Eastern Ontario 2021

[Bushfrosh]

Pulled spiles this evening. Buckets were getting raunchy and the limited sap run from today (0.6L/tap) was questionable. Season finished with 0.89L/spile of syrup. I hope the next run(s) are good for everyone still tapped.

[ir3333]

i tapped extra trees this year but my syrup totals will probably be 2/3 normal.

[Bricklayer]

Sap from last night and today was still nice and clear. Moved to dark today. But still tastes great. Hopefully can squeeze a couple more days out of the season this week. Today brought the total up to 75% of our normal haul. So might just get it.

[ir3333]

so...your last boil is getting dark.How dark?
I'm going to hang in another week!

[jungmaria]

Same here, syrup turned dark today. Sap was a bit cloudy but tasted fine. Boiled some in a pot as Galena suggested and smelled good too so boiled down the 75 gal I had and it tastes like syrup! Phew. Only at 66% so hoping to get another run this week.

[Clinkis]

Haven’t got a drop since last Tuesday. Hasn’t froze since last Monday night. Gonna hope for a couple more runs this week but trees buds are looking like they are starting to swell. If we get anymore sap fingers crossed it’s still good. Currently sitting about 40% of my expected crop. Been a very disappointing season to say the least.

[paulslund]

Another late night boiling last night. I was surprised at how much I had gotten over the weekend and it was starting to look cloudy. Definitely darker than my other batches but still nice flavour. I think this week will be the last of it here at my end based on the weather forecast..and as usual I underestimated how much wood I needed... I'm running out so hopefully I get to the weekend and then may call it quits.. unlessl I make a trip to the office to get more pallets. Wind was crazy high (still is) and was pushing the exhaust smell and steam back into the shack via the cupola.. I kept looking for leaks in the arch until I figured that part out.. LOL. I've boiled 4 times in 8 days.. that's a record for me! I'm not keeping track of Sap anymore (although I have picture evidence of the head tank so I'll try to figure out a formula to estimate) but I think I'm in between 17-20L so far.. I haven't finished processing any of it yet and they are all in buckets in the freezer for now..

Have a great week everyone!

[Big_Eddy]

have you ever taken the sweet out of your pans and stored it in pails in a cool place until your next boil?
after it's been boiled it's sterilized.

Yes - did exactly that. I have 2 5 gal pails in my freezer with the sweet in them. After it cooled down I used a piece of 1" tubing to siphon out all the sweet from each of the flues.
Waiting to see if we get more sap this week. If we do - I will wash out both the flue and syrup pans, fill with fresh sap, then add in thawed sweet as it comes up to a boil.

I dumped all my buckets last night in the hopes we would get some flow today and later this week. I had not looked at them since Tuesday. There was a surprising amount of sap in some of them and while some of them were a tad hazy and a few were brown with rain water, much of it would have been okay to boil. Dumped it anyway - prefer to restart with fresh sap.

Saturday was bottling day - got everything I've made this season bottled up. 58l from 150 taps.

[ir3333]

Well we had a good freeze last night.I just checked couple of pails and it's dripping!
I have a couple of inches in my pails from yesterday...with small run today and hopefully another
good run tomorrow, waiting may have been worthwhile. My sap is still clear.

[paulslund]

Noticed the high winds had blown some maple buds of the trees.. the Silver Maples are definitely opening up now.. I've actually never had them open up like this before the sap went..but yesterday's collection boiled down nicely.. I'll be test boiling constantly this week.. but what I collect by Tuesday might be the last of it for me..if it's still good..