MapleAcres

Into the woods by 8:45 AM. A thunderstorm with pea-sized hail moved through around 10:00 AM while the syrup was still finishing. Filtered by 11:00 AM. Completed bottling by 12:30 PM. 17 quarts, 12 8 oz bottles and 1 pint.

Upper 30s overnight. Cloudy and lower 40s during the day with a thunderstorm as noted. The radio reported a severe thunderstorm warning with 40 mph gusts, larger hail and heavy rains. But it was much milder: no wind; maybe 10 minutes of hard rain.

Completed cleanup and back to the farmhouse by 1:15 PM.

Into the woods by 1:00 PM. Brought over and setup the water-jacketed bottler. It’s ready for use. We plan to bottle one milk can tomorrow. Most of the syrup went into the two 20 gallon drums, but we’ll have approximately 15 gallons in three milk cans to bottle in quart and pint containers.

Also emptied the permeate tank and took out the membrane. Checked the pans. They should clean up easily.

Upper-30s overnight. Sunny and 60 during the day.

Back to the farmhouse by 3:30 PM.

The last boil to empty the evaporator always takes longer than hoped. Empty the sap into pails. Get a tank of water. Remove pans to rinse the loose stuff. Replace pans. Removing/replacing the pans takes a lot of work because the flue pan is close to 75 lbs. Add sap to the front pan, fill the flue pan with water. Takes 2 ½ hours before ready to boil.

It took 4 hours to cook the final 15 gallons. Pan cleaner cooks in the flue pan. The last batch went into the milk can at 3:45 PM. Approximately 2 gallons. Looks like nice syrup: not too dark.

Mid-30s overnight. 50 during the day with clouds and sun.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 4:00 PM.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM to take down buckets. All the spouts are out and buckets down now.

The sap ran yesterday, but it was 20 overnight so ice today. Dumped a lot of sap when taking down the buckets: estimate 300+ gallons. We don’t have the resources to process it. It’s challenging to cook without the R/O and we are running out of wood for the fire.

There will likely be a run tomorrow too. But we are done for this season.

Back to the farmhouse by 2:30 PM.

Into the woods by 9:30 AM to finish three milk cans for the 20 gallon drum. Each milk can contains 6 ½ to 7 gallons of syrup. Three milk cans go into the drum. We heat and bring to 59 Brix one after the other so the drum contains hot syrup. If finishing milk cans on separate days, hot syrup would be added to cold syrup already in the drum.

It’s quicker to fill the drum then individual bottles. It takes four hours to finish and bottle a milk can of syrup. It’s about two hours to finish and add syrup to the drum. This includes cleanup after each milk can. Completed by 2:50 PM. Back to the farmhouse by 3:00 PM.

Mid-20s overnight. Mostly cloudy and mid-30s during the day.

Took down three buckets and spouts to symbolize ending the season.

The broken grate was a minor inconvenience at the beginning of the season, but may have contributed to the challenges we’ve had getting consistent rolling boils. By spacing the remaining grates farther apart, the air and heat flow could escape downward rather then across the arch to heat the flue pan. Using a makeshift support with a pipe to hold up the two broken pieces of the grate, we placed that broken grate back into the evaporator. It helped. We even got the elusive 20 gal/hour boil a few times. We’ll replace the grate for next season.

Upper-30s overnight. Cloudy with some drizzle during the day. Temperate mid-40s.

Into the woods by 5:30 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 5:00 PM. It’s exhausting and boring: add wood to the fire; wait; stir the fir; wait; get wood from the woodshed; stir the fire; wait; fire; repeat. Adding wood to the fire is exhausting because we drop to our knees then stand up after wood is added or stirred: up and down 12-15 times and hour. For 12+ hours.

We’re ready to end the season.

Mid-30s overnight. Reached 50 in the afternoon. Mostly cloudy all day. The weather pattern is warming.

Longer time now between batches of syrup also confirms the lower sugar content in the sap. We’ll finish cooking the 135 gallons of sap tomorrow, then call it a season. There’s still a lot of work to do, but no more sap to collect or cook.

The day cooking.
6:15 AM 18 ¼”
7:00 AM 17 ¾”
7:25 AM batch
8:00 AM 16 ½”
9:00 AM 15 ¼”
10:00 AM 13 ½”
11:00 AM 12 ¼”
12:00 PM 10 ¼”
12:45 PM batch
1:00 PM 8 ¾”
2:00 PM 7 ¼”
3:00 PM 5 ¾”
4:00 PM 4 ¼”
5:00 PM 3”
5:40 PM batch
6:00 PM 2 “
6:30 PM 7/8”
6:40 PM done

Into the woods by 5:30 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 6:45 PM.

Collected 335 gallons of sap. Sugar is 1.7 Brix. Thinking of calling it a season. 1.7 Bix is a ratio of 50:1.

Wondering how we every cooked syrup before the R/O. We’ve had to relearn the work flow. It’s lots of hard work and long hours. Only 12 hours today. The fan helped all day. We’re burning mostly pine and cedar, low BTU woods. It’s almost impossible to get long sustained boils. We need beech, maple, oak and other high BTU woods.

The day cooking.
7:00 AM 22”
8:00 AM 19 ¾”
9:00 AM 18 ¼”
10:00 AM 16”
11:00 AM 14”
11:20 AM batch
12:00 PM 12 ½”
1:00 PM 10 ¼”
2:00 PM 7 ¾”
3:00 PM 6”
3:05 PM batch
4:00 PM 4”
5:00 PM 1 ¼”
5:30 PM done

Two more days of cooking. Mid-30s overnight. Cloudy morning. Sunny late. By 11:00 AM temperature warmed to mid-40s.

Placed a small fan in front of the damper on the evaporator. Got sustained boils on all compartments of the flue pan. The fan pushed the heat through the evaporator to the flue pans which have greater surface area. We could see flames at the back of the evaporator. Generated more steam too. It was a better day cooking.

Mid-20s overnight; not as cold as forecast. Sunny and upper-30s during the day. May collect tomorrow.

The day cooking.
6:00 AM 19”
7:00 AM 17 ¾”
7:05 AM batch
8:00 AM 16 ½”
9:00 AM 15”
10:00 AM 13 ½”
11:00 AM 11 ¾”
11:15 AM batch
12:00 PM 9 ¾”
1:00 PM 8”
2:00 PM 6 ¼”
2:40 PM batch
3:00 PM 4 ½”
4:00 PM 2 ¾”
4:30 PM 2”
5:00 PM 1”
5:20 PM done

Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.

Into the woods by 5:15 AM to cook. Planned to spend the day cooking. Checked the weather forecast. Tonight the temperature drops to the low-20s. Sap ran yesterday as the second part of the big run from Friday. It’s typical big runs occur over two days. With the low temperatures the sap would turn to ice in the buckets. Better to collect while it’s liquid. Larger quantities take longer to freeze. Smaller 10-12 quart pails readily freeze. Cooked until Noon, then collected 285 gallons.

We have approximately 550 gallons sap in storage tanks. Expecting it will take three days to cook. Three long days.

The day cooking.
7:00 AM 21 1/2”
8:00 AM 21”
9:00 AM 20”
9:10 AM batch
10:00 AM 18”
11:00 AM 16 ½”
12:00 PM 14 3/4”

Back to the farmhouse by 2:30 PM. Knocked off early to rest. Yesterday’s 16 ¼ hours was challenging.