Still too warm.  It did not freeze last night.  It was sunny and about 50 today.  But without a freeze the  sap was not running.

We were able to empty our storage tanks from yesterday’s collection.  Into the woods around 9:00 am.  By 8:00 pm we were done, all the storage tanks empty.  We took four batches of syrup off the evaporator, but we doubled up the batches so we only bottled twice.  16 quarts around 1:00 pm.  15 quarts around 6:00 pm.   31 quarts total.

Tomorrow and Friday are forecast for freezing nights, about 25,  and highs in the 40s and sunny.  That is what we need.  The long range forecast says rain for next week.  That is not a good sign.  This season may end early.

Last season we were running the syrup through the filter press twice in order to get clear syrup.  That was a lot of work.  We spoke with some other maple syrup producers at the annual meeting about it.  We were bottling too hot.  We need to be at 180 degrees to 185 degrees.  We were typically bottling around 210 to 215 degrees.  This was causing the particles to precipitate out of the syrup again and making it cloudy.   Now that we are holding 180-185 degrees we are able to filter only once.  Saves a lot of work.