Red Roof Maples 2019

[Russell Lampron]

Well the 250 gallon block of frozen sap in my woods tank is now a 300 gallons block of frozen sap. The vacuum pump is on and I'm not sure what I'll find in the morning. It looks like we've finally got some warmer temps on the way so hopefully I can get enough liquid sap in there to thaw the frozen stuff.

I spent most of the day outside in the snow. I brought the pump and hoses down to the woods tank this morning and chipped the ice away from the valve on the tank. This afternoon I put a new belt on the vacuum pump so I don't have to worry about that breaking in the middle of a big sap run. Everything's ready to go here, just need some sap!

[wnybassman]

Well the 250 gallon block of frozen sap in my woods tank is now a 300 gallons block of frozen sap. The vacuum pump is on and I'm not sure what I'll find in the morning. It looks like we've finally got some warmer temps on the way so hopefully I can get enough liquid sap in there to thaw the frozen stuff.

I spent most of the day outside in the snow. I brought the pump and hoses down to the woods tank this morning and chipped the ice away from the valve on the tank. This afternoon I put a new belt on the vacuum pump so I don't have to worry about that breaking in the middle of a big sap run. Everything's ready to go here, just need some sap!

I only have about a 30 gallon block of ice in my bulk tank in the woods, and just pumped 120 gallons out of it. That ice is bonded to the bottom like it was before it started to run a little. I would of thought with that much sap on top of it and it being a round bottom tank that ice would pop right up.

[Russell Lampron]

I only have about a 30 gallon block of ice in my bulk tank in the woods, and just pumped 120 gallons out of it. That ice is bonded to the bottom like it was before it started to run a little. I would of thought with that much sap on top of it and it being a round bottom tank that ice would pop right up.

Mine has been filling at about 50 to 75 gallons a day on the days that it has run for about 3 weeks. There has been temps as low as -11 here between warm ups. Anything that is coming in is freezing almost as fast as it hits the block of ice. It's supposed to get into the lower forties here today but with the snow that we got yesterday I'm not expecting much.

[Russell Lampron]

I was finally able to gather some sap tonight. To my delight most of the sap in my woods tank was liquid. I was able to open the valve on the tank and pump out about 265 gallons. There's still quite a bit of ice in the tank but now there's room for a big run. I'll be sweetening the pans tomorrow night and am hoping that I'll have another 50 to 75 gallons of sap to go with what I collected tonight. The sap is barely trickling in here and it's only supposed to get into the mid 30's tomorrow so I'm not expecting much.

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[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Glad to hear that Russell. In Merrimack I only got 105 gallons yesterday. Was disappointed in that, but I know better flows are coming. Good luck!

[Russell Lampron]

I was hoping to get 50 to 75 gallons yesterday to add to the 265 from the day before. To my surprise I actually got 175 gallons. I had 440 gallons to sweeten the pans with. I lit the evaporator at 7:10 and shut down at 8:16. I drew off about a gallon of great tasting Amber syrup.

I was able to see what my RO can do now that I've added a second tower. I'm really happy with the results. I was able to get 12% in a single pass without pushing the machine too hard. I normally concentrate to 14% so I now know that I can single pass it and boil when I'm in a situation where I can't take the time to recirculate.

I couldn't find my bottle of defoamer from last season so I grabbed a can of Pam which is canola oil and was good to go. I may continue to use it, it's real convenient to just give a quick spray and watch the foam drop.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Russell, This season I bought just a plain squirt bottle from Home Depot and put Canola oil in that. 1 quick squirt with it does a great job. I have 2 bottles of Defoamer that im not going to use anymore. If anyone in NH needs them, let me know.

-Scott

[Russell Lampron]

Yesterday's run only produced 100 gallons but really I'm not surprised. It was 17* here yesterday morning and even though it got up around 40* there were too many clouds in the afternoon and evening. I was going to turn my vacuum pump off at 1:45 this morning but the temp was still above freezing and the ground was still soft so I left it on. It's 31* right now which will give me a chance to adjust the belt on the vacuum pump which I'm going to do as soon as I finish my breakfast. Then it's off to the woods to see how much sap came in overnight. I may be boiling again tonight or I may not depending on how it came in overnight and how it runs today.

[Russell Lampron]

There wasn't very much in the tank this morning and I collected a disappointing 160 gallons tonight. It looks like we're not getting below freezing again until Saturday night. The vacuum pump is on and pulling 25.5" for the duration. I'll see what's in the tank in the morning and decide if I'm boiling tomorrow night or waiting until Saturday. I really want a decent run so that I can put my RO to the test and see what I can really get out of it.

[Russell Lampron]

I went down yesterday morning and found an upsetting 35 to 40 gallons in the tank. I didn't expect much yesterday after seeing that but came home and was able to collect 230 gallons last evening. That was the best run in a 24 hour period so far this year. Adding that to the 160 gallons that I collected the day before gave me 500 gallons for last night's boil.

I'm really liking the ability to get to 12% in a single pass. It's also nice that I can get it through the evaporator fast. So far in two boils I've sweetened the pans and made 12 gallons of syrup. I boiled for an hour and 6 minutes when I sweetened the pans and an hour and twenty minutes last night. Twelve gallons plus sweetening in two hours and 26 minutes including starting out cold twice is not too shabby with a 2x6 evaporator.

I had the same problem last season too but I couldn't get all of the syrup through the filter press before it clogged up. The rest of the season went fine after that so I'm thinking that it's just the first run sap.