Eastern Ontario 2020

[Bricklayer]

Both are accurate.
The hydrotherm is probley your best bet as it already has a temperature compensation built in. And the hydrometer does not. The size of container you float your hydrometer or hydrotherm does not matter as long as it dosnt touch the bottom or sides.
I don’t really use a hydrotherm anymore. But used to have it floating around in my canner that is 16 x16. And it worked fine.
I use the Murphy cup now at it give a reading at 66.9. So I can roughly say my syrup is 67 brix. I think most producers try to hit 67. Then at least you give yourself a little bit of a buffer.

[ennismaple]

Hopefully extended forecast is wrong,which it usually is,predicting +16 for Friday!!! That’s enough to kill the season

I know you are further south than us Bruce and generally a week ahead of us north of Hwy 7, but a single day of high temp won't end the season for us. We still have quite a bit of snow in the bush and a layer of ice on top of the ground. We'll survive a few warm days.

[ennismaple]

Another short boil last night to clean up what ran Monday-Tuesday. We got about 1 GPT over the 2 days so fired up the RO at 3pm, lit a fire in the belly of The Beast at 5:30 and was home by 10:30pm. I love boiling 17.5 Brix concentrate!

I just checked the bush and we have enough to fire up again tonight. It's just starting to run but with the sun it's getting pretty warm and muddy. No rest for this guy!

[Fort Wisers]

Wow a good run today, collected 62 litres at noon and just collected another 55 this evening.
Boiling again tomorrow then we may shut down for the season.......

[Bruce L]

I know you are further south than us Bruce and generally a week ahead of us north of Hwy 7, but a single day of high temp won't end the season for us. We still have quite a bit of snow in the bush and a layer of ice on top of the ground. We'll survive a few warm days.

Unfortunately Marty there’s no such thing as snow around here now,just lots of mud. Had a real hard freeze last night,should have hammered out today but didn’t. Sugar has dropped way off also,instead of syrup every 10 minutes it was more like every 30 minutes until got into sap my Father picked up in the upper bush which is always sweeter,but a lot more nitre also.

[Galena]

Bruce and Wisers, if you're all finished up don't despair...I have 140l in holding, and another approx 65-75l per day this Thursday and Friday coming, that i badly need help boiling. Come help! PM me for directions. I have Shack Whacky cleaned up, adequate supply of wood, just need it manned so I can get some sleep

[Coatesy]

I feel your pain. I'm almost at 55g storage and maxed out pan full finish boil pots all full.
I'm actually running out of wood.

[jungmaria]

Hi everyone, newbie here. Been lurking a couple years now, using all your great advice. I’m tapping near Tamworth, off-grid and open air, and struggling to keep up like everyone else here it seems.
I’ve got about 1000 litres of sap to process plus whatever we get today and can only do 400-500/day (and none when it’s raining out). How quickly does sap spoil? With a forecast 18oC & rain tomorrow, it means I won’t be able to boil. Is the sap sitting in barrels still going to be ok to boil off on the weekend?

[Galena]

Hi everyone, newbie here. Been lurking a couple years now, using all your great advice. I’m tapping near Tamworth, off-grid and open air, and struggling to keep up like everyone else here it seems.
I’ve got about 1000 litres of sap to process plus whatever we get today and can only do 400-500/day (and none when it’s raining out). How quickly does sap spoil? With a forecast 18oC & rain tomorrow, it means I won’t be able to boil. Is the sap sitting in barrels still going to be ok to boil off on the weekend?

Welcome Maria! Generally you should boil sap as soon as you can, but for the most part if kept cold it can keep up to a week. If you have snow still, esp on the north side of outbuildings, out of sun, dig bunkers or heap snow around the barrels. One season some years ago I got offered sap to take but it was 10 days after collection. I knew it might turn, but I got it and made some lovely syrup with it!

I also know of the freakish warmth we're also going to get Friday but it is also meant to be followed by freakish cold. Pull out any ice Saturday morning and frisbee it :-) I used to burn ice too but it't just not worth it. BTW I use clean garbage pails for bulk storage of up to 70l per. I am freezing up all the cold packs that come with my home meal delivery service (Goodfood, hellofresh etc) and will be putting them in the bulk containers Friday night to ensure as much ice as possible so I can make the most of the poor person's RO :-)

[ennismaple]

We weren't really expecting much sap yesterday but we still got 1+ GPT, mostly late in the day so we had to fire up again late last night. It's definitely looking like with today and tomorrow plus next week's run after the weekend deep freeze will mean we have another good season.

We cranked the RO up to 18.7 Brix concentrate and holy crap does the syrup come flying off the front pans! Filtering can be a challenge but you don't fire for long.