MapleAcres

Syrup was ready at 45 minute intervals today.  That was a first.  There is not time to do much in between batches.  A few cycles of fire, check pumps, adjust sap level in pan then take off another batch.  It keeps you very busy.  12 batches into the milk can.  All 625 gallons cooked through.    With the temperature reaching the 50s we wanted to get all the sap cooked.  Sap doesn’t keep well when it gets warm.

Into the woods by 6:00 AM.  R/O going by 7:05 AM.  It ran 7 ½ hours today.  Served us well.  Went to 6° Brix.  Pressure held at 400 PSI.  Had good boils.  But nitre was going to drive the day:  if we get too much of a nite build up in the syrup pan we can’t boil hard.  By batch 6 we had fair amount of nitre but boiling was still good.  Nitre continued to accumulate, but boils stayed good so pushed on until done.

Batches of Syrup into the Milk Can
1   7:35
2   8:30
3   9:15
4  10:00
5  10:40
6  11:25
7  12:25
8   1:50
9   2:35  R/O also finished
10  3:20
11  4:10
12  5:05

We now have four milk cans of syrup waiting for bottling.

Warm weather pattern the next few days.  The snow is disappearing fast.  We need colder weather for more sap.  47 overnight.  55 today.   Cloudy with a few rays of sun.

Back to the farmhouse by 6:00 PM.

28 overnight.  Cloudy today and 43.  Wind picked up at 1:00 PM, but didn’t get a windy as forecast.  Doesn’t freeze tonight.  Tomorrow forecast for 50.  We need a colder pattern for more sap.

As we guessed, the run was over today.  Tree pressure only 3 PSI.  Collected at 3:00 PM.  Picked up 625 gallons.  Done by 5:00 PM.

Bottled this morning.  Into the woods by 8:00 AM.  Finished bottling by 1:15 PM.  The temperate got away on another batch and got cloudy.  We stopped bottling at that point.

Tomorrow we cook. We’ll need to decide if we cook it all tomorrow or hold some back until Friday.    It depends on how the R/O works and if we get a nitre buildup in the pan.

20 overnight.  42 and sunny today.  Trees dripping.  There is run going on.  Plan to collect tomorrow so we get the complete run.  PSI up to 15.  Dropped to 7 PSI late afternoon.  Forecast for 30 tonight.

Into the woods by 6:30 AM.  Got the R/O going by 7:15 AM.  But it stopped shortly after starting.  That had us worried: we’ve grown dependent on the R/O.  We quickly realized it stopped because the  pipes froze up.  Liquid entering cold pipes can freeze.  Put the heat gun on the pipes for a few minutes and we were back in operation.

Six batches into the milk can today.  Nitre appeared in the pan.  That’s not surprising.  It was surprising that we didn’t have nitre before this.

All tanks empty.  Waiting for more sap.  Back to the farmhouse by 2:00 PM.

We didn’t finish cooking.  If everything went right we would’ve finished by 4:00 PM.  It didn’t go well.  Into the woods by 6:15 AM.  Had the R/O going by 7:00 AM.   Had two batches into the milk can by 9:00 AM.  Then started feeling unwell.  Chills.  Tried to work through it but by 10:00 AM it was obvious we needed to rest.  Shutdown.  Back to the farmhouse by 10:30 AM.   By 12:30 PM feeling better, but the R/O was into its wash cycle.  Then needed to cool.  We were not able to fire up again.  We will retry in the morning.  Feeling fully recovered now.

Returned to the woods at 4:30 PM to deal with the concentrate.  Concentrate doesn’t keep well.  So we pumped back into the storage tank, then added R/O water to get back to 2° Brix.

20 overnight.  A cold northeast wind made the ground frozen hard.  36 and sunny today but the northeast wind continued most of the day.  The trees did start dripping.   Low 20s help stimulate that.  Tonight is low 20s again but warmer, low 40s, tomorrow.  The sap run should continue.

