a small leak on mine and put food grade silicone on it and I think it leaks worse now than it did before I made the repair.

[red maples]

the best thing you can do for the bottom is have what is that lapierre or bernard? if you have a clean bottom its a different material than the canister and really not much works except to have them use their magic epoxy under vacuum to pull it into the seems. I tried just about everything and couldn't get it to work. but if they are both PVC (the black bottom) then they might work with just the PVC glue.

[Amber Gold]

OK run yesterday. Brought home a truckload and had almost 600 gal from others. Took it to 16% and made about 25 gal of syrup in 1.75 hrs. Right on the edge of the D/VD line. Downside to having a 600 is it dumps like 20 gal of sweet permeate into the head tank when doing a sugar rinse at the end of the night. So I may have started with 16%, but ended up something less than that.

[Amber Gold]

Russ,

I’ll get back to you on the H.P. blower specs. Not sure how to calc. air flow requirements for the arch and for the flue pan blower. Blower isn’t bad, but you have to raise you voice to talk, which can get old. I would like it quieter. It’d also make it easier to hear what the RO machine is doing which would be nice.

Evap rates are based on the RO machine. I set it to 2gpm concentrate, and it’ll creep ahead of the evap…sometimes I can keep up with it if I really put the heat to her. I figure 90gph is about right. Based on the figures above, I’m making like 14gph of syrup including startup/shutdown. I’m happy. I'd still like to get more sap though, so I can run it longer and get better use out of it.

I just used regular caulking. I didn’t know they made food grade. If it helps, it’s silicone based.