Hop Kiln Road 2021

[Russell Lampron]

I had one of those *** puckering moments myself last night. The valve from the flue pan to the front pan clogged up with what I suspect was an unnoticed wasp nest or something like that. I too caught it fast enough to avoid a disaster.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Glassed the first batch with the new canner. Put 20 gal through and the filter press didn't get above 12 lbs, so pretty clean stuff. Good test of my new system to pack 15 gal kegs when the going get tough. Grade was only 44% but it had sat around a lot at various stages. Pumped 500 gal from under the ice yesterday afternoon and things were just starting to flow. Crunched it overnight. Going to be a busy couple of days.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Boiled the previous day's crunch and and grade rose to 50%. Ran it through the same filter press cake, got the pressure up to 20 lbs. Can't believe it. Magic DE? Big ice block still in the concentrate tank. Didn't running as well as I had expected yesterday. Pumped 600 gal and expected 1000. Sugar ranges from 1.5 to 2.9, suspect they're running low on tree sap and the ground is still firmly frozen. Still got ice in all the field tanks, some tanks, a lot of ice.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Been pumping .75 gpt for the last 3 days so the runs are a little weak. Sugar popped back up yesterday with nothing below 2.0% and one at 2.7%. Grades still in the low 50's. Been hooking the filter press to the pans at the end of the boil, sure makes them look pretty and might be adding a couple points. Got new o-rings for the sap pumps. And, plus got a teenager, E, who likes to bottle 12 oz glass, those safety caps go on a little hard.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Frost starting out of the ground Friday. Still some ice in most of the field tanks, but that is about to change. Only pumped .3 gpt but the SC continued to rise to 2.5. Son #2 is coming with granddaughter to boil today. Think I'll do a Red Roof crankdown and try to one pass it to 6 or 7 for their boil. I usually two pass to 10 or 12. 23F overnight but a lot of wind so probably another weak flow once it warms up.

[red maples]

Man I wish I had that many sugars and sugar that high!!! Makes ROing go a lot quicker!!! I have a lot of reds but hey thats what I have!!! make the best of it!!! its still all fun!!!

[Hop Kiln Road]

Had visitors to watch the boil. Another weak .4 gpt last night, SC still low 2's. Today looks like another short flow with a freeze by 5PM. Probably let it all freeze in the field tanks. Suspect the ground hasn't unthawed and the trees are just low on bole sap. Almost at 50% of an average season.
GD.jpg

[Russell Lampron]

It's good to see that you're at close to half crop. The sap isn't flowing that good here yet. I've made about 1/10 of a crop so far.

I did some harder crunching than usual and got 7% on my first pass, up from the usual 4 to 5%. I had a hard time on my second pass keeping the concentrate down to 14%. At one point I was at 19.5%.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Pretty cold out with a stiff breeze. All my orchards have signs of previous production. One, an old farm, has a number of outbuilding, one of which has an early arch. I had never gone in it because the building is collapsing and the brick chimney had been roofed over a long time ago. But I think this is an arch designed to hold two kettles so it would date around the Civil War, perhaps a little earlier. When I have some time after the season I'll get a better look at it.

[Hop Kiln Road]

Here's the picture.Kettles.jpg