MapleAcres

A frustrating day.

Into the woods by 6:30 AM to get the R/O setup to process yesterday’s sap. Started the evaporator right away anticipating there were be concentrate later in the morning. Several missteps connecting the pipes. Mostly the connections to the control panel must be done before mounting on the wall. Took it down at least three times before I realized that.

Finally it was ready. Started the feed pump. Nothing. Motor gets power but pump not spinning. Called the electrician thinking we were not getting proper volts or amps. They confirmed proper volts and amps. Tried turning the motor by hand. Found a spot that turned hard. We turned off and on several times. Finally the motor gave out completely in a puff of blue, acid smelling smoke. Its toast.

The is stored at the farmhouse all year in a room that is at least 65 degrees. Its drained at the end of each season. The pump has two thumb screws to take out to be sure its empty. Maybe we can do an autopsy after its replaced to determine what happened.

Called equipment dealer to try to get a replacement. Ships from Vermont. Maybe Quebec is we are unlucky. The manufacture is in Quebec.

Until its replaced its back tio old school cooking. Lots of wood. Long hours.

26 overnight. 40 during the day. Started partly cloudy. By 11:00 AM snow flurries moved it. By 3:00 PM the sun was out. 27 tonight with sun and 40 tomorrow.

Tree pressure -9 PSI this morning: the tree is pulling sap up. Later up to 15 PSI.

One positive: wonderful aroma from the cooking sap.

Back to the farmhouse by 6:30 PM.

Into the woods at 6:30 AM to get setup with tanks for collecting. We knew there would be sap soon, but didn’t expect to collect today. The trees had different ideas. By 10:00 AM we had some buckets overflowing. We had to collect today.

Pushed hard to get all the tanks ready. First thing is a tank of water for the R/O. We need water t200 gallons of water to prepare the membrane. We have to get that water from the farmhouse. We use the collecting tank to haul it so we have to get that into the woods first. We made a mistake on year to full the collecting tank with sap before getting water. Then we had to use a smaller secondary tank on a trailer which was much harder.

Got all the tanks ready by 2:30 PM. Headed out collecting. Picked up 480 gallons. We used an inefficient route through the woods. Too much walking. We’ll need to adjust that.

And the new pump didn’t work. Its gets electricity, but doesn’t spin up. We’ll need to take it apart to check for twigs or bark blocking the propellers.

Tomorrow we get ready to cook. Setup R/O. Connect all pipes. Then fire up the evaporator.

Finished tapping by 10:30 AM. 502 or 503 total. We loose count because a tree gets a tap but the spout is missed. We go back to set the spout and hang the bucket but the count is disrupted now.

30 overnight. The day started with a cold South East breeze. Sunny and up to 45. Warmer then forecast. Forecast was 40. Tonight is 28.

Late afternoon we put out the tree pressure gauge. It hit 30 PSI. This was a fresh tap which always runs fast because its releasing the initial tree pressure. Like popping a balloon or tire: there is an initial high pressure release. During sap runs last year the pressure was around 15 PSI.

Got the R/O into the woods. Turned over the evaporator pan. That’s easier to do with two people. Tomorrow will be a busy day of getting ready to cook. There will be sap this week. Weather forecast looks like sappin temperatures with 40s/20s.

Its been cold the past four days. Highs in the 20s. Lows in single digits. It was 9 this morning. But the weather pattern is changing. Sunny today. Warmed to abut 30. The next week is forecast for 40s during the day and 20s at night. That’s sap weather. We started tapping today.

Got organized. Tractor took some time to warm up after sitting in the cold. The tapper would’t start. The spark plug was full of carbon. After cleaning the spark plug the tapper started on one pull. Into the woods by 8:30. Cold but sunny. Two person crew to start with. After an hour a third joined. Around 12:30 three more. That makes tapping much quicker. We got 418 out today. We’ll finish the remaining 82 tomorrow for 500 taps.

But Noon it warmed enough that some taps started dripping.

Back to the farmhouse by 3:00 PM.

Refreshed the look of this site. Its mobile friendly and updates all the back-end technology. Imported all the content. A few things need editing and cleanup. For example, time stamps on the posts. Time stamps reverted to UTC so we have to edit each post to change the time stamp back 5 hours. For some posts that also means editing the date stamp: original time stamps after 7:00 PM rolled to after 12:00 AM the next day. Also font adjustments in both the titles and the body of some posts.

Arrived in Wisconsin February 20. Early December was cold: teens or below. End of December through January was mild with upper 30s and mid 20s. February turned colder with blow 0 overnight. Yesterday, today and tomorrow are mild with upper 30s/mid 20s and sunny. We considered tapping. But Tuesday it turns colder again for a week. Given the temperatures ranges from mid-December through January sap was likely moving in the trees a good part of the winter. We’ll need to start factoring that into our plans.

We used 3 cords of wood.  That’s amazing.  The years of burning 10-12 cords of wood are gone.

