Eastern Ontario 2019

[Galena]

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

Yeah hehe...I figured it was time for my annual eyeroll :-)

Soapbox time. Batch #6 was cookin along nice and slow, I tested it with the hydrometer, it red 3 hashmarks of red over the top of the syrup. Yay! So I take it off and .....it's sugared.

That is the third batch this year that I have gone over. I don't know if it's the crazy sugar content throwing off the equipment, or the slower way I am bringing the syrup to temp, or if the hydrometer is defective....but for the last 2-3 seasons I have used only the PQ hydrotherm, and so long as that little red line is showing at syrup level or just over, for hot syrup or room-temp, the syrup is perfect.

So I have put the hydrometer into storage, and then went and GOT SOME FRESH SAP from my holding tank, just so the purists quit pickin on me ;-) Taking a break before I go back to the kitchen and fix syrup. Again.

[ennismaple]

So I'm now officially exhausted...

We got the new high pressure pump for the RO to the sugar camp by 11pm on Friday night. We had a few challenges with getting it installed so it wasn't running until 12:30am. At that point we had 3500 gallons in the tanks at the sugar camp and all the tanks in the bush within 6 inches of running over - and 2 of the pumps had been off for 6 hours! We gathered a full load from each tank between 1:00am and 5:30am while the RO chewed through sap. By 6:00am the concentrate tank was full and we rinsed the RO. I left the camp at 7:30am and my brother showed up at 7:45 to start boiling! We boiled until out of concentrate at 1:00pm, shut down The Beast, kept concentrating sap, changed syrup pans and fired back up at 4:30pm. By the time we shut down again at not long after midnight we had made close to 0.3L/tap in a single day! Yesterday was an "easy" day with a 10:00am start and the sun was still up when we left the sugar camp!

With the best 5 day stretch in our history behind us I am no longer worried about the season. This week's weather looks good and we still have a lot of snow in the woods so we should make syrup well into next week.

[Run Forest Run!]

Congrats Ennismaple! Things have been so exhausting around here that I went to bed early and slept ten hours straight last night. If there is another gasp of sap I'm ready for it. If not, I've had the best year ever!

[ennismaple]

Thanks Karen. Our total sap gathered hasn't been that high but when you are concentrating 3.0% sap into 15% concentrate it comes off the far end of the evaporator fast and furious! I haven't done the math yet but I'm guessing we are between 175 and 200 gallons of syrup made per chord of wood this year. I've had several days I couldn't filter fast enough and was thankful we have a 60 gallon syrup tank that feeds the press! I was about to start putting unfiltered syrup into a drum that would be filtered later.

Stick with it! I know that people who are in this for a hobby don't see the extra syrup made as a return on investment but you'll be glad you made the extra if you can sell some of it and make a bit to pay your expenses. That's how folks like you upgrade to a 2x4, then a 2x6, then a 3x8, then get a hobby RO... it never ends!!! I'm already planning what equipment we need to make next several seasons bigger, better and less effort.

[Galena]

Still pushing sap here, expext to get around 6l from current (last?) batch of 114l. Ratio been consistent 17:1-19:1 so about 18:1 overall. Too soon for final tally but around 500l sap. Just grinding away at it, trying to run Shack Whacky and do taxes at same time. Fun!

[JeffB]

Im glad for you all that your sap is still pumping but i will admit I'm a little jelous and fustrated at reading about it .
It just wasnt in the cards this year i guess.

[Galena]

JeffB, if it's any consolation, last year Karen's area got very little, and we got a lot. This year she's swimming in it and some of us are lucky to be part of that surge, others not so much. Don't waste time being jealous. Make the most of what you got.

[Run Forest Run!]

Galena is right JeffB. Check my sucky stats for 2018 and 2017. It was a good thing that I kept a stash in reserve. I was like a mini-Quebec - without the infamous heist.

[JeffB]

Lol its the nature of the beast but like ennismaple says it never ends so maybe look into a vacuum set up for next year.
Your numbers are not to bad karen but ya your 1 year looks like it was a tough year for sap

[Lespetras]

Well, Our clan is certainly exhausted too. Finished our last batch this morning. Not a bad season at all! Average sap/syrup ratio this year was 31:1, Amazing really!!

Gonna pull spiles now.. hope you all finish up as happy as we are!

Great numbers Karen!! What a fantastic run you’ve had!