Eastern Ontario 2024

[Lanark]

I collected 41 gallons at 2% yesterday and 21 gallons today still at 2%. I'm done for the season, I'll take down the buckets today so that I can wash everything tomorrow while it's still nice out.

[ir3333]

I am 9 - 11 gph but i am lazy. I fire with fairly big hardwood about every 20 -25 minutes.This slows my rate but
it frees me up to work in the shop or do other things.When i built my arch i looked at a lot of evaporators and copied
the Smoky Lake"Dauntless" firebox. I think it has the perfect grate and vent system.

[Maplelane1]

Interesting discussion and perspectives.

We’ve been sugaring for only 8 years. Started with chaffing pans on cinder blocks and then during COVID we built a shack and purchased an evaporator, installed tubing (gravity) then went to vacuum this year - homemade sure Flo system. We’re still learning a tonne.

I spent a lot of time on forums like this one and probably watched dozens of hours of YouTube vids. I learned the basics and some general rules of thumb but ‘doing’ is real learning, for me anyways. What I have concluded from all this research, and talking with other sugar makers and the old timers is that what’s most important is to learn your bush.

Case in point…. We’ve been using buckets since we started sapping. Started at around 20 then got as high as 75. Now we put out 15 buckets the last two years and we only tap the ones that have consistently produced in volume, clarity and sugar content. And they do every year - in fact 6 of them are still producing over 2 gallons a day the last few days, and prior.

We installed tubing 3 years ago. 6 runs with 20 taps per. Runs range in length from 300 to over 600. Four of the six produce better than the other two (I checked for leaks and it’s tight). And one run, the one that’s over 600, flows really good later than the other 5 and will run long after the others have really slowed/stopped.

Anyhow…I’m rambling, sorry.

All caught up on boiling after yesterday. Boiled 4 days in a row. Looking out my window now and I can see some buckets are half full already and I expect the collection tank will gain around 100 gallons today. Weather forecast here is still somewhat promising but we’ll see. Sap is a little cloudy but smells and tastes wonderful so we will boil-on.

Happy Easter everyone.

[jungmaria]

We’ll that’s it for me for the year, batch boiled the sweet today. This year was a tough slog. Tapped the early bush at the beginning of Feb and the late one at the beginning of March. Makes for a long season, but with whacky weather and changing climates I think there’ll be more of that in the future. And never really got a good solid run this year either, just bits here and there and mostly low brix sap. In the end got about 130 l, all dark, from 200 taps. Certainly nothing to write home about but a heck of a lot better than I thought it was going to be a couple of weeks ago. Good luck to everyone who’s still boiling.

[ennismaple]

Still going strong north of 7! We had a BIG boil Thursday, cut firewood Friday, got the vacuum tight and did a good boil Saturday, cleaned the evaporator Sunday and another good boil yesterday. Still making very good tasting Dark Robust but it's starting to have a nearly-end-of-season smell to it when you walk into the sugar camp. We pushed some water through the flue pan at the end of yesterday to get most of the sugar out of the back to hopefully avoid the pan going ropey this week. We'll see what this pending snowstorm and cold weather brings - we may get a couple more boils yet.

[paulslund]

Still going strong north of 7! We had a BIG boil Thursday, cut firewood Friday, got the vacuum tight and did a good boil Saturday, cleaned the evaporator Sunday and another good boil yesterday. Still making very good tasting Dark Robust but it's starting to have a nearly-end-of-season smell to it when you walk into the sugar camp. We pushed some water through the flue pan at the end of yesterday to get most of the sugar out of the back to hopefully avoid the pan going ropey this week. We'll see what this pending snowstorm and cold weather brings - we may get a couple more boils yet.

Hey Martin. You commented a while ago that you did about 1/2 a normal year's haul in 10 days.. since then, and as we are nearing the end, do you think you'll have done a normal haul for the year?

Based on the weather and what I'm hearing in NY is that production is low.. but it sounds like it might not be the case here? I have 2 taps out for fun this year (too busy to set up the whole operation) and I made approx. 3.3L on those two taps.. that's over 1.5L/tap just on buckets (no vacuum).. This really surprised me as I was expecting to make less than 2L/tap based on the what I was reading..

