Executive Decisions

We all have to make them.  As a neophyte syrup maker I have no context to help judge when the season will end.  A season ends when the trees decide to move on to the next phase of this years cycle.  Sugar contents plummet and a variety of new compounds appear in enough quantity to render the sap useless.  How much sour sap will contaminate x gallons of sap?  My guess is small enough that I am no longer willing to spend the time monitoring to get every last drip.

On Sunday, April 2nd, I went up to the collection tank to see what sap was to be had.  While I could double what was in the holding tank, the run was down in output from the day before.  The sugar content was also down below 1.5%.  Time to boil.  I fired for neigh on 4 hours.  Put through another 160 gallons, bringing the total amount of sap into the pans to just shy of 300.  I was not paying enough attention to the number of gallons left in my supply tank because it took me until after a new round of wood into the fire box that I wondered why I did not hear liquid entering the sap float box on the flue pan.  A quick run up the ladder, after I could not discern a meniscus on the verticle pex pipe acting as level guage, a peek under the cover revealed no sap.

Water from the drilled well was added to that tank post haste and before any surfaces that might scorch were exposed, water was flowing into the float box to regain appropriate running volume.  Lesson two learned, and in part where my attention was focused between firings and de-foaming, was that I had not calibrated my syrup pan thermometers correctly.  The draw off side for that day is now correct as I used the hydrometer to tell me when finished syrup was to be drawn off, and then adjusted the thermometer to the correct reading then and there.  As syrup is only 33% water, it boils at a temperature 7 degrees Fahrenheit above what water would that day.  I had only an addition of wood or so, which I have down at 5 to 7 minutes between, from upping my draw off from drips to as thin a stream possible when I clued into my lack of sap to continue the process with.

 


A quick stride to the collection tank confirmed that there was still only a drip coming from the main line and barely a couple gallons to transfer since starting the day.  Oh joy.  Over the next hour water kept the pans from scorching as the fire died and brick cooled off.  Water pushed finished syrup out the other end.  You will note the results above, minus two quarts.  One went to a parental unit who was kind enough to show up and purchase some clean up beverages.  The other went to the abutter who is not felling up to snuff, but was earlier when I was in a tapping phase and who helped make drops and wandered out into the woods with me a couple of times to first repair a section of downed mainline.

I now sit, five days later, and have collected around 60 gallons of weak sap.  The weather, and forecasters, have been damnable.  The temperatures ruminated for the next week reek of sap change.  Tomorrow will bring my second and last boil.  A few minutes ago I checked the run.  Not gonga, but better than a drip.  Overnight's bounty will be added to the collection tank and away we go.  The goal tomorrow being at least empty all pans, bottle all syrup to be had and start the cleaning process.  What a season.