MapleAcres

Season 91 is over.  It turned out to be a great season.  We bottled 8 more quarts from the sap remaining in the evaporator.  That gives us 294 quarts, 73 ½ gallons total for the season.  This actually bests 2008’s crop by 2 quarts.   The week of March 23rd things did not look promising for a good season, but things turned around.  The season was never overwhelming.  Frequently there is a period of 3 or 4 days when we get 1200 gallons of sap.  Then we have long nights to process it all.  But this year all the sap runs were spaced out.  We collected 9 times and picked up 3000 gallons of sap.  So doing the math we get a ratio of about 41 gallons of sap for 1 gallon of finished maple syrup.

We were into the woods by 9:30 am to work on cleanup.  By 10:15 am the sap in the finishing pan was ready.  It helped that we let it boil the night before or it would have been much later in the day before it was ready.  

After bottling  we went into full scale cleanup mode.  The biggest task was to clean the evaporator pans, both inside and the bottom.  The inside cleaned pretty easy as we had it soaking in cleaning solution overnight.  But the bottom is always a chore.   The pan bottom is exposed to the wood fire.  It gets a thick layer of burnt on carbon.  We use oven cleaner, a putty knife for scrapping, and scotchbrite pads  for cleaning the final layers of black burnt on carbon.  It took a good 3 hours of work but in the end the bottom was a clean and shiny as the inside.

By 5:30 pm the evaporator was cleaned, along with the finishing and bottling pans. Ashes cleaned from the evaporator.   All the buckets and covers were stored for another year.  Only a few easy and less urgent task remained: washing the floor; cleaning the spouts, bringing the remaining syrup out of the woods.  

So ends season 91.  We are grateful for the help from family and friends and grateful for the good crop. 

Into the woods by 9:00 am to work on cleanup.  Took down the pipes from the storage tanks to the evaporator.  Cleaned the storage tanks.  Emptied the sap from the evaporator, there was only about 15 gallons left from yesterday, and put it in the finishing pan to boil down.  It takes longer to boil on the finishing pan because the LP gas is not as hot as a wood fire, but with such small amounts we don’t have a choice.    Got a tank of water.  Filled the evaporator with water and cleaning solution.  It has to sit for a day before we can really get it cleaned out.  The pans actually look pretty good and should clean up easily.    Picked up the remaining buckets and covers from the woods: they are all in the building now stored away until next season.  

All that remains for tomorrow is to clean the evaporator pans and finish boiling down the last sap.

Into the woods by 8:00 am.  Started the evaporator to finish boiling the sap in the storage tanks.   By 1:00 pm we took off a batch and the tanks were empty.  We bottled 10 quarts and now have 285 quarts,  71 gallons 1 quart.   We were running out of bottles and had to scramble to get some.  A week ago we did not think we would have this much syrup so we didn’t make plans for more bottles.  There is still a little more to finish so we don’t know the final total yet.  After bottling went took the tactor into the woods to start bringing in buckets and covers.    And took back from the woods over 15 gallons  of finished syrup.   By 5:30 pm we were done and then it started to rain.

Started taking off buckets and pulling spouts today.  Most are off already.  We take the buckets off, empty them and turn upside down to dry for a day before picking them up the next day.  Its bitter sweet to take down the buckets as it really means the end of the season.  No buckets and spouts, no sap.  There may even be a run again over the weekend as freezing nights return.  But have to move on to other things.  And this has been a good season.  We bottled 23 quarts today again.  We now have 275 quarts total and should end up with 71 or more gallons.  

We got a late start boiling today as we had to clean our syrup pan on the evaporator.  When the niter (sugar sand) builds up on the bottom of the pan it does not heat properly.  It takes about 2 hours to break down and clean, which seems like wasted time.  Except that without cleaning you putz around so long trying to get a good boil that this is faster.