My plan 2022/23

[bigschuss]

Thanks, that is helpful, and yes it was all raw sap.

I won’t likely have another boil for a week or two depending obviously on the weather. I drew off all of the sap from the pans. I put the first two draw offs in stainless steel pots for possible boiling into syrup, but now I think I will save it with the other sweet and just return it to the pan in the correct order, giving myself the chance to draw syrup sooner the next time I boil.

I was really pleased with the 13 gallons per hour boil rate. (I know that is slow for the professional rigs). Next time I will be more careful with how much wood I will put in it. It will still be to the top of the pan, but I will not push as much back into the firebox, to prevent the super heating of the stack.

Great plan. Haven't even tapped yet here....forecast isn't good all week. Just got several snow storms in a row. Today is my historical average for 1st day of tapping. Going to get out this week and tap.

When your season comes to an end Gary you're going to have a lot of syrup in your pan. If you're running a 2" sap depth that's about 10 gallons of sap in a 2x4, and of that 3 or 3.5 will be syrup, if you've been drawing off regularly and have the pan nice and sweet. What I do is SLOWLY and CAREFULLY take the level down to 1"...or about 5 gallons (with 3 gallons of that being syrup). I've gone as low as 3/4" of an inch but don't recommend it. Then when you empty the pan of that 5 gallons you'll have a lot less finishing to do compared to draining it at 2" and 10 gallons.

Good stuff! 13 GPH is impressive for your rig.