Cloudy and cold today. No new sap, but that gave us a chance to catch up. In the last 24 hours we boiled down 500 gallons of sap. We have 160 gallons left. Got done some important tasks today. The part came for the filter press. Got it installed. We had about 80 quarts of almost finished syrup waiting in milk can. Without the part we were going to be in trouble.

Got a 15′ garden hose to use with the pump for the collecting tank. Dropping it in the opening at the top of the tank works much better for emptying it. Another problem solved.

Around Noon we had to stop boiling to clean our evaporator pan. While shutting down was going to cost us time from boiling, the build up of sugar sand on the pan was preventing us from boiling at full capacity. Not cleaning it now was going to cost us more in time from reduced boiling capacity then taking the two hours to clean it.

We have already collected more sap this season then all of last season. And the weather looks favorable for the next week.

Today’s count
500 gallons of sap pushed through the evaporator
0 gallons of new sap
34 quarts of syrup
131 total quarts of syrup so far