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Started by Sawyerfortyish, February 24, 2004, 06:49:57 PM

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Sawyerfortyish

Just picked up a maple syrup evaporator  8). Always wanted one since I was a kid. Dad taped some trees for us kids and Mom would cook it and cook it and cook it on her stove until she ran out of propane or we got a little tea cup full of syrup. The evaporator I just bought runs on fuel oil and cooks off about 80 gal an hour of sap. It's 4x10' made by leader maple products co in VT. I bought every thing from the 1000 gal holding tanks to the buckets and pipe lines that go to the trees. Just won't be able to use it this year  :'(as the season is already here and It will take some time to set up the firebox and pans  :( in a building. Anybody else do maple syrup ?

dail_h

World Champion Wildcat Sorter,1999 2002 2004 2005
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Corley5

We used to tap about 400 trees.  Used all tubing the last few years but still boiled it off in flat plans over wood fires.  We've still got all the stuff and are about out of syrup.  Gonna have to run a little bit some season when Zach's old enough to appreciate it.  Depending on the season we made between 60 and 120 gallons.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Frickman

We're cooking syrup as I write this. We used to use individual buckets, but now have the tubes running to a tank. Our evaporator is stainless steel with partitions. The tank is hooked up to the evaporater, and a manual valve controls how fast the sap moves through. It comes out the other side almost done. We fire the evaporator with wood. Pine seems to work best. We finish the syrup off inside over a gas stove, using a candy thermometer to watch the temp. You bring it up to a certain temp. and then it's done. Any hotter and you will burn the sugar in the syrup. Making syrup is sort of a hobby for us, we make 8 or 10 gallons a year for our own use and giving as gifts. There's nothing better than standing in the sugar shack breathing in that maple smell. Well, maybe pouring fresh syrup over a bowl of homemade vanilla ice cream.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

LSUNo1

I love it. But Mr. Atkins says unh unh... :(

Sawyerfortyish

Frickman I bought this evaporator off of a nieghbor that hasn't used it for about 2 yrs and like you say it has a float valve for controlling the amount of sap being gravity fed to the evaporator. Then the sap goes to a flu pan then to a second pan with the partitions until it gets to the drawoff where a dial guage reads the syrup in degrees then you draw it off and put it in a small third tank where it gets tested with a hygrometer. (I think thats what they called it)When it's done you open the valve and bottle it. I helped make syrup about 3 yrs ago but still have a lot to learn. I know it's a lot of work but if you enjoy what you do then it's not so bad and the rewards are sweet ;)

Bro. Noble

Those pans with partitions sound like sorghum pans.  As the cane juice is allowed to flow from one part of the pan to the next, it is continuously skimmed.  Could you use the same equipment (with the addition of a sorhgum mill)  to make molasses?  
milking and logging and sawing and milking

EZ

Maple syrup is the greatest, we had some the other morning.
EZ

Norm

I love maple syrup, no not the stuff you buy in the store but the real kind like you folks are talking about.

Anyone sell it? If so send me a message, I'd like to buy a few gallons for my own personal stash. ;D

breederman


ain't nothin better than good maple syrup! I too remember mom boiling it on th kitchen stove untill one year she steamed all the wall paper off! We just buy a gallon when we need it,it's eaiser than staying up half the night boiling sap,but not near so much fun! :)
Together we got this !

Lanny

Sawyer 40,     good to see that someone else has been bitten by the maple syrup bug. It's a close relative of the sawdust bug, it also has no known cure. When the temps start rising in the spring it's time to put the sawmill away and start making that delicous maple syrup. I have been tapping
300-400 taps for the last few years. This am doing 500 most on tubing with vacum.  I see that you are from out east.there is a great forum for maple sugarers.
    
         http://www.mapletrader.com

Frickman

Sawyer40,
That sounds a little more complicated than our evaporater, but works on the same principle. We had ours special made for our setup. It's about 4 feet by 4 feet, and just has an inlet nipple, partitions, and an outlet. It was sized to set on top of a 250 gallon oil tank that lays on it's side. We have a valve on the storage tank outlet that we use to control the feed, and a valve on the outlet to drain the syrup. You have to keep an eye on things, as there is no automatic float or valve on either end. The sap comes into the evaporater pan and zigs back and forth to the outlet side. We drain the syrup into a 5 gallon stainless bucket, and take it inside to finish on a gas stove. We run it through a cloth filter then and its ready to bottle.

My involvement in the operation is just providing firewood and some occasional labor. I have a retired uncle close by that enjoys coming over to make syrup, so I just try to stay out of the way. He was bottling up the first run this afternoon, so maybe I'll get a sample tonight.

I never seen one of those sorghum pans, but sounds like they sound like about the same thing. I've tried that sorghum though, and I'll stick to the maple syrup when I can.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Sawyerfortyish

Thanks Lanny I wish someone had told me about that site a long time ago :o Wow. I didn't think there was a site for syrup producers. 8)

Corley5

Those sites are  8) 8).  Lotsa good stuff.  I've been thinking a little about a small evaporator and the prices aren't too bad on them hmmmm......
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

etat

I too wouldn't mind a taste of fresh maple syrup.  Never had any fresh from the tree, so to speak. If anybody's got or gets any to sell let me know.  :)
Old Age and Treachery will outperform Youth and Inexperence. The thing is, getting older is starting to be painful.

Mark M

Well if anyone has any pancakes and maple syrup that needs to be et I'll be glad to do my fair share!

