Schenectady-Albany-Saratoga Counties

[MRFNY]

I just came back to the forum to say this same thing...not really sure what to expect from here on out! It's gone like gangbusters for a little over a week but finally tapered off yesterday morning and has not come back online yet. I did "invest" (they were a few cents more a piece) in the check valve taps and my hope is they may salvage a few more weeks of the season by protecting the tap holes from the warm weather bacteria growth.

Still, it's been in the mid 60s a few days in a row during the day and this morning it was 52F when I woke up. No bueno.

Looks like we may hit high 20s Monday night, a 50/50 shot at just below freezing Tuesday and then some colder temps by the weekend. I would be pretty bummed to only get one good week out of the season, but we've made some really good stuff and a decent amount of it since I took the last week off work. Crossing my fingers!

I honestly don't know what to think! I'm not giving up yet though. I'm just worried that it's been so warm during the day and the nighttime temps are also quite warm that we would really need a couple good days of a deep freeze to reset the trees. Who knows though, I'll never figure out mother nature!

[MRFNY]

Update on the RO Bucket filtering / canning system: it is pretty freakin awesome! I had 5.5 gallons in the canner and brought it up to density without any issues. I was worried about a potential boil over but the canner easily holds 8 gallons so I was well below that. It's very easy to control temps and the boil. Once the syrup was up the density, I let it cool to 200 degrees then added the filter aid and ran it through the filter. After 20-30 seconds the syrup made it's way through the filter and out of the exit hose. As the instructions state, just run the syrup back into the canner until it runs clear, so once I saw that I then started filling up canning pots with crystal clear syrup. Once the canner was rinsed, I poured the syrup back into the canner for bottling. Maintaining proper bottling temps was a lot easier than the pervious method of using a Leader finishing tank controlled by propane.

I thought I was making pretty clear syrup until today. It's awesome looking syrup and I give all the credit to the new system. It did take some planning since my sugar shack doesn't have power so I had to transport near syrup to the location I will now be bottling. Not a big deal at all. I also did order the hobby canner from Roth so I could save a little time by not having to rinse the RO canner in between filtering and canning.

Overall a very impressive unit for the price! Props to Carl at RO Bucket too. Pretty sure I drove him nuts with a lot of questions but he was always available and even offered to facetime to watch the process.

[The Heldeberg Sapper]

Glad to hear that the new filter setup worked out well for you! Things really opened up for me last week, I ended up getting 245 gallons of sap from my 47 gravity tubing taps from Monday to Saturday. I pushed out my pans with water Saturday night and finished the sweet on my stove (only took about an hour as I had it pretty close). This puts me at 9.5 gallons for the season which is about half what I normally do but I still have syrup from last year. Looks like it will get down to 25F tonight which should reset things and then some freezing weather over the weekend. I also am running the CV spouts so I don't think the tapholes will be dried up. But not sure I have it in me to keep boiling this year, this warm weather has got me thinking about other things to work on.

[ADK_XJ]

Update on the RO Bucket filtering / canning system: it is pretty freakin awesome! I had 5.5 gallons in the canner and brought it up to density without any issues. I was worried about a potential boil over but the canner easily holds 8 gallons so I was well below that. It's very easy to control temps and the boil. Once the syrup was up the density, I let it cool to 200 degrees then added the filter aid and ran it through the filter. After 20-30 seconds the syrup made it's way through the filter and out of the exit hose. As the instructions state, just run the syrup back into the canner until it runs clear, so once I saw that I then started filling up canning pots with crystal clear syrup. Once the canner was rinsed, I poured the syrup back into the canner for bottling. Maintaining proper bottling temps was a lot easier than the pervious method of using a Leader finishing tank controlled by propane.

I thought I was making pretty clear syrup until today. It's awesome looking syrup and I give all the credit to the new system. It did take some planning since my sugar shack doesn't have power so I had to transport near syrup to the location I will now be bottling. Not a big deal at all. I also did order the hobby canner from Roth so I could save a little time by not having to rinse the RO canner in between filtering and canning.

Overall a very impressive unit for the price! Props to Carl at RO Bucket too. Pretty sure I drove him nuts with a lot of questions but he was always available and even offered to facetime to watch the process.

That's awesome, I may have to look into that as the filtering and canning is definitely the "bottle neck" (pun intended) of our operation. I lost probably 10 gallons of near-syrup last year because I let it sit so long in food grade jugs in the garage dreading the process of filtering a gallon at a time.

What is the Roth hobby canner? I've never heard of that!

[ADK_XJ]

Glad to hear that the new filter setup worked out well for you! Things really opened up for me last week, I ended up getting 245 gallons of sap from my 47 gravity tubing taps from Monday to Saturday. I pushed out my pans with water Saturday night and finished the sweet on my stove (only took about an hour as I had it pretty close). This puts me at 9.5 gallons for the season which is about half what I normally do but I still have syrup from last year. Looks like it will get down to 25F tonight which should reset things and then some freezing weather over the weekend. I also am running the CV spouts so I don't think the tapholes will be dried up. But not sure I have it in me to keep boiling this year, this warm weather has got me thinking about other things to work on.

Yes, was crossing my fingers for a solid freeze like they forecast and we got it...26F at 7am according to the temp sensor on my vacuum pump, I swapped the deep cycle battery and powered the unit back-on expecting a big run today. Can't wait to get home and check.

[MRFNY]

That's awesome, I may have to look into that as the filtering and canning is definitely the "bottle neck" (pun intended) of our operation. I lost probably 10 gallons of near-syrup last year because I let it sit so long in food grade jugs in the garage dreading the process of filtering a gallon at a time.

What is the Roth hobby canner? I've never heard of that!

It's a game changer for sure and I highly recommend it just after using it once.

Here's a link to the Roth hobby canner. My new plan will be to run the filtered syrup into this new Roth canner for bottling, saving the step of cleaning out the RO Bucket pot and pouring finished syrup back in for canning

https://www.rothsugarbush.com/produc...hobby-bottler/

[ADK_XJ]

It's a game changer for sure and I highly recommend it just after using it once.

Here's a link to the Roth hobby canner. My new plan will be to run the filtered syrup into this new Roth canner for bottling, saving the step of cleaning out the RO Bucket pot and pouring finished syrup back in for canning

https://www.rothsugarbush.com/produc...hobby-bottler/

ah ha, that's very similar to the double wall brewing canisters they make for quick wort heating...awesome idea!

[ADK_XJ]

Sadly I came home to very little sap in the tote, I imagined if it would run it would run like gangbusters after the cold night. The trees were trickling but nothing like I would have expected on a 50F sunny day. It should just barely freeze again tonight, maybe they need a second shot to get going? I sure hope so, it'd be sad to pack it up at this point!