The Saga: Still sap is not running well. Last night it was 7 out and the night before that 9. I did manage to get 41 gallons of sap and try my new home built rig.
It has a few monor issues, like my pre heater works well to warm or spit boiling sap into the pan, but it the devils own work to get off a hot stack.
I am not sure but I think I was boiling off about 5 gallons an hour. Little things occured that messed up and created a few delays. the 6" damper came undone and I had to let things cool to fix it.
Of the 41 gallons of sap, I made (2) 1 qt jars, (4) 1 pint jars, and (2) 12.5 ounce bottels.
Bill Mason was kind enough to give me an out of date color gauge, and so for kicks, I filled the little sample bottle, and my syrup is just a shade darker than 2007 Fancy.
My 21" x 33 3/4" pan with 2 dividers is a vast improvement over a square 24" x 24" non divided pan.
The syrup filtered nice and clean too... I am pleased with myself for rushing to build the items to get this done, and then get in more pine as my wood is still buried and iced in bad.
I hope things warm up and I can get more sap. I got everthing I need but for more sap.
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