A dusting of snow overnight and this morning. Enough to make the ground white. Temperatures mid to low 30s to upper 20s. Snow stopped by 11:00 AM. Then partly cloudy in the afternoon.
Into the woods by 8:30 AM to bottle. Still refining how to operate the bottler. Used enough water to cover the heating element, but not much more. Also vented the water tank. It creates steam as the water heats. The steam causes water to erupt from the clear tube because it needs to release pressure. Turned on the heating element at the same time as starting the syrup on the finishing pan. That worked well because the water jacket and syrup were closer to the same temperature. Syrup was about 200. Water jacket about 170. We let it warm longer before bottling.
Unfortunately, we set the water tank thermostat too high. The syrup reached 200 and that caused cloudy syrup as particles precipitated out. We’ll redo this batch. We returned the syrup to milk can and emptied already filled bottles too. We know we can do better by carefully monitoring temperature. 2 ½ hours of work without any bottled syrup to show for it.
The second milk can went well. We lowered the thermostat tempature. Still learning and refining the best settings.
We need to discuss the thermometer on the bottler with our equipment dealer. It’s filled with condensation and some water making it difficult to read. That doesn’t feel normal.
We have two empty milk cans and three full milk cans. We’ll need to bottle again this coming week.
24 quarts and 12 pints bottled. Back to the farmhouse by 2:00 PM.