Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
Dirty Jobs,
They have vacuum with a old dairy pump, they also have a RO that too is a older model. My claim to fame is I made sugar cakes on the same candy machine as Mike Rowe. The sad part is I made a mess just like him until I got the hang of it. Also I can't wait to pick on Henry Brenneman about doing a drive by during the filming of the show. I need to go pick up more tubing sometime in the next couple of days. Last fall he sold 13 skid loads of tubing. 50 rolls to the skid, 500 feet per roll. Do the math on that!!!!! Not bad considering he is Amish and does not have electricity or telephone in his home or camp or warehouse. Henry's camp and home is no more than a mile from the Wagners Camp. Does everyone call buckets Keelers, thats what they are called in the Somerset County area? Just curious?
Mark 220 Maple
1100 taps on low vaccum, 900 on gravity.
900 plus taps leased and on high vacuum
35 cfm Indiana Liquid Ring Vacuum Pump
80% Sugar, 20% Red MAPLES
http://s247.photobucket.com/albums/g...Maple%20Syrup/
Just watched it myself. They said 2000 trees not taps. Seen a few trees they had atleast 3 buckets on them. I really don't think that was paint in that paint can he started the fire with. There kitchen looks pretty nice. I am still pondering the termonology they used, camp syrup, keelers. Guy could not even climb a small hill. I gotta laugh at every episode that someone hands the guy a wrench to tighten or loosen a bolt though he always turns it the wrong way. He sure is very clumbsy.
Last edited by 3rdgen.maple; 12-29-2009 at 11:36 PM.
2X6 deluxe Phanuef
Adding 200 more every year
27 years left of building a Hobby into a retirement time burner.
First time I've seen the show. I also was disappointed. Too bad they did not show the vacuum pump and RO. It would have shown how more complex it can get. They spent too much time waiting for sap to drip and syrup to boil. They could of shown more of the hard work that was done prior to being able to boil. Possible Mike Rowe does some of the clumsieness for entertainment on the TV?
136 on high vacuum for 2019
A&A 2X8, raised flue evaporator
hood, parallel flow pre heater and air over fire
12X28 sugar shack
I to was dissapointed in the show. They made it seem so easy and more so on the boreing side like there is so much standing around. Always something to do.
I watched the show. I have mixed feelings . On one hand I like Mike Rowe, his bumbling is for entertainment value. That beening said I agree with most coments on here pro and con. They could have done a better job with explaining, but it wasnt about how syrup is made it, is about how you get dirty making syrup. And yes Somerset Co. Pa is the only place I have heard the terms sugar camp, keeler, and only south of me they call sap, water.
I am glad they chose Somerset Co. Pa just to show folks that Vermont is not the only place in the US maple syrup is made.
220- Does Mr. Brennamin(probly not spelled right) run a lot of taps? He comes up here and buys syrup at my buddy Richards place. Ive seen some huge releasers and things like that come in for him. Always wondered what exactly he was doing down there. Theron
Hi guys,
Ok lets look on the positive side of things here;
1). It was only 20 minutes of a day long process (long day too).
2). Terminology is all about the area you are in, do you call them taps or spiles, do you call it a cooker or an evaporator.
3). Yeah Mike is clumsy, but I think he is honest about things.
4). I love to take folks out gathering that have never done it before, cause they are going to wear the sap before the gathering is done, because I have and as one other said on here, getting the candy forms filled isn't easy at first.
5). They portrayed boiling sap as a slow process, well it is, it's like watching water boil. Yes I am busy and my help is busy, but for the visitor, it's like watching water boil and boring after awhile.
6). I think we all loose a little sap here and there, especially when the tanks run over and who hasn't dumped a full bucket before.
Now with all this said, I hope I haven't offended anyone, because that wasn't my intention. I'm just looking at things in a different light.
Stay warm ........... 2* below here this morning.
Dave
2x5 SS home design on a home design arch w/ forced draft
SS Evaporation Enhancement Unit
Home design filter / canner
Daryl Sheets filter press
300 taps (280 on line, 20 buckets)
120 gph Home Design RO
2017 Chevy Silverado w/ 275 gallon tank
8x16 sugarhouse w/ attached woodshed
A wife, family and friends that love to help!!
I saw it as a typical sugarmaker that doesn't know what he is doing...He stated he's been there for 5 years, and like a lot of other sugarmakers, feels he needs to handle syrup 5 times before putting it in a container! That was some good looking mud in his finisher! What for the love of God was that on his drill??? Like it was said...an awful lot of galvanized equipment, must have come to VT during the lead scare of the late 80s to buy equipment!!! With all that being said, I was amused by the show!!
2 1/2 x8 Lapierre Waterloo-Small (oil fired)
Leader Steamaway
1200 gph Lapierre RO
1800 taps
http://s268.photobucket.com/albums/j...ks/Sugarhouse/
Mike Christian
505 Main St. Orwell, Vt.
How pray tell does a Amish person do a drive by unless is was a driven by as in a wagon. LOL you guys figure the terms used for things was weird you have to live around here then. They use pounds to measure syrup from a tree and a bucket is a chaudiere instead of a seau and a pot is a glass jar and it goes downhill from there.
I usually have a bootfull of sap a couple of times a week carrying it in a open top bucket but it dosn't help when I get hundreds of gallons and am in a hurry to cross deadfall and such to get it home. I would say the guy was to scared to let him near a RO or the realeaser as he might have wrecked that to.
maybe 50 taps for 2011
Finally ready to boil when I get enough sap
I just might be crazy.( make that I know I am)
Trees all tapped except the ones with 5 feet of snow.
Enough rabbits to keep Elmer busy..