Also calculated the syrup we should have made based on a collection vs how much we actually bottled.  Wanted to see if we were loosing any or otherwise miscalculating.

Gal    Brix   Gal/ratio    Syrup
375   2.5     375/35       10.7
410   2.5     410/35       11.7
700   2.5     700/35       20.0
200   2.0     200/43        4.7
475   2.0     475/43       11.0
625   2.0     625/43       14.5
575   2.0     575/43       13.4
285   2.0     285/43        6.6
———————————-
92.6 gal

Actual bottled:  91 gal, 2 qt, 1 pt.  Almost exactly the same.  The slight loss is likely due to syrup that gets caught in the filter press.

503 taps producing 92 gallons means the yield per tap is 0.18 gal/tap  = 1.44 pint/tap

The flue pan of the evaporate is okay.   The vinegar soak helped.   Its passable, but we can do better.  Going back to our previous cleaning procedure next season.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM to finish cleaning the pan, wash the floors and store tanks.  Out of the woods by 1:30 PM.    Then did final equipment cleanup at the farmhouse.  Done by 4:30 PM.  Tomorrow we fly back to Washington, DC.

Season 102 is closed.

About 1” to 1 1/2” of snow overnight.  Everything is white again.  The roads were a bit slippery but overall not much of a snow event.

Got the filter press washed.  Milk cans washed.  R/O hoses off and rinsed with bleach solution.  We learned the hard way that the hoses need a thorough cleaning to prevent mold during the off season.  The membrane is in the storage canister with SMBS solution.

The big remaining item is the flue pan of the evaporator.  About 2/3 of it looks good.  The middle third is still a work in progress.  We have it soaking in a vinegar solution overnight.  We’ll see what tomorrow brings.  It may not end up as shiny as we usually get it.  If we hadn’t changed our cleaning procedure we’d be done with everything by now.

Mother Nature gave us 92 gallons this season.  A good crop.  We finished bottling at 11:45 AM.  14 quarts and 2 x 250 ml bottles.  All Grade A Dark.

Fewer sap collections then most seasons, but more gallons per collection.    Good sugar content:  started at 2.5° Brix and never fell below 2.0° Brix.  No nitre during the first three boils was amazing.  We struggled with bottling: let our temperature get away from us twice causing cloudy syrup and blew out the hand pump again.  Over all the syrup was darker.

The R/O is back at the farmhouse.  The tanks washed and pipes down.  Finishing pan cleaned.  Most equipment also back at the farmhouse.  We were trying to beat the snow/wintery mix.

Snow totals are still unsettled:  2”-4”, 4”-6”, 3”-5”.   Final totals all depend on where the warm/cold line settles.  To the  West in MN, SD, NE they are getting a blizzard with 12”-24” and high winds.  We had that last year at around the same dates with blizzard Evelyn.

Tomorrow morning we can clean equipment in the house until the weather clears.  We want to try a different method to clean the nitre scale from the flue pan.

Into the woods by 9:30 AM to work on cleaning the evaporator pans.  From syrup pan cleaned up easily.  The back flue pan isn’t cleaning well.  Usually the pan almost wipes clean with the stainless steel finishing pads.  Not happening today.  The nitre scale is not coming off easily.  The most likely reason is our change in procedure finishing the syrup in the evaporator.    While the front pan cooked we had water in the back flue pan, but did not add our cleaning solution until after the syrup was done.  The result was less time with the cleaning solution and our problems today cleaning the pan.  The bottom of the pan cleaned easily.   Its always been a point of pride to clean all  carbon from the bottom of the pan the nire scale from the inside.  We’ve got two days to work on it yet.

R/O is ready to disassemble and take into the farmhouse.

Snow amounts for Wednesday night into Thursday are still uncertain.  It all depends on where the cold line settles.  Late March and April snows are hard to predict accurately.

Into the woods by 9:00 AM.  Got the pans off the evaporator.  Got a tank of water from the farmhouse.  Rinsed the pans then placed back on the evaporator.  Filled the flue pan with water.  Syrup in the front pan.  We finish the syrup in the front pan while boiling water the in the flue pan to clean it.

About 11 gallons of partly cooked sap in the milk cans.  Didn’t take long to finish it.  Our careful cooking Saturday paid off by reducing to almost done.  By 1:45 PM it was ready to take off.  About 5 gallons.   Puts us well past 90 gallons for the season.

By 2:30 PM we went out to pickup the buckets and covers and get them back to storage.  The sun was bright.  Temperature 62.  Dried the buckets from yesterday’s rain.  Getting the buckets back from the woods is a big item to complete.

Running another wash cycle on the R/O membrane.   Tomorrow we start cleaning the evaporator pans.

Snow forecast for Wednesday into Thursday. Amounts depend on where the cold line will be.  Farther North, we get rain or wintery mix.  Farther South we get a lot of snow.

Back to the farmhouse by 4:00 PM.