MapleAcres

Collected 235 gallons but we expected more based the freeze/thaw from yesterday and today. The trees are dripping, but slowly. There is still frost in the ground. The recent cold weather may have refrozen the ground and locked up the water again. It was 33 overnight, but ice on puddles indicate the ground is cold yet.

Warmed up quickly this morning. Up to mid 50s and mostly sunny. Into the woods by Noon to check about collecting. Its been six days since we last collected and we wanted to get the sap that’s there. It looks good.

Back into the woods by 1:00 PM to wash the syrup pan and tanks. It took an hour to clean the syrup pan because there was a thick layer of nitre. Glad its done so we can get started cooking in the morning without the delay to clean the pan.

Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.

20 overnight. Sunny and mid 40s today. That cold spell impacted the trees more than expected. It’s taking time for the trees to recover. They are dripping now. Should dip into the night. Hopefully we can collect tomorrow.

We have six milk cans. Five are brushed stainless steel and one is shiny (304) stainless steel. We use the shiny can, number 2017, for transferring finished syrup from the finishing pan to the bottling pan and the other five cans for batches of syrup from the evaporator as we cook. To better manage the syrup, we wanted to number the milk cans. Sometimes we want to finish and bottle in a different order then we then we filled the milk cans with batches from the evaporator. Rather than assigning a generic number scheme like 100, 101, 102, etc. we stenciled on the year we acquired the can. Now we have a unique numbers on the cans so we can manage them better.

4 overnight. Sunny and 40 the day, but trees are still recovering from the cold spell. Checked the woods at 1:00 PM, but not much activity.

We’ve made syrup for many years, but there are still small innovations that we discover like long reach matches that make work easier. They are 8” long. It’s much easier to light the burners under the finishing pan and bottling pan. The kitchen matches were 2” long and tended to burn out before all three burners were lit.

Into the woods by 9:15 AM for bottling. Our strategy to fill the milk can with less syrup worked. We were able to dump the milk can into the finishing pan and bottling pan by our self. The milk can was 11 lbs to 16 lbs lighter. We’ll continue using this strategy of less syrup in the milk can. We have five milk cans so we should be able to manage the inventory.

22 overnight. Sunny and up to 35 today. Trees thawed slowly but started dripping leisurely in the afternoon. Tomorrow should be similar to today. Waiting to see how much they drip.

Bottled 20 qts and 11 pts. Back to the farmhouse by 1:45 PM.

Cold overnight. Down to 8. Sunny but only 28 today by late afternoon. Morning was in the teens.

Into the woods by 1:00 PM to prepare for bottling. Almost scorched the bottling pan. It had about a half inch of ice from cleaning water that remained in the pan. Started the burner to melt the ice, but the pan heated faster then the ice melted. We caught it before the pan was damaged.

The syrup in the milk cans is very close to done. It was only about half a degree from finished density. It’s nice to get it done quickly, but we have to monitor when we take syrup off the evaporator, so it doesn’t get past finished density.

Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM.

20 overnight then down to 18 at dawn. Cold all day with high of 29. But it was sunny. It felt like a day in February should feel.

Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. Expected an early start because we cleaned the syrup pan yesterday. But the pipes from the storage tank were frozen. We attached a heat tape before leaving the woods yesterday. Turns out that heat tape isn’t working. So the pipe froze up. Took nearly an hour to thaw out with the heat gun.

Otherwise a good day cooking. 10 batches into the milk can. Doing a pH wash on the membrane.

The day cooking
6:30 AM R/O start
7:00 AM 2 ¼”
7:55 AM batch
8:00 AM 5 ¼”
8:40 AM batch
9:00 AM 7”
9:50 AM batch
10:00 AM 9 1/4”
11:00 AM 10 ½”
11:00 AM batch
11:45 AM batch
12:00 PM R/O done
12:00 PM 12 ¼”
1:00 PM 10”
1:05 PM batch
2:00 PM 8”
2:00 PM batch
2:45 PM batch
3:00 PM 5 ¾”
3:35 PM batch
4:00 PM 3 ½”
4:10 PM batch
4:30 PM 3 ½”
5:00 PM 1 ¼”
5:15 PM done

Back to the farmhouse by 5:30 PM after cooking all 440 gallons of sap.

