MapleAcres

Light snow yesterday evening. Enough so the ground is white again. Upper 20s overnight. Cloudy and low 30s today.

Placed the tank heater in the permeate tank and wound the heat tape around the hose. Also setup the ceramic heater in the R/O room. Forecast is lower 20s overnight with teens forecast in a day or two.

Rain over night and this morning. Mid 30s and cloudy all day. Checked the woods at Noon to see if we needed to collect. Yesterday was favorable for sap, but it didn’t run. We need several days of colder weather. The weather pattern is changing to colder and more favorable conditions: more normal for this time of the year.

30 overnight. Sunny and low 40s today. Not much tree activity. We need colder weather.

Into the woods by 6:00 AM to cook. By the time we assembled the pipes from the tanks and completed other preparation, it was 7:00 AM before we started the fire. Had a boil by 7:45 AM.

The day cooking

7:00 AM 13 1/3”
9:00 AM 10 ¾”
10:00 AM 9 ¼”
11:00 AM 7 ½”
12:00 PM 5 ¼”
1:00 PM 3 ½”
2:00 PM 1 ¼ “
2:30 PM Done

No batches into the milk can.

We did not use the R/O. We’ve learned over the years that trying to prep the membrane while cooking is a frustrating experience. Your attention is split between cooking and the R/O and neither is done well.

A grate in the firebox broke. We had to adjust firing on the fly since we had a fire going. Used scrap metal to replaced the grate. We’ll adjust the spacing on the remaining grates to compensate for the missing grate. Hope we make it through the season.

Light rain overnight. Foggy until Noon, then partly cloudy. Temperature in the low 50s. Not great weather to start the season. It’s not the snow covered idyllic and picturesque woods scenes associated maple syrup season. We didn’t have much snow cover and it’s all melted now. Frost is still in.

Connected the hoses on the R/O. It’s ready for the membrane.

Collected 160 gallons of sap. It won’t keep when the weather is this warm, so get it while it’s good. 2.1 Brix.

We had our sap hydrometers tested. They under-report Brix by 0.6. The sap hydrometer measured 1.5 Brix. With the 0.6 correction, the sap is 2.1 Brix. We noticed in past years that the sap collected didn’t agree well with the final amount of syrup. An inaccurate sap hydrometer could account for this discrepancy.

Tomorrow the weather starts to cool. We need freezing nights to get the sap flowing.

103 taps today. Planned for 100, but miscounted. Plan to put out an additional 100+ taps next week. Low 40s today. Sunny this morning turning cloudy in the afternoon.

The R/O is in the woods. Started connecting the hoses. Feeling apprehensive about the R/O. It’s a key piece for making the season easier. We’ve had problems the past several years. Hoping the repairs to the pressure gauge, defuser and a new membrane will give use the full potential of the R/O for the full season.

Rain possible this evening. Tomorrow highs the upper 40s Still forecast for 30s and teens by the weekend.

Started tapping today. It’s sunny and 55. Feels like end of March. This is climate change. We’re two weeks early by the calendar, but we can no longer go by the calendar. We need to monitor the weather patterns and act accordingly. The 14 day and 30 day forecasts show temperature trending above normal.

200 taps out. Sap is dripping. Not fast, but enough to confirm it’s time to tap. Plan for another 200 taps tomorrow.

Tomorrow is cooler: 40s. By the weekend 30s and teens are forecast. Cold spells are okay.

Sunny and Upper 40s today. Tomorrow’s forecast is lower 50s. Too warm for February, but here we are. 10 PSI again. And the tap was dripping. We have to study the long term weather forecasts before deciding to tap. But possibly tap tomorrow.

Brought over 325 gallons for water for the R/O. Cleaned the storage tanks. Replaced the flex tubing from the propane tank. The fitting leaked propane. Still more setup, but it’s nice to have a good start preparing the syrup building before tapping. When the taps are out and there is sap to cook, it’s a rush to get the building prepared.

Turned over the evaporator pans. Replaced some firebrick that were crumbling. It’s a puzzle to get the pieces to fit. The pans are on the evaporator. They need washing yet. Floors are swept.

Brought more wood into the woodshed. The woodshed is half full. That’s by choice. We hope it won’t bit us. The plan is to replaced the woodshed around June. If it was full, we would need to empty it. We have more wood cut, but it’s by the farmhouse.

Sunny and mid 40s. 10 PSI. Some sap on the spout. Tomorrow and Monday are also warm. We’ll continue preparing for the season while eyeing when to tap.

Put out the pressure gauge and one tap. No sap at the spout. 10 PSI on the gauge. Sunny and mid 40s today, but with the cold ground, little melting. Similar weather forecast for the next few days. That may wake up the trees.

Started syrup building preparation. Set out the 325 gallon permeate tank, 225 collecting tank, and the 200 gallon extra storage tank. Swept the floor. Picked up angle iron that is 1 ½” wide by 48” long. The flue pan will it on this as it spans the width of back of the evaporator. Used flat iron last season, which did give support to the pan, but was warping by the end of the season due to the heat. Angle iron should be stronger.

Completed repairs to the R/O. Replaced the defuser that broke last season. It’s the part on the bottom of the pressure vessel. We’ll check it at the end of the season for wear. We also have a spare on hand now.

Also replaced the low pressure gauge on the R/O. The manufacture sent us a high pressure gauge: 0 – 600 PSI. It would have worked but, would have been hard to read because the scale wasn’t fine enough. We need to monitor for 20 – 40 PSI which wouldn’t move the dial much on the high pressure gauge. We ordered a 0 – 100 PSI gauge online. It was described as 2 ½” diameter, but was actually 2 ¼” diameter. We rigged up gaskets from 1/16” and 1/8” silicon material to hold the gauge in place. Turns out, the 2 ¼” diameter was advantageous as a 2 ½” diameter gauge would have been a real challenge to install because the slot it fits into is only slightly larger than 2 ½” which didn’t leave room to get a gauge in or out. Until this is proven in production, there is always concern the repair won’t work.

After several weeks of 0 weather, the weather pattern is changing. 40’s are forecast for the coming days. It looks like a long term pattern change, not a just a couple of days of warmer weather. We will put out a tap tomorrow to see what the trees are doing. With a light snow cover and weeks of 0 weather, the frost is deep and it may take time for the trees to wake up. In 2022 we had deep frost and even with ideal freeze/thaw days, the sap didn’t run until the frost came out.

The season would be several weeks early by the calendar, but we have to go by the weather pattern. In 2024 the season started the end of January.

During December we had two snowfalls of 8”. But that melted over Christmas. Then second week of January cold weather arrived. We had several days of -10. We attended the Wisconsin Maple Syrup Institute in Marshfield, WI. Temperatures dropped to -25 in the central part of the state. Lake Michigan moderated the temperatures here, but we still had -10.