We don’t have to be in the woods by 5:30 AM tomorrow. There’s no new sap coming. Our work pace is under our control, not Mother Nature. Its been a long, busy two weeks in the woods.
Finished cooking the last 225 gallons of sap by 4:30 PM. Boiled at 22 gallons/hour again. We stayed an hour after the tank was empty to reduce the amount of sap in the evaporator so the last cook will be easier. Hoping for under 20 gallons to finish.
It gets boring just hauling wood, firing, and watching the sap boil.
Into the woods by 5:30 AM. Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.
The day cooking. 6:45 AM 22 ¼” 7:20 AM batch 8:00 AM 19 ¼” 9:00 AM 16 ¾” 10:00 AM 14 ½” 10:55 AM batch 11:00 AM 12 ¼” 12:00 PM 10 ½” 1:00 PM 8 ¼” 2:00 PM 6 ¼” 3:00 PM 4 ¼” 4:00 PM 2” 4:15 PM 1 ½” 4:30 PM ¾” 4:45 PM done
Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. Spent the day bringing in wood and chucking it into the fire under the evaporator. After cleaning the finishing pan, had the evaporator going by 6:10 AM. Loaded up the firebox with wood to get a boiling going faster. Started drawing from the tank by 6:40 AM. By 6:10 PM had 250 gallons cooked. That’s 22 gallons/hour.
Pulled 9 spouts to symbolize ending the season.
Back to the farmhouse by 6:15 PM.
The day cooking. 6:40 AM 22 ¼” 7:00 AM 21 ¾” 8:00 AM 20” 8:20 AM batch 9:00 AM 17 ¾” 10:00 AM 16 ½” 11:00 AM 14 ¾” 12:00 PM 13 1/2” 12:20 PM batch 1:00 PM 12” 2:00 PM 9 ¾” 3:00 PM 7 ½” 4:00 PM 5 ¾” 4:00 PM batch 5:00 PM 3 ¾” 5:45 PM 2” 6:00 PM 1” 6:10 PM done
Collected 475 gallons. Many full buckets. Also finding dry taps. Three taps on a tree. Two dry, one full bucket. Taps have been out for a month so this is expected.
With the R/O down, we are winding down the season even though weather is favorable for more sap over the next week. We have two 12-14 hour days of cooking ahead now. We’ve become dependent of the R/O so long hours cooking over days isn’t appealing. With the volume of sap we’ve collected, we should have an average season.
Mid-20s overnight. Sunny and mid-40s today. That’s sap weather.
Into the woods by 6:00 AM to bottle another milk can. Only one full now. It takes 4 hours from start to finish. Back to the farmhouse by 10:30 AM. It was nice to have a few hours to relax. Back into the woods by 1:30 PM to prepare for collecting. Started collecting by 2:15 PM. Done by 5:45 PM. Back to the farmhouse by 6:00 PM.
Into the woods early tomorrow to cook. Hopefully, done with cooking by Friday evening.
Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. Without the R/O cooking is straight forward: keep adding wood to the evaporator. There’s no checking on the R/O pumps, adjusting settings, use the transfer pump, managing water for R/O washing. Just bring in wood for firing. We did fix some of the sap-saks with new zip ties or replace spouts.
Considered collecting. There was sap from yesterday. But at Noon spouts were wet but not dripping much. We decided to wait until tomorrow to collect. Hope that works out.
With collecting off the schedule, we turned to bottling. There would be enough time after finishing cooking to bottle a milk can. Cooking should be done by 2:30 or 3:00 PM. We started the finishing pan by 1:30 PM so the syrup could finish about the time cooking finished. It was 4:30 PM before we were ready to bottle. Finish bottling by 5:15 PM. It felt good to bottle another milk can. Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.
Mid-20s overnight. It took until 10:30 AM to start melting. But the crowns remained cool because yesterday’s snow on the limbs wasn’t melting and trees weren’t dripping. Sunny and mid-30s today. Tonight is mid-20s again, but mid-40s tomorrow.
