It was -5 last night. We had 225 gallons of sap in the collecting tank. The challenge was to keep it liquid in the collecting tank, as it was pumped into the storage tank, and as it flowed through the pipes into the evaporator. If it froze at any point we were finished because we didn’t have the means to thaw it when its so cold. With a little planning we were able to prevent freezing.<\/p>\n
We put a tank heater in the collecting tank overnight. That kept it mostly ice free expect for a little on the top.<\/p>\n
We used warm water to prime the pump so it wouldn’t freeze. And we waited to prime the pump until we were ready to use it.<\/p>\n
Cold pipes can cause sap to freeze as moves through. We started a fire in the evaporator. Took apart the pipes and rested them in the steam raising from the evaporator. This warmed them enough to prevent the sap freezing as it moved through.<\/p>\n
It was cold all day expect between 2:30 and 4:30 when it hit 28. Tonight is cold again: its 5 already and may get colder.<\/p>\n
Into the woods by 7:30 AM. Back to the house by 6:50 PM. All tanks are empty. One milk can full of syrup. A second milk can about half full.<\/p>\n
We’ve had a busy start to this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was -5 last night. We had 225 gallons of sap in the collecting tank. The challenge was to keep it liquid in the collecting tank, as it was pumped into the storage tank, and as it flowed through the pipes into the evaporator. If it froze at any point we were finished because we […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-season-99"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":920,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions\/920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mapleacres.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}