Finished up gathering 2000 gallons or so of sap this season. Picked up this old school evaporator yesterday for my buddy. 10x2.5 Lightning by Small Brothers. Should be a cool project for him and a big upgrade production wise versus his 2x4 he has now.
Who else has maple on the mind?! It’s just about that time of year again! Maple time. Maybe not for the lads further north but in southern New England it seems like tapping for those early runs is becoming a consistent reality. Last year we tapped on February 3rd and got excellent sap production with sugar content of 1.5% if I recall correctly. Really starting to dive into the forecast now to see if we’ll be tapping early again this year. As of right now, the long-term forecast has us between 38° and 42° for daytime highs with nights in the 20s for the first weekend in February. We’ll see how it plays out! Last weekend I started cutting in new drop lines and taps on our 3/16ths lines. Plan to keep going with that this coming weekend. Have to get all our buckets and tanks cleaned and ready, too. This year we’re running 34 bucket taps on trees below the new sugar house. 140 taps on tubing above the house, flowing directly into our main collection tank. Really, really looking forward to the reduced work load hauling sap around. We’re single tapping all our trees - even those at 18” +. Need to figure out how much additional sap production we can handle given the potential for increased boiling time in the new sugar house. If we find we can handle it, we’ll add additional taps in-line at our larger trees. That’ll push our tap count up over 200 on tubing if we do. We’ve also got 50 beautiful sugar maples in reserve further up the hill that can be added in if needed. I’m thinking those trees won’t be added in this year. Too much volume I think. However, next years planned maple project will be to build an RO unit. So that’ll be yet another year of figuring out how much we can handle in our setup. Fired up the arch for the first test fire earlier this week with the new chimney. The draft in the chimney happened instantly. Super happy about that. Steam from the pan draws out the cupola nicely. Just need to figure out what I want to tack up on the ceiling to keep the moisture away from the wood as it’s rising up. Any suggestions for what to use? Preferably something budget. At least for now. T.Jeff Veal I still owe you a bottle of syrup so I’ll be in touch soon, once we’re boiling, to get an address to send to. If you still want.
I’ve been getting ready since 1st of year in mid Michigan. Lots of fallen branches and a few dead elm took down a few of the mainlines in the woods . That’s all fixed , still lots of squirrel chews in the woods to fix . As far as tapping , not here yet . Usually tap mid to late February in the woods , 800 on high vacuum then a week later 350 on the roadsides . Last year we had a warm January, just like now , and my first boil was Feb 25th . Had a big cold snap and didn’t boil again till March 11th but pretty much boiled every day after that until April 3rd . Had a record crop and made 450 gallons and collected 19,600 gallons of sap . Woodsman you’re gonna be like a kid in a candy store when you get an r.o. I built my first one 5 years ago and expanded it every year . Currently I remove 4 plus gpm of water or 240 gph and boil 12% sap . My 30x10 evaporator boils 110-120 gph so the way I look at it is I’m processing 350 plus gph of sap . Huge time and wood savor for me . Hoping to get Backwoods Savage over again this year when I’m boiling . I figure I can put a red milk crate in front of the evaporator door and let him sit on it and just feed wood every 6 minutes !
Just need to figure out what I want to tack up on the ceiling to keep the moisture away from the wood as it’s rising up. Any suggestions for what to use? Preferably something budget. At least fornow. Woodsman , best thing for that steam issue is a hood. Not sure what your roof sheathing is but if it’s OSB you don’t want that dripping back in your syrup . I’ve seen some makeshift hoods using aluminum and pop riveted together . Stainless is best of course . Another advantage with a hood is you can put a preheater in it and increase your boiling rate 10% or so . On my rig Sap is about 38-42 degrees going into preheater and coming out it’s around 170 degrees . That’s free heat !
Budget minded fix? A thicker mil plastic drop cloth. Menards has 'em for around $4. 9X12 4 mil. If you do go that route, use some wood laths (stickers) to attach the drop cloth to ceiling as opposed to staple gun. Once the condensation starts collecting, the drop cloth will become heavier and may pull out of the staples. Of course, position the drop cloth so it will shed condensation back and away from the tank. wishlist has the best idea with the stainless hood though.... Maybe in the future? Maybe some used equipment out there for sale? Closed restaurant? I was thinking about syrup on Mon since it was a bright sunny day with mild temps. Only thing is, it is quite some time before it'll happen around these parts! Good luck and keep those pics coming in.
wishlist my family been sugaring for years.. all shacks have no covering but all done with plank wood.. mmm. Have you thought about solid vinyl like on soffit of house?
Most definitely want some. Your sugar house looks good, that new stack looks great. Hope you have a great season.
Nice setup, Woodsman ! I bought a used 2x6 setup this past fall, but don’t have the sugarhouse built. Two years ago I boiled on a small arch inside my livestock trailer, and a few years before that in a round bale sugarhouse. I’ll be taking this year off, but plan to dive back in next year.
Just finished bottling 5,500 of these today. The owner was hoping sap was flowing on 8k of taps with the warm up. No such luck last we heard.
They're shipping to Pappy and Company on Monday. Not sure how fast they get them to their re-sellers. I will say, this batch (14) is very tasty! Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup
I was thinking I’d try to get away with a budget option to deal with the steam this year but after some hard consideration and talking to my wife last night I think we may put a little bit more into the operation this season and get a hood. Making a phone call about that this morning. Get the ball rolling on it. Thanks for all the advice, wishlist!
Woodsman you maybe hard pressed to get a hood this year . Equipment manufactures are very busy getting orders filled from the fall and such . That’s not to say you won’t be able to find one that fits . I do know a few custom builders that can make one for you but they also sugar and I’m sure it would have to wait till after season . I’m assuming you have a flue pan and would like a hood that’s built to fit so in the future you could add a preheater ?
Woodsman, if you'd like I could ask around over in Ohio as well. I know of two sugaring houses that are liquidating.
Thanks guys! Casper, I’ll keep that in mind if something doesn’t work out going ahead here. Appreciate the offer very much! I just got off the phone with the guys over at Smoky Lake in WI. We bought our 2 x 6 divided pan and feed pan from them last season. They can get to building the hood within 10 days and then put it on their semi to head this way in 3-4 weeks. Hood fits exactly over the pan and comes with 6 feet of stainless 10” stack pipe to vent through the roof. Free shipping. Bit more than we wanted to spend this preseason but I figure it’s a necessary piece of equipment that will have to happen soon anyways. If not this year then next. My goal is to grow our operation a little each year - so this year we grow a little more than expected. I really like that I won’t have to worry so much this season about excessive moisture buildup on the wood and sheathing in the sugarhouse. Until the hood arrives, I guess I’ll attach some rolled plastic sheeting to direct the steam up to the cupola - as was suggested in a post above. Couple weeks of that is no problem to deal with. On another note - He said a few guys in southern WI are already tapped and the sap is flowing like crazy. And he expects to tap in their area of WI by second week of February.
Tonight I am working on a RO system for this year. It’s looking like it will evenly separate ~ 8 gallons / hour. I was hoping for more but we’ll see how it does on sap and go from there.
Nice - I built one several years ago and was pleased with it (only used it that one year, and have had multiple years not sugaring since then). I had three household water membranes in series, and was dumping the concentrate back into the same container I was feeding from.