1 ½” of snow overnight. Snow stopped by 8:00 AM. Sun came out by Noon. 33 overnight but only 35 during the day. But it was warm enough to melt ice in the buckets. Trees dripped into the evening. By waiting until today to collect we got the full run. All the buckets are now empty. It turns colder the next few days. We made the right decision.

Into the woods by 1:00 PM. Cleaned the syrup pan on the evaporator. That took an hour. Would have been a frustrating delay in the morning when we are trying to get started cooking.

Started collecting by 2:45 PM. Done by 4:30 PM. 440 gallons.

Tomorrow we cook. Back to the farmhouse by 4:45 PM.

Considered collecting today because the weather forecast is for snow followed by cold. But there was still ice in the buckets at Noon. After Noon, the sun appeared and temperature rose to low 40s. Trees started to run and will run into the evening. However, snow is forecast for the morning: 1” – 3”. Clears by Noon. Then gets colder with lows in teens and highs of upper 20s for Friday and Saturday. The question is: when do we collect? Collect today and they will be sap overnight. Wait until tomorrow and we have snow to deal with. We chose to wait until tomorrow to get the full run and empty the buckets before the cold.

25 overnight. Snow flurries again. Cloudy much of the day, but after Noon the sun appeared for a few hours and temperature up to low 40s.

Into the woods by 6:30 AM to bottle. But the milk can was too full to safely dump solo. Help arrived by 8:30 AM to dump the milk can. And then dump again into the bottling pan when the syrup was ready. We’re going put less syrup into the milk cans.: 6 to 6 ½ gallons instead of 7 to 8 gallons. This will make the milk can 11-22 lbs lighter and easier to handle solo.

Completed bottling and cleanup by Noon. Then checked the woods and decided to wait until tomorrow to collect. Tree pressure was negative until the sun appeared. Then up to 6 PSI.

Back to the farmhouse by 12:30 PM.

Into the woods by 5:30 AM to cook. The day went well. Stayed on schedule. Done by 2:00 PM.

The day cooking
6:15 AM R/O start
7:00 AM 3 ½”
7:30 AM batch
8:00 AM 6”
8:00 AM batch
9:00 AM 7 ¼”
9:10 AM batch
10:00 AM 8 ¾”
10:00 AM batch
10:10 AM R/O done
11:00 AM batch
11:00 AM 7”
12:00 PM batch
12:00 PM 5 ¼”
12:40 PM batch
1:00 PM 2 3/4”
1:30 PM 1 ¾”
1:40 PM batch
2:00 PM done

31 overnight. 35 during the day. Mostly cloudy. Snow flurries started at 5:30 AM and lasted until 10:00 AM. Tree pressure was -5 PSI then up to 5 PSI. But wasn’t warm enough to drip although the trees did drip much of the night.

A large widow maker fell overnight. Glad it’s down, but it would have been bad if anyone was near it when it fell.

Back to the farmhouse by 2:00 PM.

25 overnight. Sun came out by 10:00 AM and temperature rose to 43. Trees responded.

Into the woods by 6:00 AM. Organized the filter press and other items needed for bottling. Did get the milk can dumped into he finishing pan. Had the burners going by 7:00 AM. Syrup ready for filtering by 8:00 AM. Done bottling and back to the farmhouse by 10:30 AM. Bottled 24 quarts and 13 pints. The grade looks like Amber/Rich.

Back into the woods by 2:00 PM to prepare collecting. Help arrived by 3:00 PM. Done collecting by 5:00 PM. 340 gallons.

With the evaporator and R/O we can process 50 gallons and hour. That means 7 hours of cooking tomorrow.