Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[GeneralStark]

The temp. hit almost 70F here today so I rushed to push the 1000gal. of sap I collected between 5:30 pm yesterday and 5:30 pm today thru the ro. It went thru fine though the pre-filters definitely need replacing tomorrow. They were new today. Sugar is down to about 1.6% so I am loving the ro. Made about 17 Gal. of Dark Robust with awesome flavor, so up to 261 for the season to date. No sign of any off flavors or smells and the sap is still coming in.

The forecast looks cooler for the next couple days so storing sap should be easier. I'm going to clean the press and syrup pans in the am in preparation for what will hopefully be a productive several days.

Things look good for you northerners If I am still in the game.

[Sugarmaker's dad]

Quite warm in the sugarhouse today. Inside temp reached 81. Made 4 more barrels of medium amber. Looks like the weatherman might give us a bonus Tuesday and/or Wednesday night. Sure would be nice to squeeze out another 10 barrels.

[syrup2nv]

Made another 285 of Dark Robust today. Stopped buying sap today also. Enough sap on hand to make another 250-275 tomorrow. Currently at 4480 for the season. Was hoping to make 20-30 drums of Very Dark. Still have 7000 taps of my own to draw from. We will see if it freezes up again. Sap is cloudy, making awesome flavored syrup.

Who would of thought 3-4 weeks ago it would turn out to be a decent crop. My target for the season was 5000 gallons.

[DoubleBrookMaple]

No rest for the weary...
Got my first Dark Robust today.
I had hoped for 30-40 gallons this year, but didn't realize when I built my vacuum system what it would do to me. I am getting buried here in Readsboro! Boiled for 12 hours for the third day straight today. Collected the buckets early today from yesterdays big run while they were cool. I am boiling 350 gallons a day, and have 500 on hand, so I will maybe catch up before the next freeze forecast here. My sap is 46 degrees in one tote from yesterdays run that I have packed in snow. The other is 50 degrees plus, and I will boil that tomorrow first even though it is fresher, as some was coming in warm today. I boiled the sap as it was coming in today at 78 degrees. as well as the bucket sap.
1.4% sap make for a long day on the evaporator.

60 gallons so far, 10X two years ago.

Did I hear someone say R/O?

[spud]

Things are looking good and I got another 7500 gallons yesterday. Tonight and tomorrow night should freeze so thats going to be good. Looks like 4-5 more freezing nights for next week also. I am hoping I can go till the 25-26th of the month at least. I have a good feeling.

Spud

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

made more than i thought last night. made close to 16 gal with the sweet in the pans and what we boiled i was turning out 125 gph on my 2x6 so we only boiled for 3/4 hr start up and shut down with nitrogen injection makes sap evaporate 3 times faster. total for year approx 262 will know better in a few days once I get all syrup barreled (dont ask) I was making syrup so fast had to empty jugs of everything around house basement and garage, I wasnt ready to make this much syrup.

oh yea the socialist power pigs they actually treated me ok, my power bill from 3-11 to 4-6 was only 140.02 that is HALF of what last years was only difference is NO SMART METER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
watch they probably estimated my usage I get nailed next month
Last year 130 gal this year 262 I would think ro ran more

[WestfordSugarworks]

Still going strong(ish) here in Westford. Finished barrel 16 last night. Still Golden Delicate. I figured with the temperature being the way it was yesterday the syrup might change over to Medium at least. But we only had a few hundred gallons of concentrate to process and on our 5 x 14 that small amount of concentrate may not have turned to syrup before our boil was over. We took over the operation from an older guy and he would sell more than a barrel of Medium retail every year. Since we are taking over his retail market I am worried about not having enough Medium. But I'm confident it will come. I am just sick of drinking GD all night in the sugarhouse. Need something with a bit more maple character. Looks like a freeze Wednesday night so we have another few days at least. Then pulling taps and ripping out the whole tubing system to make way for a brand new installation.

[DrTimPerkins]

How many taps is Proctor running now??

3,674 tapped this year that go into the production stream. Should be well over 4,000 next year (new section that we prepped this fall/winter) and probably over 5,000 within 4-5 yrs. After that it'll be close to time for somebody else to take the reins up here. When I started here (1996), we had about 1,800 taps and there was very little research on (applied) production issues.

We always have another couple of hundred of taps that we measure sap from, but don't collect. It is unfortunately dumped on the ground, but the value of those is in the research, and there is no good way to collect it that wouldn't take a lot of time, which would mean less research.

Hoping for a good freeze tonite and tomorrow night. Sap is still trickling in, but definitely slowing down.

[GeneralStark]

Sap is still coming in at 1.6%. Will likely go over 1 gpt/24hours again today. Considerably cooler than yesterday. I took the syrup pans off and there was an impressive amount of niter flakes accumulated. I noticed a couple draws last night where the valve opened fully but the syrup flow was not what it should have been. I'm lucky nothing bad happened. They're soaking now with vinegar and I'll put the rig back together this afternoon so I can boil again. Trying not to let the sap sit around for too long.

Red maples seem to be slowing down but they are still giving out sap. We could get a freeze tonight, but tomorrow night seems very likely. It will be interesting to see how this week plays out.

[ryebrye]

In my little bush in hinesburg things are still running. No buds out yet. 3/16 + a mainline under vacuum is doing a phenomenal job at getting sap out of these trees - I've had over a gallon per tap every single day for 9 days now, and I think I'll pass it again today. (all new tubing, and I'm using check valves on almost all my taps)

All the sugar makers close to me are shutting down, but I found another one at a higher elevation to haul my sap to. My sugar content of the 210 gallons I dropped off this morning was 2.3% (this is good overall, but my peak was 3.0% for a long time and the average for this season overall is now at 2.8%) - I have some frozen 5-gallon poly jugs floating in my tank today to help keep the temps lower (I should have had them floating yesterday, but I didn't think about it until the morning... and it takes a long time for 5 gallons to freeze).

I'm at a low enough elevation that I don't think I'll get a freeze tonight, but there is a good chance I'll get one tomorrow. I'm hoping to keep pushing through until Saturday.