Author: SugarMaster Page 40 of 94

About 30 overnight.  Snowed about a half inch.  A nice white coating on everything.  Sunny upper 30s today.  The sap dripped.  We went out collecting at 3:00 PM.  Picked up 400 gallons at 3° Brix.  There was ice in the buckets that we dumped giving the higher Brix.  Ice it nature’s R/O.  About 2:00 PM it turned cloudy.  A few snow flurries.  By 5:00 PM it cleared and started getting colder.   Forecast tonight is 20s.  Tomorrow’s high around 30.

Got a new pair of buckle boots.  They are not fancy but very practical.  Keep the feet warm and dry.

Tomorrow we cook again.

The house felt cold waking up this morning at 4:45 AM.  Went to turn on a light.  Didn’t come on.  Started to realize it seemed quite dark.  No yard light.  Checked other windows: neighbor’s yard lights also not on.    Power outage.  How long was the power out and how is the R/O handling it?  The R/O is not supposed to freeze.   We keep it in an insulated and heated room but with no power the heater won’t run.  The clocks were stopped at 1:56 AM.  It was now 5:10 AM.  Power out for about three hours.

Into the woods to check the R/O.    It was 8 outside.  The thermometer in the R/O room showed 33/32.  Getting cold but the R/O doesn’t become an ice cube at 32.  It would take several hours at the mid 20s to freeze it.  Contacted the power company.  They estimated power restored by 6:45 AM.  Sunrise was coming about 6:15 AM.  That provides a warming sun.   At 5:30 AM decided to maintain the status quo.   Unless the temperature of the R/O room  dropped into the mid to low 20s the R/O was going to be okay until sunrise and the power was restored.   Power came on at 6:10 AM.   Checked the R/O about 8:00 AM.   Temperature already about 50 in the R/O room.

Into the woods to get the filter press.  The pump plunger broke yesterday.  The collar holding it on is made of plastic.  As the hot syrup passes through the pump, the plastic becomes soft.  This causes the pump handle and plunger  to move out of alignment.  The plunger rubbed against the collar and wore through.   We replaced this pump last year.  We kept the old pump for parts.  And the old pump had a metal collar which is not affected by heat.   Swapped collars.

Into the woods by 11:00 AM to finish and bottle.  Had a problem with filtering.  We put a partial batch back into the milk can yesterday.  We did not account for the filter aid already mixed in.  Added the normal amount of filter aid, but this now proved too much.   Stopped half way through filtering to replace the papers.  This gets messy but it worked and we finished filtering the batch.  Back to the house 2:30 PM.

35 and sunny today.  Trees started dripping around 1:00 PM. The trees take a long time to warm up when its 8 overnight and any sap in the buckets is ice.   Possible flurries tonight.  Hopefully not as cold.

We focused on our finishing and bottling process to improve it.  Three changes:  new propane burners, new fill spout, new bottle caps.  It paid off.

The propane burners under the finishing pan were old.  Likely from the 40s or 50s.  It would take 2 ½ hours to finish a milk can of syrup.  We replaced the 3 burner with a new 3 burner.   Each burner is rated at 15,000 BTU per hour.  We’ll never get 100% efficiency out of it but we were hoping for an improvement in cooking time, possibility saving of 50% of the time.  Today we finished a milk can of syrup in 1 hr 15 min.  These burners give a nice rolling boil.  We were lucky to get a moderate boil on two burners with a weak boil on the third.  One of the cast iron burners cracked several years ago and was held together with wire.  It was past time to replace it.  New burners should make finishing less time consuming.

In the bottling kitchen we replaced the old stove with a new 2 burner.  Freed up a lot of space making it  easier to access the bottling pan for emptying in a milk can of syrup.

We replaced the fill spout on the bottling pan.  No More Bubbles! We had used a coffer pot fill spout with a long tube that almost reached the bottom of the bottles.  We had bubbles when we filled bottles.  Our theory was the long tube caused turbulence and that caused bubbles.  The new fill spout is short: maybe an inch.  And when turned off, its off.  The coffee pot spout was prone to keep running as the long tube drained.  After a little experimenting, we found that tipping the bottle about 30 degrees so the  fill stream ran against the side of bottle allowed us to fill at good speed without bubbles.  We are thrilled with eliminating bubbles.  Bubbles didn’t hurt the syrup, but they didn’t look nice on top of finished syrup.

Finally, new no drip caps on the bottles. The caps are plastic with an tear drop shaped lip.  They won’t stop all drips, but most drips are arrested making pouring syrup from the bottle more pleasant.  Otherwise syrup would accumulate on the screw top causing even more drips and fouling the threads of  screw top.

