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Maple Syrup Season 2016

Started by Chuck White, February 02, 2016, 05:00:37 PM

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Chuck White

Maple Syrup Season is fast approaching again.

We are all set to start tapping sometime soon, it looks like it will be before the end of the month.

All of our roads have been cleared and all lines have been checked and OK.

We have the evaporator all set in position, but none of the connections are done yet, that will only take an hour or so.

Looks like it might be a short season in this area, we hardly have any snow left, didn't have much to begin with!

Hope everyone has fun and has a good season.

~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

r.man

I have been wiring some new equipment in for a friend of mine with a fairly large setup. I think he has around 5 thousand taps and has just installed a slightly used pellet fired evaporator. It will be interesting to see this work, twin augers and burners with a nice hooded pan set up. Our season will probably not start for a month or so.
Life is too short or my list is too long, not sure which. Dec 2014

Chuck White

One of the "bigger" outfits here just installed a pellet fired evaporator.

Seems to me it would be an expensive outfit to run.

But it would make things a lot easier that firewood!
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

coxy

chuck are you talking about jims evaporator  that thing is huge  he says its cheaper in the long run than doing wood

Magicman

You sap guys fascinate me.  :)   :P
Knothole Sawmill, LLC     '98 Wood-Mizer LT40SuperHydraulic   WM Million BF Club Member   WM Pro Sawyer Network

It's Weird being the Same Age as Old People

Never allow your "need" to make money to exceed your "desire" to provide quality service.....The Magicman

r.man

Chuck this fellow had half as many taps and filled his wood large woodroom to the brim with hardwood firewood with more piled outside. He then got an R/O machine, increased the number of taps and dropped his wood consumption to 1/4 of what it had been. This is the first year for the pellet burner but it is older tech now and he has enough pellets tucked in one corner of his wood room to do the season and more if he produces up to 1 litre per tap, which he has yet to get in 10 years or so. After this season I will get him to run the numbers for hardwood compared to pellets in cost only. The convenience is an added bonus.
Life is too short or my list is too long, not sure which. Dec 2014

GAB

Quote from: Magicman on February 03, 2016, 08:41:07 AM
You sap guys fascinate me.  :)   :P

Lynn:
For you folks in the South Maple Syrup is a luxury.
For us in the northeast it is a commodity.
Now if you are talking grits or pecans, then it is the reverse.
Gerald
W-M LT40HDD34, SLR, JD 420, JD 950w/loader and Woods backhoe, V3507 Fransguard winch, Cordwood Saw, 18' flat bed trailer, and other toys.

GAB

Quote from: r.man on February 03, 2016, 01:36:23 PM
Chuck this fellow had half as many taps and filled his wood large woodroom to the brim with hardwood firewood with more piled outside. He then got an R/O machine, increased the number of taps and dropped his wood consumption to 1/4 of what it had been. This is the first year for the pellet burner but it is older tech now and he has enough pellets tucked in one corner of his wood room to do the season and more if he produces up to 1 litre per tap, which he has yet to get in 10 years or so. After this season I will get him to run the numbers for hardwood compared to pellets in cost only. The convenience is an added bonus.

r.man:
The old timers rule of thumb that I heard way back in the '50's (for some of us the good old days) was one quart of syrup per tap, in a good year, if you did not overtap the orchard.  Putting 2 taps in a 10 diameter tree is overtapping.
Another rule of thumb was; that it took two cords of good (high quality) dry hardwood to make a 31-1/4 gallon barrel of syrup, with sap that took 35 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup.  Today a barrel of syrup is either 40, 42, or 55 gallons.
As far as running numbers it is important to know what the Brix reading of the sap is entering the evaporator.
For example: divide the Brix reading into 86 and this will give you a very close approximation of the number of gallons of sap needed to produce a gallon of syrup.
Maple sap, fresh out of a tree can have a brix reading anywhere from less than 1 to over 4.
So a reading of 2 means 43 gallons to make a gallon of sweet gold.
A reading of 8 means approx. 11 gallons to make a gallon of sweet gold.
A reading of 12 means approx. 7 gallons to make a gallon of sweet gold.
By the way I put in 45 taps on Sunday and as of yesterday had gathered 44 gallons of sap with a brix reading of 2.65 +/- and it is running again today.
Gerald
W-M LT40HDD34, SLR, JD 420, JD 950w/loader and Woods backhoe, V3507 Fransguard winch, Cordwood Saw, 18' flat bed trailer, and other toys.

celliott

Well we were going to start tapping today, but.... freezing rain\sleet, high winds changed our minds. So we got all our new tapping drills set up (precision tapper on a dewalt 20v brushless)

I know a few guys here in VT have already got sap and made syrup. Is the season really starting? If so we are way behind. If not, drawbacks of making syrup now mean you have to keep your evaporator full, no guarantee you'll get more sap, RO's will need to be kept ready to go, and, stuff is going to freeze up and possibly break fittings etc. until the season really does start.
Who knows what the weather is gonna do. Been a crazy winter already.
Chris Elliott

Clark 666C cable skidder
Husqvarna and Jonsered pro saws
265rx clearing saw
Professional maple tubing installer and maple sugaring worker, part time logger

Chuck White

Quote from: coxy on February 03, 2016, 07:20:21 AM
chuck are you talking about Jims evaporator  that thing is huge  he says its cheaper in the long run than doing wood


Ya, talking about Jims setup, that thing looks like a train sitting there!   :o
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

coxy

could be wrong but I think he told me it will make 50gal of syrup an hour  :o :o

Chuck White

Gotta keep in mind that he has a huge RO setup and when the sap comes out of there and goes into the evaporator, it already has a good start to becoming syrup.

I wouldn't be surprised that once he's up and operating, and has drawn off, that from that point on, he'd get at least a barrel per hour!

Jim buys sap from lots of people from around the area, so counting those taps plus the taps that he has, he probably would have somewhere around 40-50K taps all together.
~Chuck~  Cooks Cat Claw sharpener and single tooth setter.  2018 Chevy Silverado and 2021 Subaru Ascent.
With basic mechanical skills and the ability to read you can maintain a Woodmizer  LT40!

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