SmellsLikeSyrup NH 2022 (SMD Maple Syrup)

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Good luck to everyone on their season this year!

I really went big over the past year and did a ton of upgrades. With that I have a huge learning curve and figuring out to do. Equipment malfunctions are my biggest frustrations!

First things first, I installed 3/4" mainline at a horse farm near my house. 375 taps there. Set it all up with a Guzzler pump, and it seems to be going really well. So far I have collected almost 800 gallons from there over the past 2 weeks. I have no complaints on the setup, just wish I could figure out these micro leaks and get that pump to read higher. I have 3 valves and guages along the mainline and at the pump I am getting about 18-20", at the end of the line getting about 14". Ive walked the lines a dozen times and just cant seem to find where the leaks are. Im still happy with that increased sap, and I will continue to tinker and try and improve it.

I have 2 other smaller section, 1 has 75 and the other has 125 taps. Both of those are also on their own guzzlers. Getting 20-22" on both of them, very happy over all. I had some squirrel bites that were pretty easy to find on the 125 setup. Once I found them its flowing like crazy. Emptied the tank last night, came out this morning and it had 150 more gallons.

At my main bush at my house, Up to almost 500 taps. Got a Welch 1397 Vac Pump and a Lapierre releaser. Had a learning curve to get over with this. My releaser had 2 issues when sap started flowing. First I didnt line up the arrows right on the top to the cylinder and it caused the flap to not open. I flooded the moisture trap and the vac pump. Lesson learned. Drained the pump, aligned the arrows and under the top of the cover of the releaser there is a white sleeve the rod for the float rides up and down. That rod was not up inside the cap securely, it was just free sliding on the rod. I secured it up into the top and the float mechanism works great now. dumping very well!

Last night around 530 I pumped out 150 gallons from that tank and everything was working as expected. I went inside my house and came back out at 930 to see how it was going before I went to bed. I could smell burnt rubber. I checked the pump and the electric motor was spinning just fine with no belts on it, the main wheel on the pump is frozen solid. Seems to have seized. It had plenty of oil, I just added some more to it yesterday and it was completely filled on Sunday. It had less than 20 hours of run time and it was just totally rebuilt. As of right now I have no clue what to do with it. I talked to the guy who rebuilt it and he will be in the area this weekend and I will give it back to him. I paid $1400 for the rebuild and to only get 20hours out of it is very disappointing.

Luckily I have 1 more Guzzler I am going to hook up to my main line and run with that until I can get the Vac Pump issue resolved. Today I wont get anything out of that line as its down and I had to come to work at my real job, will be in the 60's all day and Im easily losing a few 100 gallons of production from that. Luckily we have a freeze up coming after today and it will give me time to fix it.

I think thats enough whining for today....I wont even talk about my RO LOL.....AAARRGGHHH!!!!!

[UB29]

Big expansion Scott. Sounds great. Hope the pump problem gets resolved without putting more money into it.
Good start over here in Wilton. 275, 150 and 350 runs since I tapped last week. Processed 500 gal. yesterday on the single 40 Nextgen, and really gave it a workout. I finally did figure out adding in a low pressure switch, so I can be out collecting while crunching the first pickup of the day.
Good luck with your expanded bush, for a great 2022.

Bill

[Russell Lampron]

Good luck Scott. I hope that you get the issue with your pump straightened out soon so that you can get the bigsap when it runs. It sounds like you guys in NH are off to a good start.

Down here at my friend's house we've got 11000 or so of his 12500 taps online and bubble checked. We made more syrup yesterday than I did in a season.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Thanks Bill and Russell,
Russell, I have filled that 525 gallon tank I got from you 3 times now. Great addition for me, it is my feed and recirculation tank for the RO.

Now to whine about my RO.....decided to upgrade from a 2 post 4040 to a 4 post setup. I had a Goulds 7GB pressure pump last year which pushed about 7 gallons per minute through 2 membranes. It worked, but it was my slowdown point. Decided to go with a Dayton 15gpm pump and 4 membranes. I made the mistake about volume doesnt equal pressure. The Dayton pushes sap great, it does not have the strength to push through 4 membranes. So I cut the RO back to 2 membranes and was able to get it to process at close to 200psi. Again though, its pretty slow. I got through 500 gallons of sap last night in about 4.5 hours leaving me with about 90 gallons of 10%.

I have a new Goulds 10GB coming tomorrow, it does 249psi out of the box and the RO company I purchased it from said they run it on 4 membrane setups all the time and will meet my needs. We shall see!!!

My Vac pump is going to be picked up on Sunday by the guy who rebuilt it. He is driving up from Pennsylvania to NH and will be bringing me a pump to replace the broken one. Really great that he offered to do this. He will rebuild my pump again to fgind out what went wrong.

Have a good day, be safe in the storm tomorrow.

[Russell Lampron]

I'm glad that the tank is working good for you. It always worked good for me.

I hope that the new pump fixes your RO and that the loaner vacuum pump works out as well.

It sounds like you're off to a good start with the sap flow and now is the time to get the bugs worked out before the real season gets here.

I've got some indoor projects to do and won't be driving anywhere. Be safe and have fun.

[red maples]

Sounds like your off and running. thats a really big jump too. good luck. My RO (H2O hobby 300) 3-4x40 membranes has a recirc pump. If I remember correctly its a 1/2 horse prefilter pump and once it hits 50 psi the second one kicks in I think its 1.5 hp and the pressure comes right up runs about 200psi once its about 14 or 15% it comes up to about 225-230psi.

as for your micro leak tubing issue. 3/4" might be a little undersized to vacuum transfer. with that many taps. I guess as long as your slope is good I am pretty flat so I started with 3/4 and have been slowly upgrading to 1" leader 30p its nice because you can see the sap and avoid dips so you get a better vacuum transfer. I think its way easier to work with doesn't stretch or shrink in warm or cold weather and doesn't snake like the HD tubing. Its even comparable to the price of the HD blue or black water pipe it didn't use to be. but with 3/4" its I think .33 /ft and 1" is .51/ft.

[SmellsLikeSyrupNH]

Thanks Brad,
I may be upgrading to larger diameter in the future, but for now I am going to run with it and see how it goes. Ive yet to experience a day when it has been slamming in and overpowering the system, at least I dont think I have yet. :-)

Got a new, to me, vacuum pump yesterday. I set it up and it started running for about 30 minutes and I noticed all the oil became extremely cloudy and milky. I shut the pump down and after doing some research and talking to others I believe my gas ballast is the issue. I did not adjust it, and I think it was fully closed. I will check it tonight once im home and adjust it as I have seen recommended. I drained all the oil last night and I will add fresh oil and see what happens. I know with lower units on outboard motors white and milky in oil isnt good! Im hoping to get this more dialed in. All of it is a great learning curve for me.

Got my new RO pump on Saturday, started installing and rebuilding the RO again. Luckily I havent missed any real runs while its been down. I was able to get through all the sap I had with 2 membranes. Cant wait to test it later this week. Did a good cleaning and rinsing of the membranes and the RO will hopefully be flying and ready to go.

Ive bottled up about 15 gallons so far. Nice to see some results after all the early season headaches.

-Scott