[ennismaple]

Hey Martin. You commented a while ago that you did about 1/2 a normal year's haul in 10 days.. since then, and as we are nearing the end, do you think you'll have done a normal haul for the year?

Based on the weather and what I'm hearing in NY is that production is low.. but it sounds like it might not be the case here? I have 2 taps out for fun this year (too busy to set up the whole operation) and I made approx. 3.3L on those two taps.. that's over 1.5L/tap just on buckets (no vacuum).. This really surprised me as I was expecting to make less than 2L/tap based on the what I was reading..

We are beyond 100% of a "normal" crop now. Our three boils over the weekend were 0.35L/tap in total with the largest being either the biggest or 2nd biggest single boil in our history. If we get a few more days boiling I have a couple more production goals I'd love to hit (which I'll keep to myself) plus I want to burn every stick of 15+ year old firewood that's in the back corner of the woodshed! Our corner of Lanark County seems to have hit the Goldilocks zone for weather - we've gotten to freezing or just below every night for the last week, whereas areas to the south of 7 haven't. Other producers I've talked to in the area are also doing quite well. Sugar content has been very low for the past few weeks (been at about 45:1 ratio) but that's been more than made up with quantity.

[Galena]

I pulled the taps today, except for two trees, both of which are still chugging out small amounts of slightly cloudy but still good syrup. Pity cause I've already finished off Batch #4, another Dark batch but with a much lighter taste than I am used to - like marshmallow AND molasses! #4 surprised me with a very generous 2.5 l of syrup cooling its heels in the fridge; it and #3 are both awaiting the arrival of a few dozen Mason jar collars, as I am completely out! Meant to arrive tomorrow, then I can hotpack and post final figures.

Overall I only had a season of 28 days with about 9 of those days non-producing. I kept # of taps n trees low this year. May be back up to full steam next year; as I culled tree #6 (slow healer, not been producing well but otherwise healthy) I may have to give all the bush maples 2 taps each. They are big enough, but I've been holding off.

[paulslund]

We are beyond 100% of a "normal" crop now. Our three boils over the weekend were 0.35L/tap in total with the largest being either the biggest or 2nd biggest single boil in our history. If we get a few more days boiling I have a couple more production goals I'd love to hit (which I'll keep to myself) plus I want to burn every stick of 15+ year old firewood that's in the back corner of the woodshed! Our corner of Lanark County seems to have hit the Goldilocks zone for weather - we've gotten to freezing or just below every night for the last week, whereas areas to the south of 7 haven't. Other producers I've talked to in the area are also doing quite well. Sugar content has been very low for the past few weeks (been at about 45:1 ratio) but that's been more than made up with quantity.

Oh wow that's great to hear! So it's not all "doom and gloom" as some articles would have one believe! Sweet! (no pun intended )

[Galena]

Oh wow that's great to hear! So it's not all "doom and gloom" as some articles would have one believe! Sweet! (no pun intended )

Yeah it's been a weird season!

BTW all I discovered a cool hack for cleaning rust. I repaired the base of my sugar shack's smokestack but there was still a lot of rust around the base of it, from rain running down the chimney and sap occasionally sloshing over. I used a wire brush to get rid of the worst of it, and was looking fort an eco-friendly way to clean the remaining rust off.

That's when I learned of this hack: dish soap and a cut potato! Put a potato, cut side down, into a shallow dish of dish soap and let it sit a few minutes (I went to about 20) so the potato absorbs it. Then put the potato chunk on the rusted areas. Let it sit for about an hour (think I went closer to 90 min). Then rub with the potato....rust comes off!!!! Rinse with water and let air-dry, though I cheated and used a damp rag followed by a dry one.

With the smokestack itself, I didn't even wait to let it sit, just rubbed the areas with the cut soapy potato chunks. Came off immediately.

The reason this works is that potatoes contain oxalic acid. That is a key ingredient in all the nasty chemical rust cleaners, which are usually expensive and not enviro friendly. The oxalic acid and dish soap create a chemical reaction and loosens up rust.

Of course as you're using soap, rinse anything that contains sap or syrup really well so as avoid soapy flavours. Hope this helps!

As always I forgot to take a 'before' pic, but pretty sure I have other rusty items around that I can give the same treatment to.