Today started with building a "sap sucker". This consists of the bottom of a plastic barrel cut off about 12" high, a bilge pump, sump pump switch and a (new) toilet float. The idea is that since it is sometimes hard to pour a full bucket of sap into a relatively small opening in the tank you pour the bucket into the sap sucker and the bilge pump does the work.
Overall it works really well. There are times it would be nice to have a little faster pump, but we can't complain since it only cost $5 for the pump and less than $20 for the whole thing. Maybe later we can find a larger pump clearance.
After finishing the sap sucker I headed out to collect with Tucker and Austin while Michael and Bob stayed to watch the evaporator. We went around on the property and hadn't done that many on the neighbors when we realized the tank was almost full. So we headed back to dump the first load of the day.
Austin wanted to stay at the house so Tucker and I went for the next load. Due to the mud we had decided to re-route part of our access to the adjacent property so we spent a few minutes cutting small trees out of the fence row. That made the access a lot better since we don't have to drive in the field. We had 15 or 20 trees still to do when Michael called to ask if I was ready for lunch. I turned around to look at the tank and see how much room we had just in time to notice it was almost full. Just as I told him that the last bucket was pumped in and it started running over. We decided that meant it was a good time to take a lunch break.
After lunch we had about two gallons ready to finish...our first syrup of the year.
I went back to get the last few by myself, and was driving along the edge of the woods when I noticed movement. It was a deer making her way through fairly quickly, so I stopped to see what she would do. She stopped about 30' away for a minute, looking to see what I was going to do, before she continued on her way.
That load ended up around 70 gallons so I headed back in. It was getting a little windy, and I noticed that some of the bags we had emptied the last trip already had a couple of inches of sap in them. The forecast was for cold temperatures so I was a little worried about sap freezing in the bags. We had that happen a couple of years ago when they were almost full and it took several days for the bags to thaw enough that we could empty them.
After dumping that load into a tank I went inside to see how the boiling had gone while I was in the woods. Bob had worked on the control valve we added to the automatic drawoff to slow the rate syrup is released, and had it set up where the drawoff would open and a trickle of syrup would come out fairly regularly, instead of large batches coming out in a hurry. Not knowing how to set up the drawoff we had assumed it was supposed to dump a bunch of syrup at once, but we also noticed it took a long time to make another batch, or it let out so much that the temperature in the front pan got way too hot. As usual when all else fails we called the manufacturer; he told us to set it up with the extra control valve and slow the rate down. This seems like it has helped a lot, there is a lot less time between batches and the temperature is much more regulated.
I also noticed a ratchet strap stretched between a rafter and one corner of the steam hood. It turned out the hood had collapsed on that side. It was bent when we got it so it always sagged a little, but evidently it gave out completely and had to be held up. Maybe it was the extra weight of the new curtains, I don't know, but it needs some extra support.
For the day we made about 6 gallons. I don't know exactly because we put 5 gallons in jugs, but we had another batch of at least a gallon in a pot that we're going to package later. The best part was the color, not quite fancy grade, but very close. A nice light medium, anyway. And there was a nice sunset at the end of the day.
With the forecast for colder temperatures it's hard to say if we'll have anything to boil next Wednesday, but I'll probably go back down to package the other batch and do some other stuff that needs done...a day sugaring beats going to work even if I'm not exactly making syrup.
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