Well it’s looking like it’s going to be a busy week here. Had a great run today - almost 25 gallons. And I decided to do another cook tonight too. They’re calling for a warm up this week and it’s not going to get below 40 again here until Thursday. I don’t have a great way to keep the sap cool so my plan is to just cook it right away. It won’t be the most efficient use of wood this way but I’m loaded for bear in that department.
I finished off the syrup from the burn in the house, and it doesn’t taste awful. Not a ringing endorsement, but too ok to throw away. I put it in a couple of “house” jars. Here’s that batch, with a better batch for comparison. Glad yours didn’t go full scale disaster. Awful easy to get distracted for just a minute too long!
I had another 40 gal of sap tonight, and we look like only one night above freezing this week. Down to 25 tonight already. I have a ball valve on my storage tank here at the house and have to take care to have some air space in the ball part of the valve. I boiled some tonight, but am in a busy time at work this week, so am not able to boil too late into the night. My dad got comfortable running this setup over the weekend and will do some daytime boiling to keep me from falling too far behind. He ran a Leader 2x6, and still has it, but it is back on the farm in Maine.
Done for the year. Felt wrong pulling them as they were running. Boiled 140+gallons last night. I've got about 100 gallons of fermented fizz that I don't know if I'll turn into sugar or not.
We collected about 25 gal of sap tonight and are all caught up on boiling now (still finishing this last batch in the house). It was still running late in the afternoon, and hasn’t frozen. I’m wondering if the 3/16 tubing’s natural vacuum will keep it running through the night. Several warm days ahead, so I might be done soon, too.
We should still get cold enough to flow, the buds.usually end the season. Some cold and some more rain/snow systems should help the flow too!
I went Leader Evaporator today for work, holy crap do they have some monstrous evaporators in the showroom!
Pulled the taps today. The one good thing about this weird extended winter is that the sap kept flowing, although 1/2 of my taps stopped running about two weeks ago. One last 40 gallon batch and that will be all she wrote. Total of about 11 gallons of syrup for the season.
Good stuff Shawn. Ended here with 26 quarts. Have a whack of crap on the go the past couple months so not even close to last year.
I need to pull taps and clean up today. We stopped boiling due to buddy flavor, but have had excellent sugaring weather since then. Made about 9 gallons from 27 taps, and missed some early runs due to indecision about jumping in.
I got a question for some of you maple syrup makers....about say 20+ years back I recall leaving the Canadian border to Washington here and stood in line at the duty free shop. The maple syrup was in really cool metal cans, Dad grabbed one for home. Now I only see it in glass. The metal gave it charm but probably found to have some issues later on? I know glass is best for keeping things sanitary so I’m gonna bet the inkling on that being it’s reason?
The place I order supplies from carries tin syrup containers. They’ve got a really cool one in the shape of a log cabin. But, they’re actually the most expensive containers they carry. Probably has a lot to do with it.
Sounds like it might be the lead in them? But if you look into plastic water bottles they leach bad stuff also. https://www.farmingmagazine.com/maple/reducing-lead-contamination-maple-equipment/
My grandparents used to always use the tins, but changed to plastic jugs largely due to cost, I think back in the ‘80s (before lead was on everyone’s radar).