The day cooking 7:00 AM 15” 8:00 AM 12 ½” 9:00 AM 11” 9:00 AM batch 10:00 AM 9 ¼” 11:00 AM 7 ¼” 12:00 PM 5 ½” 12:50 PM batch 1:00 PM 3 ½” 2:00 PM 2 ½” 3:00 PM done
Identified the root cause of the R/O performance problems. While the older membrane may have contributed, there is a cracked fitting on the bottom of the pressure vessel. The membrane rests on this fitting so the pump can inject sap into the membrane for concentrating.
Broken fitting on bottom of pressure vessel
After inserting the new membrane, the high pressure pump wouldn’t even start. Swapped back the old membrane. Same result: the high pressure pump wouldn’t start. Started troubleshooting. Since the pumps tried to start, it pointed to the pressure vessel. The broken fitting was reveled when we removed the pressure vessel.
The two screws that fasten the fitting are directly across from each other. This creates a hinge across the fitting. As the high pressure pump engages, this fitting will move up and down slightly but parts not screwed down, will move on the hinge. It’s isn’t much movement, but over time, the plastic on the hinge weakens and eventually, it failed.
This didn’t just happen. Performance felt like it was declining over several years.
The R/O is down until we get a replacement part. If it arrives by Wednesday, we’ll continue with the season. Otherwise, we might end the season. It’s hard cooking without the R/O. With the sap we’ve collected, we are within 2 gallons of an average season.
Into the woods by 6:00 AM. Took four hours to get ready. We collected the taps left over from yesterday: 40 gallons. Pumped sap from the collecting tank to the storage tank, then worked on swapping out membranes and running a 100 gallons rinse on the new membrane. When the high pressure pump wouldn’t engage, we suspected a problem with the new membrane, so we swapped back to the old membrane. We it still wouldn’t engage, we switched to cooking without the R/O.
We cooked until 4:00 PM. For the first time in many years, we didn’t finish. There is close to 200 gallons left to cook tomorrow.
3” of snow overnight and into this morning. Temperature upper 20s to lower 30s. This afternoon, temperature rose to mid-30s. There will be sap tomorrow.
Into the woods by 5:15 AM. Goal for the day was to bottle two milk cans. Bottling went well. We’re getting the hang of working with the new bottling equipment.
• Turn on the bottler at the same time as lighting the burner on the finishing pan.
• After adding syrup, turn up the thermostat 200 or 210 to heat the syrup faster, then decrease the thermostat to 185-190 during bottling.
• Don’t place the cover on the bottler. The cover will cause condensation that can dilute the syrup below density.
Two milk can bottled by 12:30 PM.
While bottling, we debated collecting today or waiting.
The argument for waiting was 1.) we are tired after over a week of 12+ hour days and 2.) rain and snow was forecast making collecting uncomfortable. Starts as rain the changes to snow with 1”-3” possible.
The argument for collecting 1.) the sap is fresher. 2.) some buckets were ½ full. 3.) rain and snow are forecast so it’s better to get the sap before that.
We decided to collect. Out by 1:15 PM after fueling the tractor. 4 hours. Solo. 225 gallons with 30 taps uncollected. Snow started by 4:00 PM and hands got cold. Decided we were done either when the tank was full or all taps collected. The tank filled first with 30 taps uncollected amounting to 40-60 gallons. We’ll get them tomorrow.
Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM. Another long day.
Into the woods by 5:15 AM to cook. Mid 20s overnight. Sunny, but only 30 during the day. Mid 20s again tonight with rain/snow tomorrow.
Got by with R/O again. It’s challenging when we are used to much better performance. We’re removing only ½ of the water and 4 Brix.. With 360 gallons of sap, we had to cook 180 gallons instead of 90 gallons if could get 7 Brix. That’s a big difference. A 6 hour day verse a 10 1/2 hour day.
Syrup color is lighter today. Cooler weather helps. We won’t get Golden again, but Amber is nice too.
Took off one last batch at the end of the day to ensure it didn’t get to density when we left.
The wall clock failed. We are used to looking at the clock to monitor our performance cooking. Every hour we check and record tank levels and note when we take off batches. It helps plan the day and keep on schedule. Our phone has a clock, but it’s easier to glance at the wall clock to note the time rather then take a phone out of our pocket and unlock it.
We are trying to condition the new membrane. It arrived dry. It has to soak 24 hours in water before use.
