Western Mass 2019

[Aaron Stack]

Yesterday had me feeling like a little kid coming down the stairs on Christmas morning looking to see what Santa brought

Ended up with 30 gallons on the 44 buckets for yesterday's first collection.

Learned a bit on bucket placement as two fell over. Many buckets were bone dry, dumped two that were too yellow (thankfully only a small amount in each), but one bucket was almost full. Most of the sugars only had about 1/2-2 gallons and the reds at Dad's were all bone dry. The Norway in my back yard surprised me with almost 2.5 gallons in only about 12 hours which beat any day last year. We didn't have a freeze the last two nights and it was almost 50 the past two days but the next 6 days look good for a freeze/thaw cycle.

Temp inside the carport surprised me and was almost 60 degrees. I was thinking the dark color would shield it somewhat from the afternoon sun but no. Once I had the front opened up the temp dropped to about 50 pretty quick so tonight I'm going to rig up something to keep the door open a couple feet on the bottom so the tank isn't in the sun but the carport open. And did I mention mud? Truck made some big ruts right where I am planning to pull a trailer up to the tank so might need a longer hose for the sap pump.

Not disappointed at all - 30 gallons is six times what I collected all last year and learning is part of the fun. Still a bit giddy!

[bigschuss]

Finally tapped today in Savoy. Still a foot and a half of snow in the woods in the sugarbush, but temps. today approaching 40 had the sap flowing decently. This is the latest I've ever tapped in the 20 years or so that we've been doing this.



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[Aaron Stack]

Hit 53 here is Westfield and I collected about 66 gallons total today - my best day yet. I had all ten 5-gallon buckets I keep in the truck filled to the brim at the main site, the reds at Dad's finally opened up and gave me about three gallons for those 12, and my home backyard Norway keeps chugging along at about 5 gallons a day.

The chimney continues to vex me. Difficult to keep it at temp and I haven't yet figured out at what speed the blower wants to be. Seems leak, both two foot sections on each side of the first 45 came apart, the 2' section out the back of the arch glows red and looks like it collapsed, and I've blown a 1' flame out the top while boiling. Replacing the the two foot section and one of the 45's tomorrow and will see how the blower speed works. It tends to like medium to hi to keep the temp in the 500-600 range but given all the other factors going on it needs a rebuild. All the while the pan is sucking sap at 12-15 gph and all three chambers are ripping and having difficulty maintaining 2" fully open. Had to use the OSB once while drawing - took a long draw to get under 219 that time.

I've had two sugarers stop by and chat this week. One is a retired third generation and gave my syrup the spoon, color, and taste tests and all passed! Another used to sugar and lives across the road from my main site - offered his trees for tapping so tomorrow I'm going to move 4 non-producers over there. He said his arch is 8' long and made about 40 gallons a year from his yard. The madness has me thinking of next year

[berkshires]

Did my second boil today. Was really surprised that after more than a week, with a number of nice warm days, I only had 20 gallons of sap to boil. Not sure why some of the taps just didn't want to give it up, but I think maybe all the snow on the ground (still 8 to 10 inches in most places) might be making some of the trees miserly. But as I was wrapping up around 2 today it looked like all the taps were dripping, so I think this will be a better run.

At any rate, I was able to fully sweeten the pan, and do two draw-offs before I had to shut down. Drawing off syrup straight from the pan is pretty darn cool. Much more fun than batch boiling.

Now I just have to figure out how to maintain the gradient between boils. I had rigged up some stainless plates that covered the openings between channels last time I shut down, but when I started up today all the sap was mixed up, no gradient.

GO

[Aaron Stack]

At any rate, I was able to fully sweeten the pan, and do two draw-offs before I had to shut down. Drawing off syrup straight from the pan is pretty darn cool. Much more fun than batch boiling.

Now I just have to figure out how to maintain the gradient between boils. I had rigged up some stainless plates that covered the openings between channels last time I shut down, but when I started up today all the sap was mixed up, no gradient.

GO

Gabe - When I shut down last Sunday I just flooded my pan without any dividers and when I started boiling again Tuesday the gradient set up again in no time. I had two draws in two hours and almost a third but ran out of time/light for the night so flooded again. Did you get as excited as I did drawing off? Or maybe it was stressed looking at the level drop - HAH!

Collected just over 100 gallons Wed/Thurs evenings and will boil again Saturday/Sunday. Have about a gallon and a half syrup so far on about 160-ish gallons boiled, counting the 100 it took to sweeten the pan. I think I overestimate how much sap I actually get in the buckets but thankfully the IBC tote has markings so I know I have the 100 now. No freeze/thaw cycles last night so not sure how much I'll get tonight, but I'll take it and boil away most of this weekend after replacing the chimney.

Weather looks good all next week for freeze/thaw cycles so I guess the race against the buds has begun. Last year I pulled my taps in Springfield on March 23rd, but Westfield is colder so hoping those stay bud-less longer.

Good luck!

[berkshires]

I actually did get pretty excited/nervous. I wanted to raise the level in the pan before doing the draw, but I think I raised it too much, because the temp in the syrup channel dropped by three degrees! Took me another 40 minutes to get it back and do that first draw. Oh well, better safe than sorry, and it will take a bit of fiddling to figure out how to optimize draws.

Cheers,

GO

[Aaron Stack]

I actually did get pretty excited/nervous. I wanted to raise the level in the pan before doing the draw, but I think I raised it too much, because the temp in the syrup channel dropped by three degrees! Took me another 40 minutes to get it back and do that first draw. Oh well, better safe than sorry, and it will take a bit of fiddling to figure out how to optimize draws.

Cheers,

GO

Same way I did it .

[Aaron Stack]

Got two gallons yesterday - my first bucket full! Sap had turned cloudy due to the warm weather (no smell, tasted fine, and not ropy) so its a bit on the dark side, but it tastes great. I'll collect this morning and boil yesterday's harvest then clean clean clean the rest of the day.

[Aaron Stack]

Sap ran wild the past couple days. Collected 101 gallons Saturday noon to 7am Sunday morning for about 160 gallons in the tank since Thursday.

Boiled for 9 hours yesterday with the new chimney setup and got just over 14 gph and 2.5 gallons. Stack temp was a constant 650-700 with the blower on very low so a tremendous improvement over the old setup. Thanks for everyone's advice on the change. Old temps barely hit 350 with the blower on high.

Still about 40 gallons in the tank which I hope holds until Tuesday so I can boil again along with what is in the buckets tonight and tomorrow. Still 30 taps running but today is the last overnight freeze and one of the sugars' buds turned red, and only one red is still producing so it's only a matter of a couple days left.

6 gallons in the freezer waiting to bottle when all is said and done.

[bigschuss]

Sap ran wild the past couple days. Collected 101 gallons Saturday noon to 7am Sunday morning for about 160 gallons in the tank since Thursday.

Boiled for 9 hours yesterday with the new chimney setup and got just over 14 gph and 2.5 gallons. Stack temp was a constant 650-700 with the blower on very low so a tremendous improvement over the old setup. Thanks for everyone's advice on the change. Old temps barely hit 350 with the blower on high.

Still about 40 gallons in the tank which I hope holds until Tuesday so I can boil again along with what is in the buckets tonight and tomorrow. Still 30 taps running but today is the last overnight freeze and one of the sugars' buds turned red, and only one red is still producing so it's only a matter of a couple days left.

6 gallons in the freezer waiting to bottle when all is said and done.

Sounds great Aaron. Here at 2,000' elevation in the Berkshires it's another world. My trees are just starting to flow nicely...very, very late...but flowing nonetheless. Still a lot of season left for us though. Boiled for the first time this weekend.

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