Eastern Ontario 2019

[Galena]

HI Big_Eddy, hehe I was sure I'd hear from you!

All I know is one is called a Quebec hydrotherm (got mine from Covell's, SKU is HA-MHYDQUE5988. And the other is....*reading package*....a precision hydrometer.

So I am indeed dealing with two different beasties. And what is an atmospheric thermometer and how do you use it?

And yes the red line, whichever I am using, is always either right at surface or just slightly over. If it's more than 2 hashmarks over I fix it with distilled.

[JeffB]

1 hash marks over is minimum brix 66 . 2 more its 66.4 brix .. my hydro therm is calibrated if red is at the syrup level its 65.8brixs so ever hash mark is 2/10ths of a brix.. so always make sure its at least 1 has mark above the top of the liquid .. i finish all my syrup 3 to 4 hash marks above syrup level for a brix of 66.4 or 66.6

[Galena]

Thanks so much JeffB and Big_Eddy for sharing your knowledge with me...I learned a lot today! :-)

ETA quick question...how to fix *peach jam* syrup? It sugared up overnight - like the bottom the jar was coated solid. So I added about 2 cups distilled and reboiled but it still looks exactly the same. Argh.

[Clinkis]

Well the dam finally burst this week. 3-4 excellent runs and looks like things are full again this morning. Going to be a busy weekend getting through all my sap. I’m closing in on 1L/tap of syrup and after this mild spell temps are supposed to drop down again next week so potential a few good runs left.

Been a strange year but turning out to be a lot better then I expected considering the late start.

Court

[Fort Wisers]

Well through Thursday and Friday we decided it was time to finish out what we had and shut it down for the season.
We boiled most of the day Thursday and then a bit again Friday morning after a quick collection.
Our finish product proved to be a bit more than we anticipated so we had a good excuse to visit our local BMR for a couple more bottles and other odds and ends.
We wanted another glass maple leaf bottle anyhow so we could compare the two batch colors.

This second batch gained us just over 5 litres of the good stuff.
We bottle the 5 litres and used the remainder to try and make some maple lollipops.
The end result was more of a maple sugar on a stick which was very tasty but not what we were looking for, we'll try again at a later date!

2nd Batch:
Sugain 2019 (4).jpg

Color compare of 1st and 2nd batch:
Sugain 2019 (5).jpg

Attempt at making Maple lollipops:
Sugain 2019 (3).jpg

So final numbers are 416 litres of sap resulting in 15.25 litres of syrup and some "sugary treats"!
Today (Saturday) cleanup will continue as well as getting caught up on notes for improvements next year.

Ennismaple - so sorry to hear about your RO pump, hope you got it all sorted out!

[JeffB]

Clinkis ..im like 25 minutes north of you and my runs are absolute junk. Nothing has seemed to open up and run.... from last sunday to thursday night total collection was 175gallons from 187 taps on gravity lines.im hoping this weekend or first of the week every thing wakes up or my season is going to be a bust.

[Galena]

Anyone want sap, I know my trees ran last night so probably another 40 or so l out there. Running on fumes, SW stove works but is inefficient so takes way too long to get to temp and maintain a decent boil. Grab some gallon containers and come and get it!

[JeffB]

On my way i have 2 1000L totes should i bring a pump or do you have 1 lol

[Galena]

lol Jeff leave one of those 1000l totes here....I have 45l ready to go and probably another 45l from this morning's collection. Ratio approx 20:1! You're only a couple hours drive away :-)

Trying to fix batch #5, that is going to sugar on me. The Hydrometer redlines 8marks over the surface and the PQ therm is a couple marks over. Will see if 1 cup can do it - for 3.25-ishl.

[MikeC82]

An interesting comparison of 2018 vs. 2019 for us and for anyone in Eastern Ontario who struggled early-on with yield. These are our total yield numbers from both years tracked out. What makes it even more striking is that in 2018 we had 65 taps and this year 110! You can see that basically the first 'real' collection this year for us was March 13th with 6 Gallons and - by comparison - last year we had already banked close to 200 G by that day.

Today is probably going to be my last collection and I will start pulling taps as I move along. Out of dry wood and the soppy stuff is taking forever to boil the sap. Plus, its been a rough 2 weeks and I have to go back to work and try to earn some $. Trees are showing first signs of buds too - so it's time.

Looks like we won't even make last years' total sap even with the extra taps this year. On the plus side though - sugar content seems to have been great and we have already surpassed last years' finished totals (which I guess is the only thing that really matters anyways).

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

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