Boiled a little over a hundred gallons today. Ran around 25gph. I checked some buckets(5gallon) they were overflowing. They will have to wait for tomorrow! Reds are swelling sugars are running really good here.
Another 10 quarts ready to finish and this 55gal to deal with. Had to pull the taps as I wont have time to burn in the next couple weeks.
Sunday Funday! Working on a 60 gallon batch today. Really trying to put the pedal to the metal on this thing. I’ve been re-splitting the three year locust and running a little bit shallower in the pan. Averaging just about 6 gph so far. Hoping to finish out at 1.5 gallons today.
I puttered around the barnyard this morning doing odds and ends, and finally went out to check around 11am. The barrel had maybe 10gal in it at dusk, so I expected it to be at a third to half full. Nope, it was 6” front the top! That changed my plans it a hurry! I needed more storage by the evaporator, so hauled out and cleaned a stainless tub. Had to hunt for its valve, finally found it. Cross-threaded the plastic elbow on the stainless threads (doh). Finally got things right. Wasted a little sap from overflowing in the process, but I’ll never know how much, which is just fine. A friend dropped off 10 gal of sap he couldn’t deal with, and my folks brought another 5gal that was overwhelming their stovetop operation. Then I re-split a tractor bucket load of firewood, and am in pretty good shape now, with maybe 10 gal left to boil plus whatever ran this afternoon and evening. Looks like a good run tomorrow, and then more snow and border-line temps until Thursday or Friday.
We ended up with a case plus a cup out of that. That’s looking like a nice target batch size. I can manage a 30 gallon half batch on a week night. I’m getting around 20 gallons per day, and the weather is looking good all this week. So I’ll probably do 2 half’s this week and then a big one on Sunday again.
I had another 50 gal of sap this morning, so I put that in the storage tank and went to work. Had another 25 or so tonight, and it was still running. Boiled from 6 to now, and still have a lot of sap to boil. I’m guessing I’m doing 5 to 6 gal of sap per hour of boiling on my flat pan. The snow has started, and they say from 6” to 17” between now and Wednesday evening.
My blue barrel was near-full on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday evenings, which means close to 2gal of sap per tap each day. Essentially nothing ran yesterday, and I brought the blue barrel home and left a 5 gal bucket there today, assuming it wouldn’t run. Wrong. Overflowing tonight, sap still running. The barrel is back out there, so it will be interesting to see what is there in the morning. We have nearly a week of cold coming, so a chance to catch my breath.
Had some time tonight to get some finishing done and thought I could do it myself. Didn't work out the way I wanted but got half done. Will deal with the boil over on the stove tomorrow.
Mrs Loon went over to the states shopping for a couple days so gonna try to finish the other 10 quarts without burning anything this time. 45 gals of sap still in the garage that's froze down 2inch which i'll deal with tomorrow.
My sister and her husband use inverted gallon milk jugs in the deep freeze to separate some of the water before boiling
Thats how I felt. I'm down to 50ish taps and can't keep up. I transferred 200 gallons into my ibc and still had buckets to pickup because the day before they we all full. I should take an entire day and try for a 250+ gallon boil. Catch up and pull the taps out. This is a blockbuster/maple syrup and snowmobile year.
I'm very impressed with y'alls hard work. When I was growing up in Maine , we made syrup. Had lots of stone wall row , Sugar and Rock maple trees that were big and healthy. Good memories!
Nice pic! Same exact story here. It froze up here last weekend and it’s been lots of ice but not much sap in the buckets ever since. Good run today though. I’m working on a 40 gallon batch myself tonight, which is all I collected since Sunday. I’ve been re splitting as I go too - with the Fiskars cause I need to get back in shape. Been thinking about putting a shed roof on that side of the garage. It would give me something more permanent for the chimney and room for probably a cord or two of firewood to feed it.
Have been getting some help from my dad with the boiling. My 2x3 is under sized for multi-day runs, so it has been going pretty steady. It has been averaging well over a galof sap per tap the last three days, and looks like good weather going into the coming week I took the batch off the pan and took it into the house yesterday morning, washed, and started up again with fresh sap. Then got busy with feeding the cattle until I caught a whiff of burning syrup. Luckily I was directly down wind and only 50 feet away, so I noticed and stopped it before it went from bad to awful. I had blackened syrup on the pan in an area the size of my fist. It took some scrubbing, but it all came off and the pan was undamaged. Tonight I have about 3 gal of nearly syrup on the stove in the house, and hope to package before I’m too tired.
Dang - hope you didn’t lose too much being a fresh batch... Similar story here in fact but I lucked out huge today. I was working on an 80 gallon batch and forgot about it right at the end of the cook today. Amy reminded me about it and we caught it just in time. Threw it on the burner inside, and it checked out perfect. So here’s the story - Amy’s son has been having trouble finding a job. I did a post about it in the Wood Pile - he came over last Sunday and him and Amy put up 2 face cords. Well today he came back for more brought a friend. Mostly just left them to it; but I noticed some of the splits they were making were a little too big. So I stepped in and ended up getting sidetracked trying to show them how to run the splitter faster. I had to be over there for a half hour just as I had everything in the pan just finishing up. Thank goodness Amy was keeping an eye on it. Anyway, 3rd time I’ve got finished product straight off the evaporator. Course I planned it that way - it was all skill.