30 overnight.  42 during the day.  Mostly cloudy until late afternoon when the sun appeared.  Then a cold northeast wind came up.

Checked the trees at Noon.  Good amount of sap in the buckets.  Trees dripped into late night before temperature dipped below freezing.  The sap run that started yesterday was coming to an end.  Tree pressure dropped to 4 PSI.  We started collecting an hour earlier at 2:00 PM.  We usually start at 3:00 PM.  By 4:30 we were done.  Picked up 475 gallons.

Based on sap volume collected so far, we are over half way of an average season.  Collected 1960 gallons of sap so far.  For an average season we would collect about 3200 gallons of sap.

Forecast for mid 20s tonight.  That’s a good for keeping the sap flowing.

34/45 today.  Started out cloudy.  Around 1:00 PM the clouds broke and the sun appeared.  Bottling plans fell through when we got sick this morning.   Recovering now, but taking it easy.

Crew when out collecting at 3:00 PM.  Picked up 200 gallons.  This was the tail end of the Monday/Tuesday run.  There was no new sap today.

30 overnight.  Cloudy and 38 during the day.  A little drizzle.  Into the woods by 6:00 AM to start cooking.  R/O going by 7:00 AM.  Went to 7° Brix.

Several interruptions during the day with visitors caused us to miss starting/stopping pumps or opening/closing valves.  We missed starting the transfer pump to empty the collecting tank into the storage tank.  By 10:00 AM the R/O stopped because it was out of sap.  We took the opportunity to run a rinse cycle before starting again. Then we missed closing the permeate value to the water storage tank.  This caused some sap  to back flow into it.  When visitor come we stop to talk with them, but it breaks our concatenation and routine causing us to miss a step in our process.

10 batches of syrup in the milk cans.  Filled two milk cans.  We had very good boils.  By 5:30 PM we were done.  Tomorrow we have to bottle again.

26 overnight.  Sunny and 45 today.  The last three days have been the idyllic weather associated with maple syrup season:   freezing nights, sunny days, the snow sill in the woods but melting.  We seldom get that.

Into the woods by 6:30 AM to wash the finishing pan.  Had help at 7:30 to dump in a milk can syrup.  We needed to bottle to free up milk cans for more syrup.  We had two full milk cans of syrup and started on a third.  We knew we would collect today and that meant more syrup coming.  Bottled 27 quarts.  Grade A Robust.  The first syrup is usually lighter.

Trees started dripping by 10:00 AM.  The sap from yesterday was already in the buckets so we knew there would be a big haul.  Set out collecting at 3:00 PM.   Many full or overflowing pails.  We had storage for 600 gallons.  Had a spare 100 gallon tank at the yet that we setup.  We ended up with 700 gallons of sap.

Our new pump and hoses with quick connect finally worked as envisioned.  This was a good to get the pump and hoses figured out..  The pump problem was a bad extension cord that didn’t deliver the volts or amps the pump needed to turn over.  It takes about 12 minutes to empty the collecting tank.

Tomorrow we cook.  Most likely we won’t cook through all 700 gallons.   Need to check if we have to collect tomorrow again.  But the dripping did slow down by 5:00 PM which is good.  Forecast is 33 overnight with clouds and snow showered tomorrow.

21 overnight.  42 and sunny today.  Trees started dripping around 11:00 AM.  We focused on cooking.  Wanted to get yesterday’s 410 gallons cooked down.

Into the woods by 7:00 AM.  Started the R/O by 8:00 AM.  We had to thaw some pipes and it took longer to wash the front syrup pan.  Went to 7° Brix.  R/O done by 1:00 PM.  Finished cooking by 4:00 PM.  Back to the farmhouse by 4:30 PM.

Better pressure on the R/O today.  Stayed at 400 PSI.  Fixing that leaky valve must have helped.

We may bottle tomorrow.  We will collect.  Expect a lot of sap.