Eastern Ontario 2019

[paulslund]

After about five days I am finally getting a chance to catch up on all of the news. My season has been INSANELY good! Boiled down 270L yesterday from 10am to 12 midnight. Finally all caught up with boiling the sap in storage but I have an indoor pool's worth of nearup to finish off in the kitchen. Haven't updated my stats yet for this year but I have made more than any other year. More than the last two years combined.

Sorry for not responding to the message yet Paul. So great to hear from you. I'll get to it ASAP!

Wow Karen! That's a lot of syrup! Unless the few days this week with slightly below zero nights are huge sap days, I'll definitely be struggling to get to last year's numbers.
And I was wrong about the info in my pm to you.. didn't do anywhere as good as job as I thought! LOL...

Paul.

[Someclown]

Thanks Someclown. By tomorrow I should be able to update yet again.

Add some numbers to your signature too. We always love to see stats. If you aren't sure how to do that we would be happy to explain it.

Yes, I will try to keep better track next season and add to my signature
I am just starting to take note now

[Fort Wisers]

Sheesh Fort. Way to make a guy feel old.

Maybe we should make syrup together. I can just see the labels now

OLDER AND WISERS.
The best syrup anywhere.

HAHAHAH sorry for the delay Big Eddy.

First, certainly wasn't trying to make you feel old but I apologize for doing so.
Second, no matter what I bow to your marketing genius, truly love it! We can't forget to leave room for the 100% organic note as well lol.....

Cheers

[DrewCP]

Another huge day Saturday. Had about 425L in stock when I started around 6AM. Lost about 100L (one tote) to spoilage. Not sure what happened. Taste and smell was way off. I did a collect around 2PM and picked up another 200L. I finished up late on Saturday night. Dad was going to verify density then re-heat and bulk bottle yesterday. I didn't hear what our final total was but hoping for 15L.

That is us done for the season. On my afternoon collect I noticed 2 things. Moths in a couple buckets and a lot of spiles with curdled looking sap on them. Sap was starting to spoil in the sun before it was dripping into the buckets. Bittersweet in a way. A lot of buckets were still overflowing with sap but the forecast just doesn't look to be wroth it for us. We pulled all the gear and started to wash up buckets/lids/spiles.

It looks like we'll still be in our 40-50L annual target range. The only difference this year was that we did it in 2 boils not 3.


Hope everyone had a safe and successful season.
Drew.

[Big_Eddy]

Paul - Welcome.
With a 16 x 60" evaporator, you are ideally sized for somewhere between 75 and 200 trees, depending on how long you like to watch water boil.
If it has flues - you will be able to evaporate ~15gals an hour. If the back pan is a flat pan only, then 8-10 gals an hour.

.....

I don't track wood usage very well, but yesterday for 200 gallons of sap in my home made 20" x 64" with flues, i consumed roughly a face cord of wood. We burn mostly dead dry ash saplings about 4" dia of which we have a never-ending supply. Split your wood small and fire often. You are not interested in coals - you want a hot fast fire all day long. We fire an arm load of wood on an 8 min cycle.

......

So this note got me thinking, and the engineer in me couldn't let it go, and besides - I had 24 hours of watching water boil ahead of me and I needed to do something to amuse myself.

Friday I stocked up the wood wall in the sugar house, and leveled the top out. My wood wall is 12' wide, and I had 66" of wood stacked. It was all hardwood, mostly beech and ash with some maple and hickory. Lengths vary from 12" - 18", averaging about 16". Nothing over 4" in diameter, lots of it ~1". Bone dry. My kids call it "rocket fuel". Total wood to start was a tad over 2 face cord (2/3 full cord).
As mentioned earlier, we fire an armload every 8 mins on a timer. (see Pic)

I started Saturday morning with 170 US gallons (650litres) in the tank. When I ended for the day, I had boiled 120 US Gallons and consumed ~3/4 face cord. I averaged 16gph and made 20 litres of syrup. By the end of the day, the coals were getting away on me and slowing down the evaporation rate.
Sunday morning I pumped another 130 Imp gallons into the tank and started boiling again. Sunday I boiled until the tank was dry (180 gallons) averaging 15.7 gph and used another 3/4 face cord of wood, producing roughly 22litres of syrup.

At the end of Sunday's boil, I leveled out the woodpile, and there was 18" of wood left. So almost exactly 1.5 face cords (1/2 full cord) consumed for 300 gallons of sap boiled off, and 42 litres of syrup produced.

Sap to Syrup 27:1 (22.6:1 Sat, 30:1 Sun)
Sap to Wood 200USG or 750l / face cord or 600USG (2250l) / full cord.
At local firewood rates of $300 / cord, it would cost me $5 / litre if I were to buy firewood. (And then I would need to split it down a few more times)

(And yes- I know, I mix Imp gallons, US gallons & litres - I was schooled in Canada during the 70s and 80's - what can I say? My bulk tank is marked in US gallons, so that is what I use for evaporation rates. Makes the maple math easy though- it takes 10 gallons sap to make a litre.)

[Galena]

Big_Eddy, $300 a cord for firewood....holy liftin. Is that a full cord or a face cord cut, dried, split, delivered and stacked for you? I go in with some friends on a load of log length wood and we do all the work, but at $1000 for approx 22 cord wood (12 for them, 10 for me) it still doesn't come anywhere near $300. And there is enough deadfall around that I can buck up for kindling.

Slowly fixing my sap with distilled....oh jeez I'm such a bad person, my syrup's not 100%....*eyeroll* and it's only 2 batches that are getting this treatment. All the others are fine and 100% pure syrup.

[Big_Eddy]

Big_Eddy, $300 a cord for firewood....holy liftin. Is that a full cord or a face cord cut, dried, split, delivered and stacked for you? I go in with some friends on a load of log length wood and we do all the work, but at $1000 for approx 22 cord wood (12 for them, 10 for me) it still doesn't come anywhere near $300. And there is enough deadfall around that I can buck up for kindling.

Slowly fixing my sap with distilled....oh jeez I'm such a bad person, my syrup's not 100%....*eyeroll* and it's only 2 batches that are getting this treatment. All the others are fine and 100% pure syrup.

Going rate around here is $300 full cord (4'x4'x8') seasoned hardwood cut & split including local delivery. Stacking is extra. My son has a small firewood business. Buys 6-8 trucks of logs a year. Logs are a lot cheaper, but harder to fit in the fireplace.

[JeffB]

Lmao Galena
Why you gotta be like that with the eye roll ? Lol
The eye roll looks very familiar tho. Especially when i say " hey i found a new piece of sugaring equipment"
Lol

[JeffB]

Big Eddy
Send me info on firewood im in the marked for 2 bush cord for next season already

[JeffB]

Clinkis... i mailed you about syrup