Maple syrup 2023

[pbillyi69]

do you all sell finishe product or just use it at home?

 

[Ryan Browne]

do you all sell finishe product or just use it at home?

I sell finished syrup, but we're uninspected, so I can only sell directly to consumers, not to a store or a restaurant. Gotta try to recoup some of my beverage expenditures. Still too cold for sap, but one way or the other, it's gonna be beers-in-the-woods time pretty quick here. Even if we're just standing around a fire talking about syrup!

 

[pbillyi69]

i would happily contribute to your beer fund for some homemade syrup

 

[pbillyi69]

i forgot to say that is quite the variety of beer. i like it.

 

[nbbt]

@Ryan Browne, I'd help crush some cans again. That is if, I'm recuperated enuf to walk the path.

 

[Ryan Browne]

@Ryan Browne, I'd help crush some cans again. That is if, I'm recuperated enuf to walk the path.

We'd love to have you, Ken. Hopefully we've got a window of at least a few weeks coming up.

 

[Ryan Browne]

Finally warmed up enough yesterday to get some sap flowing. Mainlines were full of ice and took a while to thaw out, but started running good by 1:30-2. Ran all night and it'll probably keep going until it freezes up tonight. I'm not planning to cook anything until Tuesday when it warms up again. Not worth fighting frozen plumbing and valves, plus we still have some work to do before the RO and evaporator are ready to go.

Obligatory picture of a full bulk tank.
By the end of the day we should have about 1500 gallons of sap from this woods. Might be another 2000+ getting delivered by Tuesday, so the first day of cooking could be a big day.

 

[pbillyi69]

right on that's very cool

 

[Ryan Browne]

Making progress. Got the membrane installed in my RO this morning. Never done that before, so that was cool. Then we got the RO mostly plumbed in. It's kinda ridiculous how many things get hooked up to it when you consider intake and output. I'd draw a diagram, but every time I've tried I get confused. Gotta take it one piece at a time. Gonna finish that tomorrow and put the front pan back on the evaporator.

Wire in the RO Monday and hope to cook Tuesday, though with the overnight low tonight being 5 degrees, I'm not sure how liquid our sap will be...

This tank was full right to the brim, looks like it got a layer of ice on top which displaced some sap and made a sap octopus.

 

[Ryan Browne]

Whew, beena busy couple of days.

Got the evaporator put back together and cleaned up. Finished plumbing the RO and got it wired up. Trucked down a few hundred gallons of well water to rinse it before we put it to use. Good timing because the sap started running Tuesday afternoon, and I was about out of room for it. So, we started concentrating sap Tuesday after lunch and got the evaporator going at about 3:00. We filled it with raw sap (not concentrate) because we didn't want the whole thing to turn to syrup all at once. We're still pretty new to this whole RO gig after all.

Cooked for about 3 hours. Went through about 1400 gallons of sap, which was super awesome! Compared to my last RO this one is incredible. It emptied our 700 gallon tank in just over an hour! Since it was the first time cooking we only made about 9 gallons of syrup, all in the last 45 minutes. The rest of the sugar is still in the pans. When we fire up with @nbbt tomorrow, hopefully it'll start drawing off syrup much quicker and spit out quite a bit. Got about 1700 gallons of sap on deck for tomorrow.

Still working on tidying up down there. Got some puddles and beer cans laying around, but with any luck I'll get it cleaned up enough for some action shots tomorrow.

 

[nbbt]

What's up with this, a dude doing plumbing type of work, no showing ass crack, and the carefully planted shirttail to cover the crevis.

Hi Ryan..

 

[Ryan Browne]

What's up with this, a dude doing plumbing type of work, no showing assView attachment 371287 crack, and the carefully planted shirttail to cover the crevis.

Hi Ryan..

I'm working with tri-clamp dairy fittings in this picture, so no crack required. When I start messing with NPT or PVC I unhook my suspenders as per union bylaws.

 

[nbbt]

From Thursdays cook-off.

 

[beaglebriar]

My little 25 tap 3/16" gravity setup has been in about 3 weeks this season. About 2 gallons of finished product and running steady. Been a good year so far. I'm not far from @beaglebriar so he must be doing well also.

I never tapped this year, was too busy getting the shop functional. I talk with guys at work that say it's been a very good year.
We have some real nice trees here at the new property so I'm hoping to have everything ready for next year. Actually with the price of hard maple timber I'm going to be extra selective on the trees I tap. We should be able to put together 25-50 taps wich will be plenty for us and family/friends.

 

[Hundred Acre Wood]

I never tapped this year, was too busy getting the shop functional. I talk with guys at work that say it's been a very good year.
We have some real nice trees here at the new property so I'm hoping to have everything ready for next year. Actually with the price of hard maple timber I'm going to be extra selective on the trees I tap. We should be able to put together 25-50 taps wich will be plenty for us and family/friends.

Good to get settled into the new shop, but that's too bad you couldn't get any taps in this year. Best year I've had in over 30 years. Just over 5 gallons of syrup from just 25 taps. I'm not sure I'll live to see another year this good.

Hopefully you get some in next year!