MapleAcres

We bottled our first syrup of the season today. About 4 gallons. We had a problem with our filter press. It was not pumping through syrup properly. We had to get it fixed because it was really unusable the way it was. It turned out to be very easy. We took it apart and found the stop value clogged up. Looks like an old filter got sucked into it. We noticed problems toward the end of last season too so it was probably the same thing. It should work properly now.

No collecting today. It was very warm, over 50. By Thursday it gets closer to normal again.

We collected 440 gallons of sap today. That is the most for a first collecting that we can recall. It was down to about 26 last night and today was sunny and about 43. You get warm real fast when working in the woods. The snow has settled some, but its still difficult carrying two full 5 gallon pails. It makes you tired and hot. Monday and Tuesday are forecast to be warmer, into the high 40s or low 50s. Later in the weeks it cools down to the upper 30s again.

We started the evaporator too. Early indications are that switching the order of the pans makes a big difference. It looks like we will be able to boil about 30 gallons/hour, up from 20 gallons/hour. This will save us time and fuel wood. We had the entire flue pan at a rolling boil which we have not seen before.

All the tapping is done. 400 total taps, give or take a few. We always seem to loose exact count. This afternoon we worked on getting the building ready. We had to get new piping as we changed the order of the pans on the evaporator. Now the  “V” bottom pan is in the back of the evaporator and the syrup pan in the front. Our hope is that we can increase the boiling capacity as the greater surface area of the V bottom is in the greatest heat of the wood fire. We had been getting about 20 gallons per hour, which takes about 10 hours to boil down 200 gallons of sap. Any increase in boiling efficiency will help. With the change in order of the pans we had to change the pipe that supplies sap. Tomorrow we will have to collect. We could have collected today. Some buckets are already half full.

Tapped 190 more today. 330 total so far. Tomorrow we want to finish up with 70 more taps giving us 400. The sap was running pretty good today. It was sunny and about 42. If we had braved the cold of Tuesday and Wednesday and had all our taps out, we would have had sap to collect today. But maybe tomorrow we will need to collect. We are getting a little light rain now, but tonight its supposed to go down to 30 or 29. And back up to the 40s tomorrow. We are expecting the sap to run. We still have to get the evaporator setup.

We got 140 taps out today. It was clear and sunny with a high of about 33. Last night was cold again, about 0. But tomorrow and over the weekend the weather changes. Up to the 40s during the day. A lot of snow will melt. Since the weather is about to warm, we want to have the taps out and ready for sap. So we set out this afternoon to tap. With the power tapper its really fast to drill the holes in the trees. The person with the drill can get far, far ahead of the team putting in the spout and hanging the bucket. The sap was running today. After the hole was drilled the sap started dripping out. The sun is warm so its not surprising the sap is running. The snow is very deep in places in the woods. On the level its 13″, but in places is over the knee. This will make collecting harder. The forecast for the next week is days in the 40s with maybe even a day in the 50s. That’s sap weather as long as it freezes at at night.

It was down to zero (0) again overnight. But the day broke with bright sunshine that created shining diamonds on the snow. We finished washing the last of the buckets: about 90. And then we setup our new tapper. For 89 years we used a hand auger to drill the tap holes. This year we got a gas powered tapper. It has small 2-cycle engine, like a chain saw. Its geared down so it does not spin too fast which would burn the wood while drilling the hole. We practiced on a few stumps to get the feel of using it. We hope to start tapping tomorrow. The weather forecast says the weather will break starting Friday and going into next week. We want to be ready.

It seems more like January 6th than March 6th. It was 10 below zero last night (-10). We had two inches of snow today. There is more snow in the woods and all over then I have seen in past 15 years. We have not done much in the woods yet. The weather forecasters said we are having a backwards Winter. December and January were mild, while February, and so far March, have had lots of cold weather and snow. It will change. In a month from now the snow will be gone and the Spring flowers thinking about coming out.

Its off to the sugar bush in Wisconsin to begin our 89th year making maple syrup. Its still cold now, but by the end of the week the weather is supposed to break. Its time to tap. This winter was similar to last: warm in January but turned wintry in February with many days below 0. So we wait to see what mother nature brings us this year.

Finished cooking and bottling all the syrup. 72 gallons total for the season. In 2005 we made 50 gallons. An average year is 60 gallons. We collected 3100 gallons of sap giving us a ratio 43:1. All the cleanup remains yet.

By the end of the season everything is sticky. Sap or syrup gets spilled on the floor. The steam swells door and window frames. Gloves get syrup on them. Of course we clean things as we go along but it still seems to accumulate.

All the taps are pulled and all the buckets are back in the building. All the sap is out of the evaporator and into milk cans. We will finish cooking it on the gas burner now because we can not control the heat on the wood fired evaporator. We have filled the evaporator with water and cleaning solution to let it soak for a few days.