Cold overnight. Sunny and up to 30. Tree pressure at 18 PSI but no sap. Trees recovering from two days in the teens and the ground is still frozen. Forecast for 40s tomorrow. Snow/rain mid-week.
Category: 2025: Season 108
A diary of the 2025 maple syrup season at MapleAcres
Into the woods by 4:15 AM. We wanted to start cooking before ice formed in the tank. It was 15 with strong winds causing below 0 wind chills. We were relieved to find the stainless steel storage tank was ice free.
It took close to an hour to clean the evaporator pan. It had rust particles that flaked off the stack. The particles were difficult to remove. The R/O also had left over food grade grease we needed to clean off of the blue water filter and pressure vessel top.
Stated the evaporator fire by 6:00 AM after verifying the pipes weren’t frozen. Then inserted the membrane and configured the R/O for the initial wash with 200 gallons of water.
The feed pump wouldn’t start. The apprehension we mentioned yesterday became real. The pump and entire R/O had power, but the feed pump wouldn’t spin over. The motor gave a buzz instead.
By 8:00 AM we went to Plan B to cook old school without the R/O. It became a much longer day than we expected.
We called a local well and pump specialist. They provide well water solutions. The R/O is a water pump so we speculated a they should comfortable working on it. They arrived by 1:00 PM. We briefly explained the R/O operation and then demonstrated the feed pump’s behavior. Of course, the pump worked.
We’re pretty sure the water hitting the cold metal on the feed pump caused the water to flash freeze. Cold metal causes water to rapidly lose heat and freeze. We experienced this effect with the metal pipes from the tanks to the evaporator once or more each season. But we didn’t expect this with the R/O because we had the heater turned on in the R/O room. By 1:00 PM it warmed enough to thaw so the pump worked. It was likely worked earlier, but we didn’t try. If water was in the R/O last night this wouldn’t have happened because the water and metal would be the same temperature.
It was after 2:00 PM when the wash cycle finished. There wasn’t enough sap remaining to use the R/O so we finished the day old school.
Sunny all day. Up to 25. The wind stopped late in the afternoon. It’s cold tonight again. Tomorrow a little warmer. Next week looks like favorable conditions.
The day cooking
8:00 AM 17 ½”
9:00 AM 16 ¾”
10:00 AM 14 ½”
11:00 AM 13 ¼”
12:00 PM 11”
12:00 PM batch
1:00 PM 8 ¾”
2:00 PM 6 ¾”
3:00 PM 4 ½”
4:00 PM 2 ½”
4:05 PM batch
4:30 PM done
Its possible the batches are Grade A Golden, but we won’t know for sure until we finish and bottle it.
Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM
Most seasons we are scrambling to get the R/O ready while have a tank or more of sap to cook. We are ahead of the curve this season. The R/O has all the hoses connected and is ready for the membrane. We also have tank of water to rinse the membrane. There is still apprehension about it starting properly. We’ve had troubles some seasons, specifically, two feed pumps in five years.
Into the woods by 8:30 AM to connect the R/O and connect the tanks to the evaporator. It took too long to connect the tank valves to the outlet pipe. If the valve isn’t correctly aligned, the threads won’t catch. The valves also use reverse threads (tighten to the left) adding to the challenge. It was close to 45 minutes to get both valves connected. The trick seems to be treading the nut on the outlet first, then thread the valve into the nut. That method worked on the first or second attempt.
Collected at 2:00 PM. The run was over by then as the weather changed from partly cloudy to cloudy and windy. Tonight’s temperatures are in the 20s. It was 50 today. Collected 235 gallons. Liquid today, ice tomorrow.
We plan to start cooking early in the morning because the temperature falls after midnight and we want to try to avoid ice in the tanks and froze pipes.
Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM
30 more taps using the sap-sak bags are out. Total taps: 410. If we have a normal season with 1.5 pints per tap we should get 75 gallons of syrup.
Storage tanks are clean. A tank of water for the initial R/O membrane wash is ready. We have new PVC pipes from the storage tanks to the evaporator. The galvanized pipes were old and heavy. Last season we had a blockage in the pipes. See http://mapleacres.com/?p=1898 These pipes are much lighter, use stainless steal valves, and are food grade with NSF-PW rating. PW is for potable water. We spent several weeks planing these pipes to properly identity and source all the fittings. We aren’t experienced plumbers.
Tomorrow we’ll connect the R/O hoses. We also plan to collect. There are 1-2 quarts in the pails, but it gets colder and Saturday and Sunday. We want to collect before the sap turns to ice.
We stopped by the General Contractor for our house. While commenting that we expect the season to start slow because of deep frost due to lack of snow cover during the January cold spell, they commented the frost is 57” deep. They had to dig a septic system trench. Typical frost depth is 48”
Low 40s and cloudy today. Light frost overnight. Into the woods by Noon. Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.
Into the woods by 6:45 AM. 150 more taps by Noon. 30 more taps in the afternoon. 380 now. Plan for 30 more tomorrow using the sap-sak bags.
Had the evaporator repaired. It needed a weld on the back right side where the side joins the stack plate. It’s load bearing and a broken weld caused the evaporator to separate which increased the width so the pan no longer set on the support rails. It could have been quite the disaster to collapse while cooking.
Cloudy and low 40s. Light freeze overnight. Some dripping, but the frost is still deep. This weekend it cools with more favorable sap weather. 40s without freezing nights isn’t the weather pattern we need.
Back to the farmhouse by 6:00 PM. Tomorrow work on equipment setup.
195 taps out. The goal was 200 but the battery on the drill was getting weak and we didn’t want to have a bit stuck in a tree.
Sunny and 42 today. Yesterday the temperature was 50. Last week we had highs in the Teens and lows of 0 so this is a quick change in the weather pattern, but the pattern is forecast to stay favorable for sap so this is go time.
We put out the pressure gauge and one tap on Sunday, but no activity. On Monday when it warmed to 50 the pressure gauge recorded 12 PSI and the tap started to drip which signals it’s time to tap.
Into the woods by 6:30 AM. Discovered the Tanaka tapper wasn’t running well when we started it. It was serviced before the season with new spark plug, clean filters and greased bearings. But it wouldn’t rev up to full power and would sputter and stop when the choke was off. We acquired the Tanaka in 2007.
Fortunately we had a 20V electric drill. The drill wasn’t acquired for tapping, although electric drills are widely used in the maple syrup industry. We switched to the electric drill and discovered it works well. It weights less so it’s easier to carry around and allows us to tap in a wider band on the trees. Adjusted the torque settings a few times to find a setting where the bit wouldn’t get stuck in the tree. We don’t have a spare battery so we have to monitor the battery. We adjust our workflow to allow time to charge the battery.
Tomorrow is cloudy but 40’s again. We plan to finish tapping. The trees aren’t running strong because the frost is deep. That should give us time to set up equipment.