I'm thinking of taking the plunge on a 5000-tap piece of land. The land itself slopes down to the sugarhouse site, which has roadside power. The plan is to operate it mostly on my own, as my kids are still too young to help. I'll have the occasional helping hand, but probably only about one day per week. Reliable hired help is just too hard to find. The savings on labor cost would be invested in time-saving equipment.

To achieve this, I'm thinking of going the refrigerated bulk tank route to store concentrate and limit the actual boiling days. Oil-fired evaporator is a must. Perhaps a monitoring system in the woods. All of the production would be put into bulk barrels.

Any thoughts, suggestions?