Maple Syrup!

[Chuck White]

We got some decent weather over the last couple of days and got all of our sap lines back-flushed, so we're done except for refilling the woodshed.

The firewood is mostly all cut, just needs to be split and hauled to the woodshed and stacked!

[coxy]

you quit its still running  ;D the 2 hard maple I cut today it was pouring out of  must have been cause of the cold snap over the last 2 weeks   how much did you end up with chuck

[Chuck White]

Still running here also, but the buds are popping out and the sap doesn't taste or smell good anymore.

[celliott]

The weather here looks good next week, but no freeze this weekend and 60 degrees, thinking the sap is gonna turn and we'll just quit. Dark robust today, still good flavor but it'll probably go fast.
We mixed up washing solution today. Boss said Monday we'll probably pull taps. Its giving a strong final run though! Running hard today!

[Corley5]

We were going to be done but stuck it out until the end  ;D   We collected 70 gallons yesterday and again today.  The first runs we've had in a while.  The sap is still good and the syrup has good flavor and color but this is the end for sure.  Supposed to have highs close to 70 and not freeze for a while and maybe warmer next week.  The buds are starting to get some color now too.  We're gonna pull the taps and buckets Saturday.  It's been fun.  Looking forward to next year  8) 8) 8)   

[Gearbox]

My brother quit today was clear sap this morning turned as it warmed up . still running good but road tar syrup .

[Chuck White]

We got the woodshed about 1/3 full yesterday, might be close to full by this afternoon!

[brewdog]

what price on bulk syrup.

[celliott]

I think right now it's 2.20/lb table grade, 1.60/lb maybe? For very dark.

Still running hard today. Freeze up tonight too, on orris might be the last big push, don't know if the trees will hold out past Sunday.
Broke the 15,000 gallon mark today. Another 1000 and we'll be at 1/2 gallon per tap.

Got some troublesome squirrels. Chewed a big hole in a 3/4" mainline yesterday. Fixed that. Today, we fin another big hole. Gotta be some hungry squirrels to be gnawing holes like that in mainlines!

[cbla]

I think right now it's 2.20/lb table grade, 1.60/lb maybe? For very dark.

Still running hard today. Freeze up tonight too, on orris might be the last big push, don't know if the trees will hold out past Sunday.
Broke the 15,000 gallon mark today. Another 1000 and we'll be at 1/2 gallon per tap.

Got some troublesome squirrels. Chewed a big hole in a 3/4" mainline yesterday. Fixed that. Today, we fin another big hole. Gotta be some hungry squirrels to be gnawing holes like that in mainlines!

They must really like Maple Sap :D

[Hackermatack]

Got some troublesome squirrels. Chewed a big hole in a 3/4" mainline yesterday. Fixed that. Today, we fin another big hole. Gotta be some hungry squirrels to be gnawing holes like that in mainlines!

They must really like Maple Sap :D

I have found that if you shoot a few of them the problem goes away. I know that shooting 3 or 4 does not make a dent in the population but I wonder if it encourages them to move out of the area and find a new food source. We had a kid helping pull taps last year and he did not plug the spouts into the plug on the tee. Every one that he left dangling got chewed, cheap help proved to be very expensive.

[celliott]

Whew well we are finally DONE. Sap ran again today but we gathered up everything from yesterday and washed all the tanks, opened the drains and shut the vacuum pumps off. Sap was getting pretty gross, syrup was commercial grade. Thought we would pull the plug earlier but the boss wanted to keep going.
We finished up with just shy of 17,000 gallons. Made over 1/2 gallon of syrup per tap, best production ever here. Conditions just were perfect for our area.
Now we'll pull spouts, wash tubing, get ready for the open house sale (10% off equipment, etc.) along with all the people bringing their syrup crops in for us to buy. We handle a lot of syrup as well, ship it for smaller producers.

What a season!

[Chuck White]

Congratulations on your production Chris!

1/2 gallon per tap is almost unheard of!   

[Stephen1]

Sounds like the perfect season. How many taps do you have there? Sounds like quite the operation. We are busy playing with 300 taps. Our 2nd year on a vacuum. We doubled our syrup from the best year, and the bad part was we burned next year's firewood, and we trolled the bush for dead uprights with no bark. But it was great year for all!
We were surprised by the amount the SAP would flow without a cold nite. We pulled SAP for 2-3 days after a freezing nite, and then rain for 2 days.
Did anyone else notice funny SAP runs?

[celliott]

Congratulations on your production Chris!

1/2 gallon per tap is almost unheard of!   

Thanks Chuck!
It really is uncommon in the northern part of Vermont. We are sometimes pulling spouts in snowshoes because the trees are budded already. We stay buried in snow and too cold so we don't get big sap runs but this year was a perfect storm and just exceptional in our area.

The people I work for have been sugaring for a long time. This is the first time ever they have made 1\2 gallon per tap production. I think most ever syrup was 17,000+, but that was boiling from over 40,000 taps.