The day cooking. 5:55 AM R/O start 7:00 AM 3 ½” 7:35 AM batch 8:00 AM 3 ½” 8:50 AM batch 9:00 AM 3 ¾” 10:00 AM 4 ½” 10:05 AM batch 11:00 AM 4 ¾” 11:15 AM batch 12:00 PM 4 ¾” 12:45 PM batch 1:00 PM 5 ¼” 1:00 PM R/O done 2:00 PM 3 ½” 2:10 PM batch 2:30 PM 1 ¾” 3:00 PM 1” 3:25 PM batch 3:30 PM done
Into the woods by 5:30 AM to bottle. Couldn’t start the burners on the finishing pan because the propane tank was empty. The tank was about ¼, maybe less, when we started the season. Surprised it lasted all of yesterday. It would have been frustrating to run out while trying to finish syrup. Propane refilling services start at 9:00 AM at the Co-Op. We lost the advantage of starting to bottle early.
Bottled one milk can. Three empty, but we still have three full.
Upper 20s overnight. A good freeze. Mostly cloudy at low 50s today. By 10:30 AM trees were dripping. We had to decide if we collected today or tomorrow. Upper 30s tonight but by morning the temperatures drop and stay below 32 all day. Liquid today; ice tomorrow. We went out collecting at 2:15 PM. 360 gallons by 5:15 PM.
New membrane arrived. We have to soak it in water for at least 24 hours to condition it. Won’t be able to use it for tomorrow’s cook.
Back to the farmhouse by 6:15 PM after pumping into the storage tank taking care of a few other things.
Every season there’s an incident where a valve that should be closed is left open or a valve that should be open is left closed causing sap or syrup to flow where it’s not expected. While bottling this morning, we left a fill valve on the new bottler open causing about 2 gallons to spill onto the floor. We leave the valves open after washing the bottler but forgot to check them before adding syrup. We stepped away after adding a pail of syrup so didn’t notice the spill until most of the syrup was on the floor. The floor was both sticky and slippery until we washed it down with water.
Syrup of the floor
Into the woods by 6:00 AM to bottle. Bottled two milk cans. We have a little room for more syrup, but still have four milk cans of syrup to bottle. Bottled 11 ½ gallons plus 2 gallons for the floor.
We had a storm last night into this morning. Started as rain by 4:00 PM yesterday. Changed to snow by 7:00 PM yesterday. About 4” of snow but the strong wind made for quite the storm. It cleared by 11:00 AM but was still blowing at 6:00 AM when we went into the woods. The sun came out and temperature mid-30s. Today is the first day of Spring.
Into the woods by 5:15 AM. It took until 7:00 AM to prepare for cooking. Cleaned the syrup pan; ran rinse cycle on the R/O; pumped sap from the collecting tank to the storage tanks where it feeds the R/O. We had to let the concentrate accumulate in the tank before starting the evaporator at 7:30 AM.
The R/O was processing 55 gallons/hour at 4 Brix. It’s slow going when we are used to 90 gallons/hour with 7 Brix. At 4 Brix, the ratio is 21.5:1. At 7 Bix the ratio is 12:1. We had to cook out 9 ½ gallons more of water. We can cook at 20 gallons/hour so that’s 9 ½ extra gallons of water to cook out is a big difference.
We were concerned the R/O wouldn’t be able to concentrate even at a low rate because of the membrane fouling up. The water from yesterday’s wash as cycle was dirty. It’s better to run another wash cycle until the water is clear, but we needed the R/O today. It got us through.
Visitors at 1:00 PM from the Felician Village. Gave them a tour of the maple syrup operation to explain how maple syrup is made. Always nice to have visitors. And we were cooking today which is more interesting to see.
High 30s overnight. Low 40s, cloudy and windy today. The wind made it feel colder. Light rain started by 1:30 PM. Forecast to change to snow later this evening. 1”-3” possible.
Back to the farmhouse by 2:15 PM.
The day cooking. 7:00 AM R/O start 8:15 AM 3 ¾” 8:55 AM batch 9:00 AM 5” 9:55 AM batch 10:15 AM 4 ¾” 10:50 AM batch 11:00 AM 5 ½” 11:30 AM R/O done 11:30 AM 5 ¾” 11:50 AM batch 12:00 PM 4 ¼” 12:50 PM batch 1:00 PM 2” 1:00 PM visitors 2:15 PM done
