Southern Ohio 2021/2022 Tis the season

[buckeye gold]

Redbean, look at the color. If it is just cloudy or milky it'll probably be ok, but if it looks brownish or yellow toss it. Next see what it smells like cooking. Put some in a stock pot on a burner first and smell the steam. If it smells slightly musty it's probably ok, but if it's a strong soiled laundry smell or off-putting dump it. I would be cautious running it into a pan of good sweet. If your putting it through the pan I'd drain my sweet and have it held back. You can always add it back.

My trees just aren't as good a producers, it seems. I have very few with big crowns and a lot of damaged trees. I would like to see better production, but I make all the syrup I want to make.

[Redbean]

So I decided to dump and wash my tank. I think it was a good decision. We had great runs Friday through Saturday got well over 300 gallons. That last run made some nice dark syrup for me. Our total for the year is 37 gallons of syrup. We dumped well over 375 gallons of sap from contamination and soured sap. Guess live and learn! Not bad for the second year with the new to me evaporator and sugar shack. And the 116 taps we run this year with all new line. Hope next year we can make over 40 gallons. Now to clean everything. Has anyone left sap in there pans for a couple weeks? I was told it will clean all the sand out of your pan. I mean you still have to scrub but no need for pan acid. Any thoughts?

[buckeye gold]

You had a good Year and done well. The bad news is the sap total usually falls off a little after the first year with new lines, no matter how well you clean. I have left the sap to ferment as a way to clean many times and it works. It will take longer then 2 weeks though. I usually let mine set 6-8 weeks. It needs to ferment and turn to vinegar.

[Redbean]

Yeah that’s what I heard about sap production after the first year of new lines your sap will be less each year. But for me that isn’t the case. On my homemade evaporator and with 51 taps my first year I made 13.5 gallons, then 17 the next year and then 22 the following year. Last year I only made 20 gallons on 51 taps because it took us longer to build the sugar shack. So I tapped later than I wanted. So I am going to keep a positive mindset and believe I will make 40 gallons.😃

[Redbean]

It really takes that long for the sap to clean. Wow!

[bmbmkr]

My season was a total bust this year. I got 775 of my 900 taps in and made zero syrup. Only went about about $8k in the hole. I had a really hard time with it at first, but I tried as hard as I could. I think this is the hardest thing I've ever went through, short of someone dying. We had 3 floods, all of which kept me from getting to half of my sap- the first, I had to move my collection tanks up the hill from the end of the mainline so they didn't float off. I got sick- thought I had Covid- but it was a sinus infection. Got hurt- slipped walking around the hillside, grabbed a little beech tree and my shoulder wasn't quite expecting the 225 lbs of me and 50 lbs of clothes, tools, a roll of tubing and the backpack & toolbelt I was carrying. When I finally got some sap, my new RO upgrade failed miserably. Blew the end cap off a post at only 150 PSI, torqued it down and blew it off again at only 175. Over nighted a new vessel, it took 3 days to get here. On a plus note, my 660 procon fed by a HF drummond pump was pushing 720 gph though my RO, instead of the 475 or so I was expecting. I was gettin Permeate without even closing off the needle valve. I got my pans sweet and drew off a little syrup. Got the RO back together and my procon 660 sounded like a meat grinder. Took it off and tried to get the RO running off the original Procon 330, ran out of HP tubing, my hands were so sore from arthritis and doin all that plumbing I couldn't tie my shoes. Then we had some warm days and my tubing slimed up for good. I ended up pulling my top taps last weekend to let the sap drain out of the laterals. Hopefully I'll get everything flushed out with disinfectant this coming week and button up my tubing for the year. I took a lot of notes and learned a lot. Tapped some silvers for the first time this year-89 taps on 2 laterals, pulled them with a shurflo averaged 2 gpt/day and 1.6% sugar, they were sweeter than my sugar maples. Next year, my plan is to tap about 200 silvers around the first of Dec to have a few weeks of silver maple syrup to sell for Christmas gifts, then tap the sugars regular time, around mid Jan. I'm goin to ditch the 4 40" posts on the RO and go with one 8x40. The recirculation I ran with the 300 worked ok, but instead of coming in after the main pump feed, I'm going to feed INTO it, this will reduce the time it takes to empty the main tank, but will concentrate to a higher % in the first pass. I also added a third 100 watt panel to my shurflo set ups this year, and they ran 24/7 without me having to hand hump batteries down to the woods every three days or so when I only had 200 watts. Shurflos with a strainer will not get damaged by ice, The screen stops the ice as it freezes and protects the diaphragms. Once it starts warming up, the screens have to be changed sometimes 2x a day. Lastly, the one batch of syrup i did get boiled off, I had to throw out, I bought the defoamer cup from Roth, talked to the guy on the phone about how to set it up before I bought it. Glad I did because it didn't come with instruction. I set it so the top of the cup was about 2" higher than my sap level, which is 3" higher than the flues in my raised flue. He said to put it in where the raw sap or concentrate enters, which is the front of my flue pan, as I have a 2" pipe coming from the float box. Well that's the place where the most violent boil is and it over flowed a weeks worth of defoamer in one batch. tasted like crap. I guess I'll not be lazy next year and put a few drops of liquid defoamer in every time i draw off. I thought the auto would be better since we added a steam hood last year. Cost me near $2k in one night. Been hard, but its done & over now, I'm over it and thankful for what I've learned, and that I'm not dead, I'm down but not out. Will be back next year rip roarin & ready to go.