Sounds like the perfect season. How many taps do you have there? Sounds like quite the operation. We are busy playing with 300 taps. Our 2nd year on a vacuum. We doubled our syrup from the best year, and the bad part was we burned next year's firewood, and we trolled the bush for dead uprights with no bark. But it was great year for all!
We were surprised by the amount the SAP would flow without a cold nite. We pulled SAP for 2-3 days after a freezing nite, and then rain for 2 days.
Did anyone else notice funny SAP runs?

We have approximately 24,000 of our own trees. Funny enough, only 2,000ish are on the owners land. All the rest is leased and trucked in. We also bought sap all season from an 8,000 tap operation. That's give or take a few here and there but we boiled from about 32,000 this year.

There was alot of people here who were scrambling for wood for their arch, or already burned through next years wood and had to quit early because they ran out!
And, that is the beauty of a vacuum system, you will get a continuous run through the night if it doesn't freeze, and the marginal days you still get decent production.
We did have some huge sap runs this year, which was cool.

You smaller producers, if you're looking to get into a vacuum system, maybe check out a sap puller. It's a diaphragm type pump, runs off 12v electric, and requires no releaser or special equipment. Mount it right above your tank. If you keep up on your leaks and maintain a tight system, they will do 26-27" vacuum. Alot more affordable than a vacuum pump, releaser, moisture trap, etc. etc.
They come in smaller sizes, up to 500 tap, 1200 tap, and maybe to 2000 tap capabilities.

[Chuck White]

Sounds like the perfect season. How many taps do you have there? Sounds like quite the operation. We are busy playing with 300 taps. Our 2nd year on a vacuum. We doubled our syrup from the best year, and the bad part was we burned next year's firewood, and we trolled the bush for dead uprights with no bark. But it was great year for all!
We were surprised by the amount the SAP would flow without a cold nite. We pulled SAP for 2-3 days after a freezing nite, and then rain for 2 days.
Did anyone else notice funny SAP runs?

Lots of people in this area ran completely out of firewood!

We pulled taps "just" before running out of firewood, had maybe 1/2 days wood left.

A couple of days ago we filled the woodshed for next year.  Shouldn't need so much wood next year, looks like we're going with a "reverse osmosis" (RO) rig!  That will be different.

[celliott]

An RO will definitely help with burning less firewood. You'll be be able to boil faster and avoid some of the late night boils.
I don't know of anybody who has gone to reverse osmosis and regretted the decision.

[Magicman]

reverse osmosis

How about a brief overview for those of us that don't know sugaring.

[GAB]

reverse osmosis

How about a brief overview for those of us that don't know sugaring.

Lynn:
An RO is a piece of equipment that removes some of the water out of the sap.
In other wards it increases the sugar content of the sap by removing water.
If your Brix sap hydrometer reading is 2.0 then it takes 43 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup (you need to boil off 42 gallons of water).  If using an RO you raise the Brix reading to 12 then you only have to boil off ~6.2 gallons of water to make a gallon of syrup.
Recently I heard that some Sugarmakers are removing so much water out of the sap prior to boiling that the syrup can not be used in the production of maple candy as it will not set properly.  I'm hoping some one else who has more knowledge than I can speak on this concern.
Gerald

[r.man]

An R/O machine uses a membrane and a pump to remove pure water from the sap by filtering instead of boiling. The sap volume can be lowered by two thirds to three quarters by R/O resulting in huge time and fuel savings.

[Hackermatack]

Reverse osmosis has been used for quite a while to purify water. When adapted to sap the sugar and minerals is the impurity that is being removed. The water that we throw away is about as pure and clean as you can get, I have heard of some enterprising sugar makers bottling it and selling it. We have trouble with frozen water pipes early in the season so next year we are planning to modify the plumbing to use the water from the RO. Presently we only use a small portion of it to rinse & wash the RO machine itself.

[Chuck White]

The R.O. takes raw (freshly gathered) sap and separates the water (permeate) and sugar concentrate.

The permeate goes through the membrane (filter) and into a holding tank and the concentrate (sweet sap) cannot go through the membrane, and goes into a separate holding tank.

If you have a 250 GPH RO, when you get all of the sap ran through it, you then have to back-flush (clean) the membrane with a minimum of 250 gallons of the permeate water.

Note:  The permeate water is pure water (nothing in it) and is also a byproduct called Maple Water which is the new thing in bottled water and is quite pricey!

Sending the sap through the RO cuts the volume of what needs to be boiled, in half, so therefore boiling time will be a lot less than normal, so your production rate goes up.

I think that's about it!

[jrose1970]

Hey!
  Do you think it would be possible to do RO on a small scale to save time?
Thanks!

[celliott]

Hey!
  Do you think it would be possible to do RO on a small scale to save time?
Thanks!

Certainly. There are hobby sized units made, slightly larger, whatever you have for a taps count, they probably make an RO that will work.

[Hackermatack]

Hey!
  Do you think it would be possible to do RO on a small scale to save time?
Thanks!

Before my son bought his RO I did quite a bit of online research and found that a few hobby size sugar makers put together their own RO machines from home water purification equipment. I don't know how well they work but I am sure if you do some google searches you can come up with the same information that I found. Small used units often come on the market as most people buy just what they need for the taps they have then add more taps.