MapleAcres

Into the woods by 7:30 AM.  Back to the house by 10:30 PM.  15 hours.   Only the 175 gallon tank remains to cook through tomorrow.

About 30 overnight.  Mostly sunny and 55 today.  No sap run.  The plan is to take down the buckets on Wednesday and get into clean up mode.

Nitre a little better today.  Three batches of syrup into the milk can.  Tomorrow we want to bottle as we already have one full milk can.

Collected 300 gallons today.  High 20’s overnight: 29 or 30.  Sunny and 50 for the high.  The trees gave more sap.  But some taps are dry.  And the sugar content is going down:  2.6 today.  Forecast for this week looks like we loose our freezing nights.  That will finish us.  The woods is now mostly clear of snow expect for the piles we made when opening the trails.

Cooked through about 275 gallons today.  Into the woods by 7:30 AM .  Back to the house by 10:30 PM.  15 hours.  Took a long time to clean the pan this morning again because of the nitre build up.  And we struggled with nitre all day while boiling. Almost had a boil over because of the nitre.   After 1 ½ hours of boiling the nite build appeared already.  This nitre build up is a new development we have not seen in past seasons.

Much smaller crew for collecting today.  We also bottled another 31 quarts.    First day this season we boiled, bottled and collected.

Collected 350 gallons today.  2.6 Brix.  Mid 20s overnight.  Sunny and 42 today.  Quite the contrast to yesterday.  Lots of visitors and help today.  We had 11 people collecting.  One stayed on the tractor to drive and another just emptied pails into the tank.  We started about 3:15 PM and finished by 4:30 PM.

We are up to 1760 gallons of sap now.  Slowly we keep increasing.

Forecast is for 30 overnight and 50 tomorrow.  Not sure if it will be cold enough for a run.  But today’s run will last into the night.  We do plan to collect tomorrow again.

Did not freeze overnight.  About 35 for the high today.   Cloudy.  A little rain.  Some flurries during the day.  More snow late in the day.

Into the woods by 8:00 AM to cook.  Took a long time to clean the syrup pan.  The nitre is still building up on the pan.  Still now sure why, but its like we did not clean it for 3 or 4 days.

After a water run, we started the finishing pan.  Bottled 33 quarts.

All the tanks are now empty.  Three more batches into the milk can.

Tomorrow we plan to collect whatever is there.  With luck the weather will be with us.  Its forecast for mid-20’s over night and 40s and sunny tomorrow.

There is still ice around the building.   Very late for that.   Snow in the woods too yet.

Cooked all day.  Into the woods by 7:00 AM back to the house by 8:30 PM.  Emptied the 225 gallon tank.  Cloudy all day.  Might have hit 35.  Tonight and tomorrow some weather is forecast to come in.  It seems confusing about what it will be: rain, freezing rain, or snow.  It will all depend on temperature.   Our next day for sap looks like Saturday.

Tomorrow will cook through the remaining tank.  That will make five days this week cooking.

Mid 20’s last night.  Upper 30’s and sunny today.  That’s what we need.  There was a sap run.  Set out about 3:00 PM to collect.  Picked up 385 gallons.  2.8 Brix.   Every so slowly we inch up in production.

Tonight again is mid-20’s.  Tomorrow upper 30’s again.  But a wintery mix moves in sometime tomorrow.

A local dealer dropped off a Polaris Ranger for us to use.  Quite expected.  The Polaris Ranger is a 4 wheel drive ATV.  It has a cab and dump box.  The dealer was out yesterday to visit our sugarbush.  And he offered demo unit for us to use.  He dropped it off this morning.  Used it today to bring the syrup back we bottled last night.

Into the woods by 8:00 AM.  Back by 9:30 PM.  The tanks were empty by 5:30 PM.  Then did a water run to prepare for bottling.  Put a milk can full of syrup into the finishing pan.  It was ready by 7:30.  Then we bottled.  After cleanup it was 9:30 PM.

The nitre problem was much better today.  Did not impact boiling at all.

Did not freeze overnight, but got colder during the day.  We had light snow flurries most of the day.  Did not accumulate.   Cloudy and windy too.  Tonight down to the mid 20s.  The next few days seem like they will make or break the season.  The weather pattern looks favorable.    If that does not generate a few sap runs we may be done.

Did not freeze overnight.  Well, maybe 32 for a short time, but not a hard freeze.  Up to mid 40’s but cloudy and windy.  Later in the week its forecast for freezing nights again.

Into the woods by 7:15 AM.   Back to the house by 5:30 PM.   Only 150 gallons of sap remain from the weekend collections.   One milk can is full of syrup and working on the second.

Nitre is again building up on the syrup pan, but we were able to keep the boil going.  Something is different with the sap this season.  Different proportions of minerals must be in the sap this season causing a different reaction to heat.

Down to 16 overnight.  We expected 25 overnight.  Warmed to 42 with the sun.  But not a big run today.  Collected 150 gallons.

Cooked all day starting at 7:15 AM and finished by 7:15 PM.  Five batches into the milk can.  But something changed with the sap.  After the third batch the pan starting getting a nitre build up.  This causes trouble with boiling because the nitre coats the pan and amplifies the heat causing the sap to boil over, even with a small fire under the pan.   You can not boil hard.    We clean the pan at the start of the day to prevent the nitre build up.  This has always worked.  We could boil 12-15 hours.    But after six hours today we got a nitre build up.  We stopped to clean the pan but that did not solve the nitre problem as it came right back.    It has to be something different in the sap, but what?  This could add a lot of time to boiling because we can not fire and boil hard.

Still over 300 gallons to cook tomorrow.

Collected 350 gallons of sap today.  It was about 25 last night.  Sunny and up to 38 during the day.  By 11:00 AM the trees were dripping.   Brought water to the woods.  Washed collecting and storage tanks.  The plan was to start collecting at 3:00 PM.  Help came.   After emptying the first buckets it was clear this was a nice run.   Even found several full pails.  And nice clear sap.

Tonight is 25 and tomorrow up to maybe 50 and sunny.  Should be another run.

Tomorrow we cook.  And hopefully collect again.