Back at it in the sugarbush today.

Adirondack case guy

Well-known Member
The cold weather set in last week and froze everything up. Warmed up yesterday and sap started running again. We filled all our 2000gal of storage plus both 275gal gathering tanks by 4:00 this afternoon. We have made just under 200gals. of nice, what is now graded @ Grade A-Amber Color. Not sure I like the new gradeing system, but at least it is now standardized in the N East, and Canada.
The cousin fired the evaporators at 9:30. Pulled the first batch of syrup off the big evaporator at about 1:00. Batches run about 12-15 gals each. The smaller evaporator was lagging about an hr. behind, because the sap was deeper in the pans when it was shut down last. WE have some crappy wood to burn because after the corn harvest the uncles decided to cut a hedgrow between two fields to be cleared this spring. A lot of Basswood, which in my opinion only makes smoke.
I think this is going to be a short season. I may be done 10 days from now.
Loren
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I've been wondering about you, Loren. It's always amazing to me how different it is over your way. With the freezing and thawing we had last week I had assumed you were back at it. But with this weeks extreme warmth, I assumed you would be winding up. Apparently not.
 
Like the picture of the steam coming out of the sugar shack. Looks like a beatiful day there, was here in Mi.
 
Loren, I really like learning about your efforts, with great photos to boot! You mentioned an RO system before, we use one at work for purifying water. I assume for syrup it would move the water from the sap through the membranes and retain the thicker syrup behind? Then you cook it down even further. What amount of the water can be removed with an RO?
 
The syrup becomes pretty tastless if too much H20 is removed. Sap direct from the trees normally tests from 1-2.5% sugar. The guys using ROs like to leave 90% of the H20 in the sap before it goes into the evaporators. Some guys remove more and you can easily notice the lack of flavor and thickness in the finished product.
Loren
 
Can't believe it's that time of the year again. Seams like the pictures were just up a few months ago. Time fly's when you are having fun I guess.Stan
 
This is the guy across the road I was telling about a month ago.
Turns out he RO's AND boils.
Yesterday we had mid 70's temps., so he thinks this week might
wrap it up for this year, cuz the syrups getting darker.
Nice to see an ambitious young couple!
Clicky
 
Do you use all buckets or do you also have spots running tubing ? Here in Ohio at Malabar farms they ran a lot of tubing thru the woods and hooked all the trees up together. Saved a lot of gathering.
 

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