Willow Creek Sugarhouse 2020

[Russell Lampron]

Sounds like you're making progress. I've got the weekend off so maybe we can get together when you go to Sunnyside. I've got some greenish colored sap too. I'm planning to go through a couple of pre filters before I get it all through the RO.

[red maples]

sap slowing to a craw if that... hit 70* here yesterday!!! saw he early budder tree( the one that ALWAYS buds before anything) else swell yesterday. I pull taps on that one early because it buds so early don't know why. hope we get some cold soon. Getting a little concerned since I am barely at 1/2 crop. anymore days like yesterday and we are trouble. luckily its supposed to be pretty over cast and some rain this afternoon and evening or whatever.

My son had a Basketball game last night so I couldn't boil, so ROed 800 gallons 3/4 of the way last night and finished this morning.

the weld on my float rod connection broke at the end of the boil on Sunday(thankfully it was at the end!!! ) so had to break out the welder and fix that this morning. a little rusty, no pun intended, not the prettiest of welds but its a lot stronger than it was. I knew it was weak it was just a matter of time before it broke.

[Russell Lampron]

When I boiled yesterday afternoon it felt like an end of season boil, not an early March boil. It's warm again here today and I'm getting about 25 gallons per hour. It's supposed to freeze again here tomorrow night. The low for tonight is supposed to be 33 but it could get colder, I can only hope.

[red maples]

went through and pulled about another 20 taps today. just trying to keep it going!!! sap backed up today heavy snow pulled down my brace that it holding up the tarp on my mechanical releaser across the street well the weight of the tarp then wouldn't let float rod do it job backed but still allowed some sap to into the vac. changed the oil got out the remaining sap out of the moisture trap and back in business. I don't think it was down very long. Still not much sap today still defrosting I think but we'll see its still coming though. guessing I don't have much time left we'll see if we can make it until the end of the week.

[Amber Gold]

Now that you have the pump wired correctly, how's the new releaser working out. I've wanted to put a meter on my pump line, but have been hesitant too

I've also wanted to put on my evap. feed line, so I can see how fast I'm actually evaporating. And firing with wood, what firing/operating techniques makes it run faster and which don't.

[red maples]

Well I posted on out town's facebook page,my website and my facebook page, the sugarhouse facebook page a picture of my price list and all the stuff I made for this year. and got about 20 orders. I Cleaned out my farm stand and just getting a ballpark time and putting orders out there so we can keep our "social distancing" so I hope I broke $1000 but haven't added it up yet. I have a few more orders for today. I figured I'd leave it up for a while see what I get.

after last weekend's freeze up SSC got back up to about 1% but was about .75% yesterday with a season low of about .6% Vacuum has been a steady 26.75 most of the season with weird spikes and here and there and its not even colder days either. Friday evening it was about 27.75 I am thinking when the trees get a good warm up they swell a little and if a tap is not seated quite 100% they are sealing? and if the atmospheric pressure changes does the vacuum pressure change? I don't know.

Like Josh said he thought sugar was bad a few years ago I have to look back but I remember it being somewhere around 72:1 for me(remember I am mostly reds and a lot of swamp reds at that) but this year is even worse. I think I have reached the average sap I ususally get but the syrup amount is way down. I would say this year is easily gonna be a 80:1 year. The amount of time it is taking to get to 15+ sugar is crazy. and then what your left with after 400, 500, 600 + gallons of sap after rinsing the sugar out of the membranes is not much have had boils <1 hr this year. I try not to boil any less than every other day because the sap is coming yeasty even try to wipe out my releasers every couple of days and wiping out tanks regularly its coming out of the tubing that way.

I have a lot of trees that are popping went around today and pulled about 25 taps of those that popped. We had wood frogs in the swamp Friday and yesterday, and I heard peepers Friday night. but none before or after that. Got down to 21* last night. I have to walk 1 more section I know there are at least 3-5 trees that popped as I saw with binoculars but need my mud boots to get to them. some trees very tight buds some trees with just swelling buds. sun is very warm guessing I am gettin really close to being done. and syrup from my boil was lightening up too finished at 38 trasmitence still tastes OK I am very finicky about flavor but my wife said it still tasted good.

[red maples]

pumping sap into the releaser on Wednesday afternoon before the fundraiser and the pump had been getting slower and slower. I wired everything the way the directions came from MES but it did say that if you have issues to switch the wires. sure enough they wired the pump backwards. (they also wired the toggle switch backwards too) so changed the wires and its like a new pump. it was spinning backwards!!! this releaser is rated for up to 3000 taps I thought from when I first hooked it up no way could this handle 3000 taps.

had about 700+ gallons to boil out yesterday. not bad since we hadn't had a good freeze in some time. it did get to 30* but it was only for a few hours.

filtered back pan and rinsed it out. and cleaned front pan with vinegar so nice and clean much easier boil but much different weather pressure system then the last few boils big adjustments on the draw off thermometer. filtering was better until the last batch I blew a paper. never had that happen before just a little hole but enough to reck 8 gallons of syrup so have to he-heat and refilter it all. my syrup pan is super sweet so I will get a big draw off on the start of the next boil.

looks like the syrup is back way up in dark closer to amber.( hard to tell since its full of niter) Cleaning the pans helped that I am sure.

ROing taking a bit longer than last year I can tell you that. with lack of freezing nights and obviously no ice in the ground the sap is coming with some of the best runs I ever had but low sugar lots of water. thank goodness for RO would rather pay alittle more in electricity then cutting and splitting wood and super long boiling times.

was hoping for a little more sap today good freeze last night got down to 24* but it became overcast pretty quickly this morning and only got about <.5 gpt. been pretty close to .75 to 1 gpt. another freeze tonight and tomorrow then looks like another long stretch with a freeze hope it changes. need a little more consistent colder nights.

[red maples]

Yeah russ that would be good hoping to come up saturday morning. Will be nice to see you, been a little while.

Nasty out this morning, jeez...

Had about 600+ gallons to process. (I need to get a bigger water meter mine is only a 3/4 inch and now have a 1-1/4 line coming in so don't want to restrict that flow from the releaser so it will be a guest for this year I like exact numbers though) thats since monday 12:00 noon.

definitely not the high sugar sap from last year I will tell you that. last year was average 2+ almost all season this sap started at 1.25 and went to 1%. so a little longer through the RO. went through 2 pre-filters I am using the MES prefilters I just bought a few to try I have to say I don't think I like them. they have that plastic mesh on the inside so the actual filtering is not as thick. I don't know. we'll see.

Vac is still running between 26.75" and actually 27.5" this morning. very low pressure and thawing trees. and with the new electric releaser its a constant vac pressure. steadier flow of sap coming in!! should have more sap this year.

First boil last night lots of defoamer!!! but that was expected on the first boil. everything went very smooth made about 3 gallons but but didn't filter it. looks about mid line dark but expected that too.

Was thinking back to the days of sweetening the pans before RO. just sitting there trying to stay awake and just load after load after load of wood going in to evap!!!

[BlueberryHill]

Sap is at 1.1% here in Raymond's coldest north facing sugar bush. So you are not alone. I'm hoping that the season just has not kicked in quite yet.

[Russell Lampron]

Low sugar content here in Loudon too. I did my first boil with 500 gallons of sap and didn't get a draw off. I didn't check the sugar content before I started so I don't know how bad it really was. Normally starting with that much sap I get the pans sweetened and have 3 or 4 gallons in the finisher.

Brad let me know what time you'll be here so that I'll be home. I'm only planning a dump run so any time is good.