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.
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