Finally finished tapping. Hoping for a great season for everyone.
Finally finished tapping. Hoping for a great season for everyone.
Matt,
Minehart Gap Maple
Well, the trees are just starting back up from the deep freeze.
Yesterdays run wasn't much to talk about. We boiled about 100 gallon of sap last night
and made 2 1/2 gallon of syrup. Pretty much caught up; all the syrup we made is
filtered and bottled. I think today and tomorrow will be good. A little freeze on Thursday
and then back into some good freeze/thaw cycles over the weekend.
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
We are all caught up again. It's nice to get a good freeze now and then.
It gives you time to filter and bottle. Everything boiled so far is in a bottle or
5 gallon jug. If it warms up enough today, I'll rinse out all the tanks.
I learned something the other night I should have known.
I have AOF/AUF. Last year I replaced two sawdust waste gates with ball valves.
I just set them where I thought they ought to be, and hadn't touched them after that.
Well, I went from some rather wet wood to very dry wood. I couldn't keep the syrup in the pan
unless I fired sparingly. And then of course not much going on in the flue pan.
So, I decided it was time to tinker a little. I shut the under fire down just a little, and what a difference!
now you can run along without having to defoam the front pans so much. Yesterday I
boiled about 275 gallons and used defoamer only once. Anyway, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!
Hope everyone is having fun!
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
Really great sap runs Saturday and Sunday. 28 degrees this morning so I expect more today.
Had a good boil last night, making probably 7-8 gallons of syrup.
Sugar content has been good. 2.4 on buckets, 2.0 on 5/16 tubing, and 1.4 on reds with vacuum.
It's shaping up to be a great season. I'm not near made enough syrup yet, but the cold nights
are helping keep things flowing. Long boil again tonight, and maybe a little break tomorrow night.
Weather looks to be cold next week.
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
Almost recovered from the tsunami of sap from Sun/Mon. We gathered around 900 gallons
of mostly 2.2+ sap. We filled 8 kettles with syrup in 3 days. Boiled about 2800 gallons so far.
Weather looks like a freeze Friday and Saturday, hope to get everything filtered and bottled .then
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
In the deep freeze, and all caught up with filtering and bottling.
Ended up with a little over 27 gallons of syrup from Sunday - Wednesday.
Evaporator is cleaned out and ready for the next run.
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
Hoping for another big run today. It's been a great year so far.
Worth Township, Centre County, PA
2012- New A & A metal 2X6 raised flue Evaporator
12 X 16 Never TapOut Sugar Shack
Circle Sawmill
Firewood processor
Polaris 500 ATP
Polaris Ranger 570
http://s1066.photobucket.com/albums/...iningsugarcamp
"The worst Maple Syrup I ever tasted, Was Wonderful"
Well, it looks like the end is in sight. We will probably be done on Sunday.
It has been a great year here in Union County. Tomorrow we will have boiled 4000 gallons of sap!
The last 3 Mondays were incredible with super sap flows. The wood pile has been decimated, and
ambition has dropped off dramatically. The season always starts with high hopes, and anticipation
for plenty of syrup. Usually the weather brings a death knell with sustained high temperatures.
We were in it since the beginning of February. In my earlier post I said I would put my buckets out
as soon as possible. That turned out to be a wise decision. 17 taps on 3/16 and 50 buckets brought us a tad
over 1200 gallons of sap that never went under 2.0 and mostly ran at 2.3-2.4!
This has turned out to be my second best year since making syrup.
The only year that was better was 2013, where we made syrup from the first week of February until the end of March.
We boiled 5100 gallons that year. I hope everyone has reached their goals, and still had fun!!!!
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/
It's Over!!!! We had our last boil today. It was barely enough to start up. We finished the year out
at a little over 4200 gallons of sap. I need to boil out the evaporator for a final tally,
but right now have 82 gallons of syrup filtered and bottled. Like I said in the previous post,
second best season after 2013 where we made 101 gallons of syrup.
Also did it on fewer taps. It turned out to be a great season here, even though it only
lasted 5 weeks!
115 red maples on vacuum
100 taps on 5/16 gravity
35 taps on 3/16 gravity
50 taps on shurflo vacuum
about 60 buckets on giant roadside sugars
neighbor bringing from 45 taps
30'x 8' Aof/Auf Evaporator
Homemade 125gph Ro
Lots of Homemade Equipment!
http://s848.photobucket.com/albums/a...%20Sugarshack/