Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[tcross]

sap ran pretty decent yesterday! stopped about 11:45 last night. woke up to 34 degrees... when I turned the pump back on at 6:15 this a.m it was coming in steady we got down to 30 here for a few hours last night and got a 1/2" of beautiful sugar snow! trees seem ready for action... should be another good day. gotta take half a day off from the day job and try to catch up this afternoon! good times!

[GeneralStark]

No freeze here last night. Bottomed out at 34 and sap ran all night. Not too hard but over 1gpt since yesterday am. Sugar is down to about 1.7. I'm cleaning syrup pans again and going to boil tonight.

The vac. pump has been on for over a week straight and looks like it could be on until April if the long range is right. I have 27.5" in the woods and have had very little squirrel damage during the season this year. This has enabled me to focus more on getting the sags out of the lines in several flat areas.

[DrTimPerkins]

No freeze up here on the hill either. Ran all night, slow but steady. Got about 3,000 gal overnight to boil today. Made another 65 gal yesterday. Total of 984 gal so far, or nearly half-way to a full crop. Forecast is looking good. Might actually get a nice break (too cold) on Friday night and Saturday this weekend. Everything running 26.5" or better (we're up at 1300ft+, so lose a bit of vacuum potential due to elevation). Things are looking great so far.

Forgot to mention earlier that we fixed our releaser issue. We pulled off the housing and screen on the submersible pump and replaced it with a screen that is much larger with bigger holes, so no more clogging. Of course the lines are all flushed out clean now too, so it might not have made any difference anyhow, but at least this way it is far less prone to clogging.

[Sugarmaker's dad]

Ran the RO last night to concentrate 2,700 gal from yesterday. Drained all the pans last night and boiled permeate to clean everything up. Started the RO this morning to concentrate 3,800 ga that came in overnight. If all goes well we can start boiling relatively early today. 22 barrels so far. Keeping our fingers crossed for a full crop of 60 barrels.

[DoubleBrookMaple]

Interesting difference down south here, as we hovered all day yesterday at or below freezing. Still a small layer of snow & ice everywhere. I turned on my twice repaired Gast after midnight when the temp started to rise some. It stayed around 33 most of the night, and 36 right now.
Sap flow quite good under 24" with 130 gallons off the 330 taps.
I gained another inch of vacuum when I reduced the rotor-to-housing gap from .0025" to .0010"

[Sugarmaker's dad]

We thought we might get an early start and finish early but spent more time cleaning pans than anticipated. Made 5-1/2 more barrels. Looks like Friday and Saturday will be days off!

[PARKER MAPLE]

Sounds like you deserve a day or to off 👍. Going to have a great season I bet.
I was extremely skepticle last week that our season here in mid/ south VT would hold out. As it turns out weather has been almost perfect and getting some more good runs. With 2% sugar. I will take it. We are at half our goals now. RO starting to become a little to small, might need to up grade at the spring open house.
PM

[tcross]

sap came in very steadily yesterday all day long, and kept going over night! sugar has dropped to 2% from about 3%. made 8 gallons last night from about 220 gal of sap. should be boiling today and tomorrow, then a much needed break here as well! I haven't had a second to clean my tanks or my pan since two weekends ago! been boiling every night for 9 days straight now! awesome!

[spud]

Sap ran a little all night. Woke up to about 3500 gallons in the tank. Went down to 36 last night. I did get 9000 gallons in the last 24 hours. Sugar has dropped to 1.8% but thats fine. Big winter like weather coming so that is going to help us big time. I wish my sugar would go back up after the cold snap but I don't think thats possible. Setting up to be a very good season.

Spud

[GeneralStark]

Yesterday I processed well over 1000 gal. at 1.6% and made about 25 gal of syrup. The first 17 gal. barrel was dark robust, and then the rest was amber. I think the cooler weather, cleaning the pans, and having gotten thru the "ice scrubbing sap" explains the lighter grade. All great flavored syrup.

I pulled in another approx. 300 gal. since 7pm yesterday and now the sugar is down to about 1.4. No big surprise there with the extended vac. induced run.

Very interesting forecast starting tomorrow which includes a chance of thunderstorms as the colder air moves in. Textbook sugaring weather for quite a few days after a break Friday and Saturday. Going to clean a few things including the releaser pump chamber as it has accumulated a good layer of slime. I'm real curious to see if the sugar content comes up after this next cold snap.

I will be very surprised if we are still boiling by Open House Weekend but who the hell knows.