Weird storm. I got maybe 6-8", but my moms house- 8 minutes away got over 12" and others got absolutely bombed like you. I'm in East Galway and my mom is in Middle Grove. So glad we didn't get 35"!!!!!
Pete
Weird storm. I got maybe 6-8", but my moms house- 8 minutes away got over 12" and others got absolutely bombed like you. I'm in East Galway and my mom is in Middle Grove. So glad we didn't get 35"!!!!!
Pete
2017- 17 taps, 3 gallons, stove-top insanity
2018- 36 taps, 10 gallons, Oil tank evaporator
2019- 24 taps, 7 gallons
2020- 27 taps, 5.75 gallons
2021- 42 taps, 8 gallons
2022- 48 taps, 8.5 gallons
2023- 50 taps, 15 gallons
2024- 46 taps, 9.5 gallons
2025- 42 taps, ?????
Oil Tank Evaporator build
Last boil of the season for Maple Ridge Farm. Finished with 35 gallons, a new property record! Niter was getting really bad the last few boils, anyone else experience the same? Now the dreaded clean up then on to splitting wood!
Congrats! That is an epic season!Originally Posted by MRFNY
We boiled today, another 6.5 quarts in the bank. 12.75 gallons on the year so far. Lots of niter today, but it was being caught by the pre filters and going through the felt filter just fine, so wasn't a big deal when bottling.
I am planning at least one more boil next weekend. Might do another this week just to reduce the sap before the warm weather.
I added a more powerful blower to my rig and really experienced the difference today. Achieved 16GPH evaporation rate and it was boiling with a fury I have not experienced before. I knew my old blower was not powerful enough, but not sure I expected this much improvement.
Pete
2017- 17 taps, 3 gallons, stove-top insanity
2018- 36 taps, 10 gallons, Oil tank evaporator
2019- 24 taps, 7 gallons
2020- 27 taps, 5.75 gallons
2021- 42 taps, 8 gallons
2022- 48 taps, 8.5 gallons
2023- 50 taps, 15 gallons
2024- 46 taps, 9.5 gallons
2025- 42 taps, ?????
Oil Tank Evaporator build
I've been having a lot of sugar sand this year as well. In fact i will be draining and cleaning the syrup pan tonight as there was a caked on crust on the bottom of the pan that i noticed during my last boil which was causing a lot of foaming. Filtering has been a pain as always but not horrible. I have two Orlon cones that i swap between once one clogs and filter directly off of the evaporator with them. On Saturday i finally tried the trick where you invert the center of the cone inside itself to get more surface area and it actually made a big difference in how long the prefilters and cone was lasting.
So I had boiled on Thursday night last week and on Saturday I ended up boiling 120 gallons of sap that was collected from after boiling Thursday till Saturday afternoon. The sap was flowing like crazy on Friday, definitely the biggest single run I've ever had, plus i ended up making just shy of 3.5 gallons of syrup from that run so the sap was nice and sweet.
Currently i am at around 14 gallons of syrup to date on my 47 taps on 5/16 gravity tubing and the weather is looking great for the 10 day forecast. its looking like Ill be running out of wood before i run out sap, i was worried about this year but its turned out to have been a great year so far.
Thanks Pete! Congrats to you on a nice season as well! I'm definitely not going to attempt 35 gallons again, lol
I had the same issue in my pan which started just a few boils ago. Cleaned the pan, next boil went great until the first draw off then immediately noticed a decrease in boil rate and more foam in the syrup side of the pan.
Yeah on Saturday for my 120gallon boil i was only averaging 15gph while i usually get 20gph easily. In hind sight if i had known i woulda cleaned the pan before the boil and woulda saved time overall. Oh well live an learn, i didnt notice the nitre cake until the fire was already going.
So i ended up cleaning the pans partially on Monday and finished cleaning yesterday after a nice soak in vinegar. The syrup channel of my syrup pan had such a thick layer of niter cake build up on it, it was a nightmare to clean. Ive never had that happen before, the pan has been previously scorched there so i think that is part of the problem along with tons of sugar sand this year. Its looking like i will have to monitor this better and clean it before it gets that bad again. In the off season i am going to see if i can polish the bottom of the channel to get the surface a little better. I also will rotate the pan and put that channel on the intake side from the back pan. I also cleaned the soot off the bottom of both pans and the rig is running much better now. I am back to my 20gph and no foaming in the syrup pan.
Sap is still flowing really well, i collected 90 gallons yesterday and boiled down 60 of them. The rest of the sap is sitting in a snowbank to be boiled today. This morning it was 29 degrees so will see if i get any sap today. Its been a great season so far but i am getting tired. Might throw in the towel this weekend, we shall see. Once the snow is gone and the mud comes that might be my reason to end.
Sap is still flowing in Porter Corners, but I am out of firewood, the last boil I did I had to push down dead dried trees and drag them up to the evaporator and cut them up with the chainsaw and split what was too big for a fast burn. Too much work through in the towel after a weekend of that. Giving any more collected sap away to a buddy.
37 taps on 5/16 tubing
just over 6 gallons of syrup on the year, easily could have been 10 gallons if I started earlier when the sap first started to flow, probably missed 2 weeks maybe more, and if I continued to boil what I am collecting.
That was me last year, i ran out of wood and had to start cutting up standing dead trees on the property. Luckily still had snow so was able to use snowmobile to haul the wood out (this was prior to getting my side by side). I tapped on 2/9 this year which was a solid 2 weeks earlier than usual. A few years back i had my last boil on 4/20.
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