Tapping in Ontario

[argohauler]

Another thing I just thought of. I'm not sure if you can legally use Ontario Amber labels, if you're not a registered farm business?

[BryanEx]

I was ordering up some new grading labels from Atkinson and they had both Canada and Ontario amber labels listed which is what made me wonder about the advantage of either and/or why choose one over the other. I do have a registered farm so that part isn't so much an issue. I guess I'll have to do some research once my cleaning and bottling is done this week. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out I guess - I have all the info listed on my own web site.

[argohauler]

BryanEx did you see my post #610? I should of maybe edited my post. Things can get overlooked when a new page starts.

I think the advantage of the Ontario Amber is getting rid of that ugly #2 and then explaining to your customers why that syrup is #2. It sounds like something is wrong with it.

Another thing I remebered when I first bought the Ontario Amber grade labels. They told me that I just couldn't sell it outside Ontario.

[Big_Eddy]

I'm done - 106 litres from 100 trees - my best year ever. Good year to have the new evaporator - a lot nicer averaging 16 gallons/hr under a roof, than 4-5 in the rain!!.

Now it's time for clean up, then I'm sure there is a long list of other "tasks" I've been neglecting these past several weeks.

[Yellzee]

Pulled the plugs yesterday, sap that came Sat was clear for me after filtering. My holding tank was a bit cloudy but the couple pails I have for test were both clear so suspect it was just time to clean the holding tank anyways.

I haven't bottled the last 2 batches as I ran out of bottles on Saturday but I'm around 130 litres for 125 taps, best year by far.

Interesting to hear about the inspector coming by Argo... did he give you any other comments or just that you should change to #2?

I don't have a farm or a high dollar "grading kit", normally call most of it medium or amber and have never had a comlaint.

Last i looked it looked like they had changed it so you had to be a registered maple syrup producer and be a trained grader to label it.

[argohauler]

Interesting to hear about the inspector coming by Argo... did he give you any other comments or just that you should change to #2?

I don't have a farm or a high dollar "grading kit", normally call most of it medium or amber and have never had a comlaint.

Last i looked it looked like they had changed it so you had to be a registered maple syrup producer and be a trained grader to label it.

That took place last spring at market. No other comments I can remember. I told him about the Farmer's Market being and extension of the farm gate and the bit about only being able to sell it Ontario.

Who do you register with to be a maple producer? In my registered farm business I have maple syrup production listed. But that and a trained grader is a new one to me.

I guess I should call OMAFRA and see if they can give me any answers or not.

[nas]

From a grading standpoint, would your dark be known as Ontario Amber? I see Ontario has it's own version of amber versus Canadian standards and is permitted for farm gate sales. I'm just not sure how dark I can go (with good flavour) and still be able to legally sell it in Ontario.

As far as I am aware, it doesn't matter how dark it is as long as it has good flavour. It just has to be labeled as #3 dark if it is darker than amber.
I have had a lot of people buying amber and dark this year. I'm happy with that because I use the light for candy.

Nick

[ennismaple]

Ennis Maple; you must have made a crazy amount of syrup if you're sick of it.

For the season we gathered over 50,000 gallons of sap - a 525 gallon poly tank's worth at a time - so yes, we're very hapy to be done!!!

LittleEnnis met Steve Bedard from Lapierre at Hwy 401 and Hwy 416 late Friday night to get the pump, which I understand came from Trois Rivieres. It must have felt like a drug deal!! He had the pump installed by just after lunch Saturday and fired it up. By that time all our tanks were full. Both tanks in the camp were full of sap, the gathering tank was full and all the tanks in the bush were close to full. By the time we were done gathering at 2:30 a.m. Sunday morning we'd brought in close to 6400 gallons of sap. In the meantime we overflowed a 1500 gallon tank and defied the laws of physics by flooding out a vacuum pump. The dryline climbs 40ft+ over a hill to get back to the sugar camp so we figured we could never flood out that pump - wrong!!!! What likely happened was the Zero tank filled and then all the mainlines and lateral lines filled up to the top of the hill, meaning the pump only had to suck the sap up another 10ft or so. Lesson learned,

We had the RO on wash by 5:00 a.m. and were chasing the sweet through by 7:00 a.m., last fire at 8:30 and washed up and home for a nap by 10:00 a.m.

It was a record year for us at 1.27 L/tap, total syrup produced, total sap gathered and sap per tap so overall it was a success. Now we need to spend more time marketing our products to get the drums emptied again!

[crackher]

Well we are done.... and I could not be happier,

The new evap worked great.. the volunteer help worked even harder..

we finished at about 100 Gallons

[argohauler]

When I was talking to Mary Jakeman, I asked her if they were buying syrup. She said they were. I told her about the dark I took off at the end when I finished what was in the pans. She said they were paying $2.40/LB for dark.

Thou shalt not covet.......Ennismaple's operation. I wish our weather would of cooperated and got us at least a half litre per tap istead of .37.

My wife has said it for a few years now that maybe with the climate changing, we're living in a marginal maple syrup producing area. It seems to like to be winter and then when it changes, it wants to bring spring in, in a hurry.