Sublimes Maple adventure

[sublime68charger]

set up my sig that has overview of each year and then a link to where I have my Pics uploaded on my garage build thread its easier for me to link to that for each year than to try and get pics to upload on this forum.

sig break down as I had to stay under 500

Y= year
T = Taps

Pan count

year 1 was 2 pans 2 pots
year 2 3 pans 2 pots at start Fisher added 2 half pans and 3 pots, 55 barrel added 1 more pan
year 3 was 5 pans 2 pots plus fisher 2x half pans and 3 pots
year 4 same amount of stoves but now in small shack

[sublime68charger]

so Im 2 weeks into my season for this year and Have done okay.

Ill give a brief run down.

Week 1 I tapped early as the weather said the sap would run 3 or 4 day's out of 7 so tapped my 20 trees.
Week 1 boil got 4 buckets of sap and 4 buckets of Ice from the 20 trees so pitched the Ice and boiled down the 24 gallons of Sap. Started 2 walls of my sugar shack on fire. Wall 1 was Next to the Basement wood stove it stared smoking so dumped water down between stove and wall and stopped feeding wood into that Stove. Up next was Barrel Stove Right. I have 2 Barrel Stoves set up side by side on back wall of sugar shack Barrel Left I brick lined the inside the barrel and left Barrel Right as empty barrel I wanted to compare them as to how they did. Any way Barrel Left I stared first and it got going and all was well I then started Barrel Right and it got the wall behind the stove hot and on fire so threw some water on that wall as well and quit feed the wood to Barrel Right for the day. So week 1 I ended up just running on Barrle Right and the Fisher Wood Stove.

Next day I revamped the Walls beside Home Basement Stove and added Metal to the walls around the barrels Stoves.

burnt wall basement stove.jpgBarrel Stove wall fire 1.jpgAll Stove boiling.jpg

[sublime68charger]

So week 2 was on a 5 day soak as I was busy for the weekend. So I had 32 gallons of sap and it snowed 3" plus during the day so it was super nice to be inside for the boiling regardless of the weather.

Also from Week 1 I cut a 10" hole in the peak of the back wall and put a small fan there to blow out steam and such during the boil and 1/2 way threw the week 1 boil my small round plastic Fan stopped working. So plan B I got a 8" duct fan from Menards and set that up for exhaust which It worked well all day.

The 2 barrels stove's ran great and the fisher stand alone did as well. The Home basment stove that I cut the top out of all it really did for the day was steam up the pans. I wonder with having the Vent fan pulling air to the far wall if the home basement stove wasn't able to get enough air to get the fire going. So Week 2 pics the ATV and sap Hauling trailer. Made a gride work that just sits on the trailer sides and hold each bucket in it own spot then I dont have to worry about the buckets shifting and spilling over. Trailer will hold 12 buckets if needed which when loaded it more than enough for the ATV to have to pull around. I like this little trailer as it follows the ATV tire Tracks in the snow. I have bigger trailers but they track outside the ATV tires and in snow I can't pull them as well.
Snowy Sap trailer.jpg

[sublime68charger]

My Improvments for week 3 is having forced air for the Home Basment Stove. 3 small computer fans that I'm gonna set in the ash tray and hoping that forcing air into the stove will improve the boil on this one. The other 3 stoves all boiled pretty decent but the Basement wood stove only got up to a bit of steam on week 2. I have used it for the last 2 years set up outside and had it doing good boils before.

Some Pics of my Forced air setup. This is gonna get tested this weekend.

Pic of the Basment Stove when it was setup outside as a stand alone. I like the basement stove as I can have 3 pans on it going. 2 over top the fire box area and then the 3rd on top the stove pipe out the back of the stove which I use as a warming pan for the cold sap.

Basement Stove Set for Sap.jpg

Ash Tray Fan setup.jpgash tray fan setup in place.jpg

[sublime68charger]

so on a 9 day soak I went and collected sap today and from my 20 taps I got 1 bucket of sap and 7 buckets of Ice, well 9 but 2 of my sap buckets the ice didn't want to seperate from the bag liners we have in the sap buckets so they got smashed against a tree and broken up.

Any way gonna be cooking tomorrow and I'm thinking just boil the 1 bucket of sap and toss all the ice. the break down was 1/8 sap and 7/8 ice in most of the buckets.

when its frozen at that ratio is the ice still more hassle that it is worth to process?

My sugar shack has 4 stoves and I finsih on my fisher stand alone stove so I'm thinking Ill just run the fisher and process the 1 bucket of sap and toss the ice?

Though I added forced air to the Home basement wood stove and I may put the 2 trays on that dump some of the ice into those trays add enough water to cover the bottom and start that stove up just so see if my forced air system will work and not melt down. Its just 3 small computer fans I put on a board and set into the ash pan tray to blow air into the bottom of the fire box.

any way any thoughts on the 7/8 ice ratio just pitch and run the 1 bucket of stuff I due have.

Pic of the 1 bucket of sap and the rest of the ice.

20230225_160102.jpg

[sublime68charger]

got a Murphy Cup this last week which is nice no more guessing if its syrup yet or not.

It works really nice
Pic is sideway's darn photo adding wont let me rotate it. I tried 2x times and gonna just leave it.


.Murphy Cup.jpg

[sublime68charger]

My forced air on the home basement stove work's really well once the stove is up to temp. It makes it a bit smoky for a while till it really gets going then it goes.

I had the front pan on that stove almost foam over on me. caught it in time and added in a bunch of raw sap to know it down and within 5 min it was gonna foam over again so I turned off the forced air and just let it boil a bit slower and all seemed fine. once the boil slowed down I put the air back on it and away I went. First time i have had the bigger steam pan's foam up like that. My smaller round pots have had it foam in them a bunch of times but not the bigger steam pan's. Next time it happens I may try the butter trick to knock it down.

Foamy pan.Foaming boil.jpg

and the trailer with the 1/2 pan fits nice between the bucket brackets for filling the 1/2 pans to take in and put them on the stove to start to warm them up.

sorry that pic is sideways also.

[sublime68charger]

Tapped Trees on 2/10,

First boil of the year
20 trees 48 gallons give or take.

10 hours to cook down to this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNKRGrP9jDA

off and running.

Temp when I started cooking was 11 degrees outside went and got sap the night before so not all my buckets was frozen solid.
I had to leave 2 out in the woods as my trailer was full and went and got them mid day on cooking. So happy to have a shack to cook in vs having to try and due this outside.

[sublime68charger]

Went and collected sap last night on a 4 day soak my 20 trees got 40 gallons from them so looks like im gonna be cooking a bunch this weekend.

goal is to get 40 gallons a week and already at that and will have 3 day's to go before I cook and will collect while cooking.

be a bonus run I'm guessing.