Eastern Ontario 2022

[Galena]

i see some of you bottle during the season. Once I have finished collecting and boiling sap I
clean and sterilize all equipment, pails, reservoirs, taps and put it all in storage until next year.
Once that is all complete i bottle everything at once.

Yep I'm one of the ones who bottle all season and get several batches throughout. Once the trees dry up, I pull spiles and clean up and finish up my last batch if it hasn't already been done.

So you just bottle up one huge batch of syrup at once? Or do you store separate batches and bottle them separately?

[Fort Wisers]

Been meaning to post for a few days now, where does the time go!
We boiled every night last week minus Friday evening.
With the cold weather coming over the weekend (from last week's perspective) and a bunch of other obligations, we decided to finish up and end our season early.

Thursday night we worked until about midnight, boiled, finished / filtered and bottled a total of 15.75 liters of sweet goodness.
Niter was worse this year than in previous years so filtering was a bit slow, but not unmanageable.
Friday afternoon and Saturday morning were spent cleaning everything up and putting it all back into storage.
It was a short season but a good one in our books and we're happy with the results.
We wish everyone else luck in their operations!

Brent and Katie

[Galena]

Glad you had such a crazy busy season, Wisers! Don't blame you for pulling spiles, the runs this year in our area have been slightly insane. Have a great rest of your year! :-)

[ir3333]

Yep I'm one of the ones who bottle all season and get several batches throughout. Once the trees dry up, I pull spiles and clean up and finish up my last batch if it hasn't already been done.

So you just bottle up one huge batch of syrup at once? Or do you store separate batches and bottle them separately?

Depends on how much i have stored..usually over a couple of days.
This has a couple of benefits. I can bottle the last pail with the first...and the second last pail with the second pail and so on.
which makes everything medium amber. You can still finish batches separately if you want dark or light
Additionally you'll find after being stored a few weeks your syrup will be crystal clear with the sediment at the bottom.I pour the clear off and finish
but save all the sediment in one container and let it settle finishing it last..gets every last drop!

[Galena]

Depends on how much i have stored..usually over a couple of days.
This has a couple of benefits. I can bottle the last pail with the first...and the second last pail with the second pail and so on.
which makes everything medium amber. You can still finish batches separately if you want dark or light
Additionally you'll find after being stored a few weeks your syrup will be crystal clear with the sediment at the bottom.I pour the clear off and finish
but save all the sediment in one container and let it settle finishing it last..gets every last drop!

I prefer to have my batches separate, as they have their own unique properties, but your method clearly works for you! :-) It's already been a few weeks and my first batch of finished has no sediment at all. Neither do the other two, as I already did what you mention, pour off the clear, hotpack it. I also save sediment and nitre in a salvage jar. That way if I have someone who wants to witness the miracle of making syrup, or if it's summertime and I'm just really bored, I can toss the salvage jar's contents into a gallon of distilled water and *make* a batch on the kitchen stove ;-)

[ennismaple]

for those of you that sell a bit of syrup what do you find is preferred ... light, medium or dark?

Depends on the customer - we sell maybe 5% GD, 5% VD and an equal split between AR and DR for the balance. Many customers don't have a preference so you can often steer them towards whichever grade you have more of to sell.

[ir3333]

With a separate syrup pan and a divided sap pan, you can also extend the boil
on the front pan to the color you prefer for any particular batch.
There are 100 ways to make this stuff. A very experienced friend has a 24" x 12' evaporator. He routinely
fills his pans to 10",fills the fire box with wood up to 8 ft. long and goes home for the night.
Comes back the next morning to a few inches of liquid and carries on!
Lots of stops and starts this year in my area.

[Bricklayer]

With a separate syrup pan and a divided sap pan, you can also extend the boil
on the front pan to the color you prefer for any particular batch.
There are 100 ways to make this stuff. A very experienced friend has a 24" x 12' evaporator. He routinely
fills his pans to 10",fills the fire box with wood up to 8 ft. long and goes home for the night.
Comes back the next morning to a few inches of liquid and carries on!
Lots of stops and starts this year in my area.

I would not sleep a wink if I left my evaporator fully fired and walked away.
Even if the pans were full right to the rim. That’s playing with fire. Literally

[Galena]

I would not sleep a wink if I left my evaporator fully fired and walked away.
Even if the pans were full right to the rim. That’s playing with fire. Literally

Ditto. If the evap still has some fire left, or even just a healthy pile of embers producing enough heat to basically just steam off lots of water, then I will usually add a couple litres or so of fresh sap so the pan doesn't go dry. Then I shut down all the air intakes and make sure everything is as safe as can be before locking up and leaving. But jacking up the fire before leaving for bed?! NFW.

[ir3333]

I routinely leave mine to gather sap or work in the shop, eat lunch whatever. I run 1"-1 1/4" over the flues in my sap pan
but i have a gravity feed tank so the level can't go below 1" unless i don't match the infeed to the boil rate. I fire
with bigger wood so i have about 20 minute window before the arch needs more wood.It will boil much more GPH
with small wood but I no longer chase maximum GPH. My stuff is all home made hobby style.