Red Roof Maples 2019

[Russell Lampron]

I went down to the woods and brought up another 225 gallons this afternoon. My 600 gallon bulk tank is now nutted too. It was a scramble but it looks like I'm finally ready for the weekend.

Thanks for the great weekend wishes and right back at ya!

[Russell Lampron]

I had record numbers for sales yesterday but not record traffic. It started off slow then picked up really good for a couple of hours and then we had a burst at the end. I started using the square and taking cards this year. I know that some people bought more because they could use their cards and I know some bought that wouldn't have if we took cash or check only.

Syrup sales were better than expected and the value added products were flying off the table too.

I had 575 gallons to boil yesterday and made 19 gallons of syrup, 1 shy of 20 I had made for the season so far. I've got 600 gallons to boil today too. I won't make 19 gallons today because the evaporator isn't as sweet as it was yesterday when I started but I should make a decent amount anyway.

[Russell Lampron]

The turnout wasn't as good as I had hoped yesterday but the people that did come spent some money and the sales total was surprisingly high. It was a record year by almost $200. The conclusion is that I have to make a larger variety of value added products for next year. The funny thing is that when my wife was looking through the records she wrote down "no walnuts next year". They were our second best seller behind cashews which we sold out of.

I had one visitor from Weare that was told by a friend of his that came here last year about how good my syrup tasted. I had explained to his friend the previous year about my 90% red maple mix. He was equally impressed. This guy and his friend make syrup themselves!

I made 10 gallons more yesterday and the syrup total for the weekend was 29 gallons. That puts me at 49 gallons for the season, all Amber. The sap ran good yesterday and it barely froze if it did at all so I'm sure that it ran all night. I'm hoping to find a lot of sap in the tank when I go down this morning to pump the tank.

My evaporator is full of low density sap so I'm going to see how sweet I can get the concentrate up to with my RO to straighten that situation out. Mike at Sunnyside was bummed that he had to boil raw sap yesterday. He said it's like watching paint dry. I was boiling 6% which wasn't bad.

[Russell Lampron]

Phew! That was close. When I graded the syrup that I made yesterday I was afraid that I had dropped a grade but Hanna said "73", still Amber. I may not have been so lucky tonight. I have to check it in the daylight and with Hanna to be sure but I may have dropped a grade to Golden. It was awful light coming out of the draw off and looks very close to the Golden sample in the temporary kit.

I had 775 gallons of sap to boil tonight and was able to get it to 22% in two passes. It only took an hour and twenty minutes to turn it into syrup. I'm at 58 gallons for the season now. There's still a long ways to go to reach last season's total but the short term forecast looks good.

[highway]

Glad your weekend was good Russ. We had record sales this weekend and had a steady stream both days. Your running a lot of sap through that 2x6. You must have it dialed right in. This is my first year with an RO and cant believe the time savings. The nitre buildup in my syrup pan is way more than usual. Need to clean the syrup pan and get back at it after we boil in the last 200 gallons of concentrate today. We are only at 50 gallons produced so far. Last year we were well over 100. Hope the weekend weather doesnt hurt us to bad.
Keep up the good work, I enjoy reading about your operation.
ED

[Russell Lampron]

I'm glad that you had a good weekend too. I was over in your area today when I went to Bascom's.

I do have my evaporator dialed in, I just get it up to operating temperature and have to shut down with these weak sap runs this year. I'm only at 58 gallons this year and was around 130 at this time last year. When you get used to boiling concentrate you won't want to boil raw sap again and you'll wonder why you didn't get an RO sooner. It's the best bang for the buck when you're looking for efficiency gains and fuel savings.

[Russell Lampron]

Something that I had almost forgotten about. On Saturday afternoon one of my customers asked why my sugar house wasn't listed on the NHMPA website. I said that it should have been because I had paid my dues and had contacted the NHMPA to make sure that I was going to be on the list back in January. When I had a chance to get on the interwebs Saturday evening I found that the customer was right. I posted a complaint to the NHMPA via a members only page on facebook. They promptly corrected the problem with their apologies. I was on the list for Sunday but that didn't help Saturday! There were others that were omitted too.

[Russell Lampron]

Even after the mistake of closing the vacuum valve at the releaser when I cleaned the ice off of the flapper and forgetting to open it after and going to work for the day on Wednesday I was able to collect 800 gallons with yesterday's run included.

This may be a record for a 2x6. Last night my fireman tells me that he sweetened the sap to something over 20%. He stopped looking up the refractometer scale when he saw the 20 and couldn't give me an exact number. In an hour and ten minutes from the time we lit the evaporator and threw in the last stick of wood we made 17 gallons of syrup. I'm going to have to check it with my Hanna tonight because it could be the first Dark that I've made in eons.

[Russell Lampron]

After looking at it in the daylight it was clear to see that last nights syrup is Amber. As of last night I have collected 1/3 of the amount of sap that I did last season. If the sap continues to be sweet I'm on pace to make 225 gallons this season if I can collect as much sap as I did last season. I made 191.5 last season. After this weekends warm and rain next week looks pretty good.

[Russell Lampron]

Sadly Richards mom passed away yesterday. She's had heart problems for a few years now and even though we will miss her she's no longer suffering.

I had 600 gallons to boil last night and I had my wife man the draw off. We made 13 gallons in an hour and ten minutes. My back was too sore and I was too tired to try to filter it last night. The syrup is very dirty this year and I had to break down the press twice while filtering to get 17 gallons through it Thursday night. Normally that amount will go through without a problem. It took us longer to filter it than it did to make it. I'll be going down in a little while to see how this batch goes.

Boiling the sweeter concentrate is darkening up the sap in the flue pan and I'm making darker syrup this year. Last night's boil might have produced some Dark syrup which will be a nice for a change. I've always got people asking for dark and it will be nice not to lose a sale because I don't have it. If last night's syrup isn't Dark I'm sure that I'll make some before the end of the season.

Crazy right? Most producers want to make some light syrup and I'm trying for dark!