Sawyerfortyish

Corley nothing like the smell of syrup cooking cept like Lanny said the smell of fresh sawdust. I'm Addicted ;)

Frickman

Had some fresh maple syrup, still warm from finishing, over homemade waffles this evening. MMGood!
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Corley5

Mom used it for all kinds of stuff.  Pecan pie made with maple syrup rocks 8) ;D ;D ;D  Apple pie made with it can't be beat.  My favorite is butter pecan ice cream with maple syrup.  I'm gonna have get a quart from Dad tomorrow and see how much is left.  Might have to make some next year.  The snows so D$#*! deep this year that'd it'd be a real project.
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

Captain

I was fortunate when growing up to have a gentleman in the neighborhood with a homemade arch.  His name was Wayne Spaulding, and he owned the local hardware store and was also an installer of heating equipment.  He had a complete sheetmetal shop.  He was not a large man, maybe 5 foot 5 and about 130 pounds.  He was a very hard worker and typical Vermont "Swamp Yankee" that loved the outdoors and his garden.  Another vivid memory is that he rolled his own tobacco into cigarettes, although he never smoked around us kids.

His "sugar shack" was in the backyard at this residence.  They (Wayne and his sons) had some tanks in the back of the company pickups for sugar season and would go around collecting daily when the sap was running.  They only used buckets in those days, the kind with the little roof that slid over the top to keep the rain out.  They tapped a lot of trees in residential areas, and therefore collection was pretty easy compared to trudging into the woods with a sleigh and snowshoes to get the precious sap.  Most days, Wayne would start boiling at about noon, and his sons would collect sap after the store closed in the evening.  

I had an afternoon paper route after school in those days, and Wayne was early in the route.  I would hand deliver the paper into the sugar shack to check in on him, I remember walking on the boards put down to keep you out of the muddy path. Later,  I would then return after the route with most of the other neighborhood kids filtering in and out of the sugar shack for a drink of todays product from the ladle cooling in the snowbank.  After work and supper hours the adults in the neighborhood would begin filtering in for the same. I spent many hours there with my father as the Spaulding family was very close to my family growing up.  My father and Wayne's oldest son were and are today very good friends.  My father usually came under the guise of finding me to bring me home, but he had as much fun as I there.

Wayne was a great man whom I learned a lot from, especially in those years with the paper route as I saw him nearly every day and on Friday nights when I would go around to collect the money for the week.  He passed away when I was in high school after a brief illness.  Geez, I can just smell the sugar shack now....thanks for the memories!!


Corley5

Thanks for sharing those memories Captain 8) 8)
Burnt Gunpowder is the Smell Of Freedom

isawlogs

Am I glad to hear the sap is running somewhere that means SPRING is just around the corner hear....We tap 500 to 600 mapples 450 are on lines and the rest is done with buckets .We could tap over a thousand but that would make a hobby to my dad a full time job  ;D
 He's busy now making a new stove Since I live closer to the city I'm on call for parts  ;D ;D  A peice of steel here some stainless to go there ... He's making it with a 200 gallon oil tank that we cut in two on the narow side and put an older forged steel liner off of a preveusly dicarded furnace for the fire box and is wrapping the stove with a sheet of steel so that there will be a 2 1/2 inch gap that we will fill with sand to act as thermal heat...I'm taking pics of this but I have yet decided on what dig camera to buy , I'm taking them with the cannon and will take pic of pics when I get the digital  
 If any of you want some I can cut you one he77 of a good deal if your a Forestry Forum member on 2004 fresh  Québec made maple syrup ...if you come and get it .... ;) Thats if the sap ever runs hear this year ..
A man does not always grow wise as he grows old , but he always grows old as he grows wise .

   Marcel

SwampDonkey

Those oil burner evaporators sound similar to my cousins setup. He invested in a centrifuge which removes alot of the water before you start boiling it off. I think it came from Quebec, Maple production is a big business up their way. My cousin will be starting in a couple weeks, its still only in the 20's here. He makes his living at maple syrup and Christmas tree farming. Although I sometimes wonder how. He makes syrop, maple butter and candies. Father loves the stuff but he's diabetic, so he has to watch himself.

I used to boil maple syrop years ago with grandfather. We might have tapped 100 trees and it was all cans and spiles then. Won't be no veneer in that stand, turns it all black when you tap holes in'm. We usd to boil it down over an open bomb fire and a 45 gallon drum with the side cut out of it and suspended above the fire. He used to give most of it away to folks coming hunting and fishing, some for Christmas to.

My uncle tapped one spring and he left a big fire under the pot and went home. When he returned his woodpile for the fire was burnt up because a stick of wood rolled out of the fire and rolled down next to the wood pile. That was the end of his syrop frolic that year and he never done it again. He figured it was to much work and since he's the laid back type to begin with, it didn't take much to decide it wasn't what he wanted to get into.   :) :D ;D :D :)

I'm not much for syrop myself, even though it tastes good. And I don't eat many pancakes or biscuits, which I both like also, but prefer not to eat. Nothing difficult about making them though and that's what I'de use my maple syrop on. :)
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Frickman

Isn't something how all you have to do is start cooking syrup and soon all the neighbors are gathered around? That smell must travel for miles, when you look at the number of people you can attract. Sure makes for some good times though.
If you're not broke down once in a while, you're not working hard enough

I'm not a hillbilly. I'm an "Appalachian American"

Retired  Conventional hand-felling logging operation with cable skidder and forwarder, Frick 01 handset sawmill

Pretend farmer when I have the time

Sawyerfortyish

Frickman thats kind of how I got hooked into making syrup. Just went to the nieghbors to see how it was done. Now I'm not the type to stand and watch so the next thing I find myself helping collect sap and boiling. Now three years later I bought the whole setup. After busting my hump doing firewood all winter It's time for a change and have some fun. :)

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