5 overnight.  35 and sunny.  But it takes a long time to warm when its 5.  Sap moved in the trees but we didn’t get much dripping.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM.  Back to the farmhouse by 6:30 PM.  Finished and bottled three batches of syrup: 17 gallons, 1 qt total.

20 overnight.  35 but warmed slowly.  Sunny most of the day.  Sap likely moving in the trees but froze as it hit the cold air.  By Sunday we return to upper 30s.

Bottling tomorrow.  We have three milk cans of syrup.

18 overnight. Lite flurries this morning.  Partly cloudy.  Up to 35 but felt cold.  No activity with the trees.  Tomorrow’s forecast is repeat of today.

After we collected Monday the trees must have continued dripping until later when the snow started.   Buckets have a quart of sap.  All frozen now.

18 overnight.  30 and sunny this morning.  Turned cloudy after 2:00 PM.  Flurries after 5:00 PM.

So glad we collected on Monday and cooked on Tuesday.

An observation: using the wheel barrel to get wood from the woodshed makes the task less tedious.  You can only carry 6-8 pieces by hand which means many trips through the day.  The wheel barrel can hold three times that resulting in less trips back and forth from the woodshed.

We got 6”-7” of snow and still have flurries.  At 11:15 PM last night it was snowing but didn’t look that intense.  By 4:30 AM this morning it tapered off but there was 5” already.  During the day we got an additional 1”-2”.   Snow came in from the South East based the snow pattern on the trees.  That’s unusual.  North or North West is the usual direction of wind blown snow.

Into the woods by 6:45 AM.  Had to shovel and sweep away snow from walkways and tanks.  R/O running by 8:00 AM.  Finished 255 gallons by 11:00 AM.  Done cooking by 2:00 PM but needed to get a batch of syrup off yet.  It was close to done.  From a prior year we learned that when cooking with concentrate its important to draw off batches that are close to finished or else the syrup could crystallize as it cools or worse, the pan could burn if too much heat remains.

Another milk can full of syrup.  Took off six batches today.

9:15 AM
10:25 AM
11:15 AM
12:10 PM
1:15 PM
2:20 PM

Back to the farmhouse by 2:45 PM.

Don’t expect sap the next few days.  Forecast is 18 overnight with high of 30 tomorrow.  Thursday high is 32.

4”-7” still the forecast for tonight through tomorrow afternoon.  This storm is coming down from Canada so the forecast should be more accurate.  Southern storms are harder to predict.

The trees dripped into last night.  Low around 30 so not much of a freeze.  Cloudy and mid-30s today.  Trees did not drip much today there was enough sap in the buckets from yesterday to go collect.  Went out at 3:00 PM.  Done by 4:30 PM.  255 gallons.  Better to get it before the storm.  After snow and sitting in the buckets a few more days the sap would not be good.

Cleaned and organized the finishing pans and bottling kitchen.  We should be ready to finish and bottle.  We have two full milk cans that need finishing and bottling.

Tomorrow we cook.

Into the woods by 6:45 AM.  Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM.  400 gallons of sap collected yesterday all cooked today.  Topped off one milk can.  Filled another milk can.  One batch into a third milk can. We were taking a batch off the evaporator every 45 minutes.  Eight batches total.  Past years it was about an hour between batches, but taking the sap to 7° Brix makes a difference.

Started the R/O by 7:45 AM.  Finished by 12:45 pm.  Should have finished sooner but did not have the high pressure pump adjusted properly.  We needed to make an additional turn on the handle controlling pressure.

The transfer pump worked better today.  Placed food grade grease on the threads and washer.  This helped seal hose/pump connector.  We use food grade grease to seal the O-rings on the R/O so using it on the transfer pump was worth trying.

Froze overnight.  Upper 30s and cloudy all day.  Dripped a little later in the day.

4”-7” of snow forecast for Monday night into Tuesday.  We’ll see.  March storms are hard to predict.

22 overnight.  Sunny and 40 during the day.  Trees dripped.  We started collecting at 3:00 PM.  Picked up 400 gallons of sap.  Had a crew of 6.  Makes collecting much easier.

The biggest challenge was the transfer pump:  its not operating at full efficiency.  Its rated at 1450 gallons per/hour which should empty our 225 gallon tank in 10-11 minutes.  The pump took 50 minutes.  We could collect and fill the tank faster.  Looking into replacing the pump.  We can’t go through the season waiting on the pump.

Connected our new propane burners.  The finishing pan got a new 3 burner and bottling kitchen got a new 2 burner.  Each burner is rated at 15,000 BTU/hour.  With 45,000 BTU under the finishing pan we are hoping to cut our time in half to finish syrup.  The 2 burner replaced the stove in the kitchen.  Its smaller and gives us more space to around the bottling pan when pouring in the milk can of syrup.

Forecast is 20s overnight with 40s but cloudy tomorrow.  Tomorrow we cook.