
Originally Posted by
Hkb82
Swingpure.
Just shy of 30gal last year on a 5 pan block arch set up sounds like you had a busy year boiling. Wondering how your new 2x4 divide will compare in boil rate? At
My first couple years I would watch the weather like a hawk and anticipate the runs. I found it just led to being disappointed if we didn’t hit the temps predicted. Once I tap my bush and have the shack ready the long term forecast is irrelevant to me. I play it day by day. I’ll still look periodically every few days but I do that year round. I’m originally from muskoka Gravenhurst to be exact and have a couple friends in the area. Well kinda close to Perry Sound. They tap match break no matter what the weather says. They always seem to have the same year as other. Good when it’s good bad when it’s bad. They will be tapped and ready this weekend for the season.
Hope you enjoy the new divided pan and get slammed with sap over there. TV
Thanks.
I think the new pan, assisted by the float box allowing me to have lower sap levels in the pan, along with the base stack and 8” stack has boosted my gallons per hour by 5 gallons per hour more than last year. (8 gph last year vs 13 gph this year) It might be more, because this year’s boil rate seems to be consistent, where last year the boil rate would really fluctuate.
I know I should look out the window and go by that, but it is in my nature to look ahead. I think I was trained to do that, as we had a very reliable weather provider when I worked on the railway and we did adjust how we operated, by the 7 day forecast.
I think my time on the railway also trained me to make on the spot decisions and act. Although in my role on the railway, I did long term planning, there was always lots of day to day, hour to hour, major decisions to make and you had to make your best decision and act. My friends here now laugh at me when I come up with a project and then have to get on it right away.
Next year I will find the restraint to wait for the season to truly start, I understand now that the trees simply do not flow anywhere near as well as they do by mid March and later.
2022 - 5 pan block arch - 109 taps, 73 on 3/16 lines, 36 on drops into 5 gallon pails.
930 gallons boiled, 109 L (28.8 gals) of delicious syrup made.
DYI Vacuum Filter
2023 - 170 taps, mostly on lines, 1153 gallons boiled, 130 L (34.34 gals) of delicious syrup made, on a 2x4 divided pan and base stack, 8” pipe, on a block arch that boiled at a rate of 13 gallons per hour.
2024 - made 48 L, December to March, primarily over two fire bowls.