Let the adventure begin!
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Full Day of boiling sap. We got 80 gallons boiled down. Yield was 2.25 gallons of pure Rutty Buck Syrup!
Too wiped out to add all the details, but I will update the process on Monday.
Here is a shot of the evaporator is action!
Gotta get back to bottling! Peace!
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Well this week was a huge success. We harvested a total of 3.375 gallons of Maple Syrup.
We started the weekend by running the reverse osmosis system on Friday night. This way we could get enough concentrate to get the whole operation rolling. I have the raw sap stored in a 55-Gallon poly drum. This is what we are using to pull the sap from. Then we run the concentrated sap into a bucket. The water goes in another bucket to be discarded or saved to flush the RO at the end of the day.
We ended up running about 140 gallons of raw sap through the RO system. It worked really well. You could certainly taste the sugar in the concentrate. In raw sap, I can never taste the sugar. Once the sap was concentrated, we then add it to the preheater on the evaporator. Here is a shot of the fire! She was running hot. You can see the bottom of the boiling pan being hit by the fire. That is exactly what we want.
To add to the fire, I added a carpet fan to help drive the fire even hotter. This made a big difference in our boil.
Here is a shot of the sap loaded and steaming in the evaporator pan. The preheaters are located on top, near the back of the unit. Once preheated, the concentrated sap is then trickled into the evaporator pan. Typically, we start to add it when the concentrated sap hits about 190 F-195 F. (There is so much steam, it is actually tough to get a picture of the pans!)
Once we allow the sap to hit 216 F-217 F, we remove it from the evaporator pan. This allows us to filter the product and then finish it on the stove, where we can fine tune the process. We only need to take the product up one or two more degrees by removing the last of the water. This can be tricky, and we need absolute control of the fire. So the gas stove is the way to go. Below, you can see the sap right before we remove it and filter. At this point, it is almost syrup, but not quite yet. The smell of wood and sap steam is intoxicating. It is so good.
Next up, we have the draining process. Here we are putting the boiled sap into our pre-filter, which sits inside our thicker Orlon filters. The second shot is looking right down into the filters.
Once it passes through the filters, we can then take it inside to the stove for finishing until the syrup hits 218 F.
And now.....here is the final product! After reaching 218 F. We allow the syrup to cool, to avoid sugar sand forming in the syrup. After it cools, we then heat it up to 165 F to kill any bugs. Then we heat jars to 180 F to do the same. Then we bottle it! We got great color on this batch. Very clear and tasty product! (It looks a bit separated in these pics, but that is the bottom of the window sill.
Thanks for reading!
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Well folks, this winter jsut does not want to end in Minnesota. Temps are so cold at night right now, that the tree simply can't heat up enough to get the sap flowing. Gonna be a low yield for the week. Temps in the lower teens to single digits at night and only a couple of degree above freezing is just not warm enough to get adequate flow. The sun is getting stronger, but that hard freeze at night is tough for the tree to thaw.
I checked buckets last night, all were frozen and I would say I have about 20 gallons total, for all 30-5 Gallons buckets. The clear taps I put in allow me to see the sap moving from the tree to the buckets and the sap is frozen in the tap. I will have to wait until Sunday, to see if I can get anything flowing. We are supposed to get 4"-8" of snow Friday into Saturday.
We do have about 30 gallons of concentrate that we ran through the RO last Sunday, to make sure we have enough to evaporate for at least Saturday. Unfortunately, the RO will only run if the sap is above 40 F. Any lower and it can damage the system.
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Spinaker yep, we get off 35 at 185th street, go by the big Target, and head east. Our daughter is on 187th street, and right now they are working to finish the final 3500 feet to connect it to the next stretch of 185th, so we won't have to go a mile out of our way. -
Spinaker It's incredible. My wife and I first went up and looked at their building site, the foundation, in Aug. 2021. There were a handful of houses finished. Since then hundreds if not thousands of houses have been built. Our youngest granddaughter will be going to a brand new elementary school a year from now. And I'm happy to just visit.
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Gonna go make a sap run to see what we’ve got. Most of the buckets were frozen and covered in snow yesterday. It was relatively warm and sunny, so I am hoping the sap was flowing and we got some full buckets to boil today!
More to follow! Boil on!Comment
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The boil is on folks! We’ve got 25 gallons of concentrate going now.
The trees are flowing again today so we should have more raw sap to run through the RO for more concentrate. The sugar bush was chilly this morning.
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I remember see this process in Vermont. They tapped the trees and ran what looked like irrigation tubing from the trees to a central collection point. Since it was on the side of a mountain the tubing was over your head on the trails we were hiking on.
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Yesterday was a beautiful day for boiling. 55 F sunny. We got about 40 gallons of sap concentrated and boiled down. It took us a while to get the RO going because all the sap was frozen. So we had to wait until it heated up enough to run it. Most of the time, you want the sap to be over 45 degrees to run it through the RO. As you can see in the picture below, the fresh 6-8 inches of fresh snow made things interesting to begin the day. It was melting like crazy, which was nice to see.
Here is a shot of the sap when it is at about 214 F-215 F. We took this batch off the pan at about 216 F before we took it inside for finishing.
Here is a shot as it is coming out of the evaporator and into the Orlon filters. Pure liquid gold. This was reading at about 63% Brix at 130 F. , which is almost pure maple syrup. Further boiling to be done inside. I did not have time to test the final as it was cooling slow and I needed to get home. I will test it today and report back when we bottle it.
The sap flow was slow last week, although we have another 55 Gallons of raw sap on hand to RO then boil. We might do a Friday boil to catch up. This weekend will probably be the last weekend of the season. And looking at this forecast, we could have a lot of sap pumping out of the trees today, tomorrow and Thursday. We should have plenty for at least Saturday.
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Geez...This is way cool..I never knew the process to actually get Maple Syrup. So much sap, so much equipment, so much labor to get so little syrup. It reminds me of when I was bee keeping. I remember my first year spending a fortune just to get a few jars of honey. I learned if you want to become a millionaire producing honey, you better start out a billionaire.Comment
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Yes sir!! Next time you see pure maple syrup for sale, you will know why it is so expensive. Lotta labor and time. We all laugh that RBSC will forever be in the red! Supplies, time and labor account for a lot of it. Then there is also food, booze and hippie sticks to account for as well. 🤷🏼♂️ troymeister
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Spinaker I certainly appreciate the costs involved. But doing something cool, outdoors, being with friends, good food and booze. Also Being positive, inventive and creative is Absolutely Priceless.Comment
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The sap is flowing now! We have just over 100 Gallons of raw sap ready to run through the RO. We collected another 45 gallons this morning to put us over the 100 Gallon mark. Both storage barrels are buried in snow to prevent spoilage.
We are planning on doing boils on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. More than likely, Sunday will be needed as well. Gonna be a marathon of boiling that sap down. I am looking forward to the work. It will be great.
This was collected just over night, I am guessing this will fill up through out the day today. The flow should slow down today and tomorrow with the temps dropping again during the daylight hours in to the upper 20's - low 30's. Which is fine, we have about as much sap as we can handle at the moment.
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I sure would like to try some homemade MS, but we only use syrup 2 or 3 times a year, and the jars you are using are just too big, and I wouldn't want it to go to waste after all the time and effort you guys put into it.Comment
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We are all set to do a 4-day boil this week. Starting tomorrow and through Sunday. It is crunch time folks.Gonna be a busy next few days.Comment
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