Casbohm Maple and Honey 2020 and beyond......

[Sugarmaker]

Folks,
Last day of sugaring for 2021. Looks like a warming spell, and no signs of a freeze for a week or more. We will start the shut down process as we gather for the last time today. Yep glad to see it come glad to see it go. By end of today will have burned through 4 rows of wood. Each row making about 40 gallons of syrup. The read oak slabs worked good but too many big chunks that should have been split. Will be near 150 gallons + for the year. Happy with that. Made just a few gallons of Golden. Lots of Amber Rich.
Some shots of the Lapierre 12inch filter press canister. It works good for us. Several things I like about it.






Easy of handling, goes right in the sink for clean up.
Never had any blow out from pressure
Reusable filter
Quick hose disconnects
Tear down and set up is quick and easy.
Minimal waste of syrup, I rinse most of the syrup back into the evaporator after filtering.
May change the pump to air at some point rather than the gear pump.

Got to make the day a good one, and finish on a high note.
Will be bringing my 400 gallon Dari-Kool tank home from Keith's soon and plan to set it up as my dump tank behind the sugarhouse. Then can speed up the off loading of my truck if needed. Currently dumping a 325 gallon into a 250. some days that can be a issue!
My Dad's Milk tank may get retired! Its been in service doing something almost every year (milk or sap) since 1958!
Regards,
Chris

[Paddymountain]

Always read your posts Chris!
Enjoy the pictures and the knowledge you share!

[Sugarmaker]

Folks, And Paddymountian!,
Thanks, just a old man and his maple stuff!
I had a thought last night while gathering, guess I was hungry? Called the daughter and had her pick up 100 chicken wings with no coating. Invited over friends and family for the last boil of the season. We used our Maple Mustard and Maple BBQ sause on the wings. Must say they were pretty darn good!






Rhett and Coopers buckets rinsed and ready for next season. We are done for the year. Just the clean up to do now. Will rinse lines today, and pick up containers tomorrow. Lines will be removed after several days of drying time.


Regards,
Chris

[Sugarmaker]

Folks,
2021 is in the books! I have to get the final numbers of sap together but we ended with 230 gallons of sap yesterday, which is actually more than I expected to get, It was very warm and I gathered in shirtsleeves. We made 10 gallons of Dark Robust last night pushing the low sugar sap (1.5%) through with water. Finished the season with 156 gallons of syrup for the year. Not a record, but for us a good year. We had somewhere around 700 taps total producing sap for that amount of syrup. Ours at 620 the neighbors (Ellis') at 24, Gary at 40, Rhett and Cooper at 12.
Restocked with another 10 gallons of Amber Rich. Big thanks to Cheryl for helping me lable these too! It all takes moves and time! And I think I will can (jug) another 10 gallon of the Dark Robust we made last night.
Every time I taste some of that dark syrup it takes me back 60 years to what Dad and I made in the sugarhouse at the farm! Good stuff!




We have been invited to a local Maple weekend at Asbury Woods near Erie on April 10 and 11th. They have a nice sugarhouse and will be giving guided tours of there sugarbush and evaporator room. Our job will be to have Maple products for the guests to take home if they are interested. Should be a good time. Another local well know Maple producer will be there too. Laura D. from How Sweet It Is farm.

We had a local historical buff Laura R stop at the sugarhouse last night and do some filming of our maple operation too. Mostly it was me flapping my gums! If I get the link I will try to post that here for viewing.

Did you see the trailer of the Michigan University folks filming? They will have several of us from North Western PA on there too, Looks like its going to really good info to help new folks get started into making maple!

Lots of good maple stuff happening!

Scott R stopped and helped us finish up last night. Scott has made over 250 gallons of syrup this year. He has done a great job going from a small flat pan to a smooth running maple operations in 3 years!

Regards,
Chris

[Father & Son]

Folks,
2021 is in the books! I have to get the final numbers of sap together but we ended with 230 gallons of sap yesterday, which is actually more than I expected to get, It was very warm and I gathered in shirtsleeves. We made 10 gallons of Dark Robust last night pushing the low sugar sap (1.5%) through with water. Finished the season with 156 gallons of syrup for the year. Not a record, but for us a good year. We had somewhere around 700 taps total producing sap for that amount of syrup. Ours at 620 the neighbors (Ellis') at 24, Gary at 40, Rhett and Cooper at 12.
Restocked with another 10 gallons of Amber Rich. Big thanks to Cheryl for helping me lable these too! It all takes moves and time! And I think I will can (jug) another 10 gallon of the Dark Robust we made last night.
Every time I taste some of that dark syrup it takes me back 60 years to what Dad and I made in the sugarhouse at the farm! Good stuff!




