MapleAcres

Still working on that 600 and 450 gallon run. It takes a lot to boil through over 1000 gallons of sap. There is still about 200 gallons left to boil. Did not collect today, but maybe will collect tomorrow. And that might be the last time to collect. Even if the sap continues to run, we are getting tired. Its been a good season and we will exceed our production goal of 60 gallons.

Bottled 18 quarts so far today and there will be another batch of 10 or so quarts for the day. Our total now is 222 quarts, 55 1/2 gallons.

Another big sap run. Today we collected 450 gallons of sap. All the storage tanks are full again. Over the past three days we collected over 1000 gallons of sap. I noted a few days earlier on this web log that we usually get a few days of big runs and it held true this year. With this run we should go over our 60 gallon goal for finished syrup. We have about 50 gallons now, with a lot of sap in the evaporator and in the storage tanks. 50 gallons was our total of finished syrup for last season, so we will exceed that. 12 quarts were bottled today.

We have had to filter our syrup twice. Not sure why, but with only one pass through the pressure filter the syrup is not sparkling clear. Its a bit more work to filter twice, but the results are worth it.

It looks like we will loose our freezing nights this week which will bring a halt to the season.

A long day cooking sap. Boiled through about 370 gallons from that 600 picked up yesterday. About 230 left to finish, but that will wait until tomorrow. It takes a lot of wood to keep the evaporator going. We use mostly the limb wood which burns hot, but fast so we are firing up every fifteen minutes or so. No sap today as it was cloudy, rainy, snowy, sunny, cloudy, windy and generally a March day with a lot of different weather. But we need a day or so here to get caught up so its OK there was no new sap. Bottled 22 quarts and 1 pint for the day.

Collected 600 gallons of sap today. A very big run! All the storage tanks are full right now. Quite a few buckets were running over. We don’t expect sap tomorrow, which is good because it will take a while to boil this down. With this run, the season could be coming to a close soon. If we look at the numbers, our production goal is 60 gallons. Well, when we have boiled down all this sap we would have about 57 gallons. So unless we have an above normal season, we will be coming close to the end of the season.

Bottled 13 quarts, 1 pint today. Total finished syrup is now 168 quarts, 42 gallons.

As noted yesterday, we collected 300 gallons of sap. We also bottled 21 quarts of finished syrup. Stayed in the woods until about 7:30 cooking. Back today to finish up. Emptied the storage tanks by 4:30 pm. And bottled another 21 quarts. This gives us 156 quarts (39 gallons) of finished syrup total for the season so far. If we take a “normal” season as 60 gallons of finished syrup, we are now about 2/3 of the way to our production goal. We expect to collect tomorrow again.

Collected 300 gallons of sap today. It was a cloudy day, but the temperature was up to the mid-30’s so the trees were dripping. Had help come over by 1:00 pm to start collecting. There was some ice in the buckets because it was cold last night. There will be another batch of syrup to finish tonight. Not sure on the amount yet. The next few days are also forecast to be cloudy, but freezing at night and mid-30’s during the day. We expect the sap will flow.

Collected 270 gallons of sap today. It tested 3 on the Brix scale for sugar content. It was little cold over night, but it warmed up enough to run. The next few days are forecast to have freezing nights and warm days so we should get more sap yet. Bottled about 15 quarts today. That puts us over 100 quarts (25 gallons.) We kind of expect one or two major runs yet. We typically have a run where were get 500 gallons to 600 gallons over two days followed by a few more 200 gallon days. We’ll see what happens.

Got an unexpected run of sap. There was a cold north wind and no sun, but the trees ran well yesterday. Ended up collecting 400 gallons of sap. Sunny days, freezing night? Well, its March and the trees do what they want. Boiled until 9:00 pm last night. Then back over at 3:30 am to boil more and hopefully finish off the batch. Its forecast to get down to 10 degrees tonight so the sap will freeze if left in the tank. Bottled 24 quarts just today for a total of about 90 quarts, 22 1/2 gallons of finished syrup now.

Getting some snow flurries now. We had thunder over an open woods last week so this is expected. Its been a bit too cold this week for sap so its been a quiet week. Over the weekend its forecast to warm up a bit. We are experimenting with plastic jugs for syrup this year. Sometimes people want syrup, but they are concerned about the glass bottle breaking. A broken bottle of syrup is a very sticky mess so this could be a good alternative.

Waiting for the weather to change now. It did get colder which is good. We need freezing nights and sunny days. But its too cold right now; still below freezing. March is such an unpredictable month for weather. Later in the week its forecast to get sunny days and freezing nights.