We have been invited to a local Maple weekend at Asbury Woods near Erie on April 10 and 11th. They have a nice sugarhouse and will be giving guided tours of there sugarbush and evaporator room. Our job will be to have Maple products for the guests to take home if they are interested. Should be a good time. Another local well know Maple producer will be there too. Laura D. from How Sweet It Is farm.

We had a local historical buff Laura R stop at the sugarhouse last night and do some filming of our maple operation too. Mostly it was me flapping my gums! If I get the link I will try to post that here for viewing.

Did you see the trailer of the Michigan University folks filming? They will have several of us from North Western PA on there too, Looks like its going to really good info to help new folks get started into making maple!

Lots of good maple stuff happening!

Scott R stopped and helped us finish up last night. Scott has made over 250 gallons of syrup this year. He has done a great job going from a small flat pan to a smooth running maple operations in 3 years!

Regards,
Chris

Here’s the link Chris was talking about.
https://fb.watch/4qitoNwzjn/

[Sugarmaker]

Jim,
Thanks!
Folks,
I had a good visit with Jim yesterday as we set in the sugarhouse and watched a small fire heat the water vinegar mix in the pans and steamaway.
Later I decided I needed to go to Monroe Center Ohio and try to see where my Great Grandfather made syrup 100 years ago. The Shean farm is on route 7 near Hammond Corners road. Dave Shean was kind enough to take me on a tour of the farm and show me where his folks told him the old sugarhouse was.

This is a picture of GG Stump (center) unloading sap to the storage tanks: Sorry for the glare: Note he is boiling with slabs too! I knew both the Great Uncles driving the team.

Some things to note in the picture:
- Feed bag over the end of the trough to strain the sap.
- Several additional barrels to off load extra sap, just swing the upper trough over to those. then bucket it out to go to the head tank.
- Sugarhouse has steam rising for the cupola so he was boiling.
- Gathering tank is maybe 150 gallon?
- Sugarhouse window is a cloth.
- Wooden spoke wagon wheels under the load of slabs
- Tar paper roof on the sugarhouse
- No doors on the cupola/ Wait maybe there are doors folded down??
- Open buckets on trees
- Board and batten siding
- Looks to be may 12 x 20 size?
- Gravity feed off load system for easy sap unloading

Some things just dont change much in 100 years!



Front door of the sugarhouse. Not sure who the folks are? Maybe the first Maple Taste and Tour visitors??:


My Grandmother Ruby (Stump) Casbohm in the sugarhouse window:


Here is the area today where we think the sugarhouse was, a low area along the creek, with the bank where the sap was brought to be unloaded: This is Dave standing near the sugarhouse, the team would have been up behind him:


Regards,
Chris

[Sugarmaker]

Folks,
If you travel Route 7 south of Conneaut Oh. This farm is near the highway on the west side of the road:


Here is my sugarhouse with the pans in clean up mode a small fire under the pans filled with 4 gallons of vinegar mixed with water. Steamaway is filled with water and 2 gallons of vinegar in there with the bubbler on.:


Off to rinse/ sanitize short run tubing lines.
If your still tapped: Keep boiling!
Regards,
Chris

[Pdiamond]

Chris your four legged partner appears to be getting pretty white in the face.

[Sugarmaker]

Yes Maggie is only 8 but has a lot of white. She has to live with old folks, its not easy!
We have the sap container system picked up lines are rinsed and are draining. Will pick them up and store in the rafters of the sugarhouse.
2021 is in the books. Ok I still need to get the numbers together for the year.
Another maple event in 2 weeks. So time to make more value added products.
Daughter brought over 6 boxes of Honey from the bees that died out this year(4 of 5 hives) She just ordered 4 packages of honey bees to try again.
Regards,
Chris

[heus]

Looks like you had a great year Chris. Do you remove your pans and clean the underside of the flues?