You’re always told by the old timers to just throw out the ice the forms in your sap buckets that you usually find during a cold morning’s collection. Yet it never fails, someone asks if that’s a good idea and you just parrot what you heard… But is it true? I decided to find out once and for all so I can say with a certainty which it is. So this morning as I went around to collect my sap, I had a second bucket that I was going to put the ice into, let melt and take a sugar reading. I let the ice melt and took a reading……
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Made 9 half pints last night – took longer than I would have preferred but that’s due to me being a little too lazy on the RO machine and being satisfied with 1:2 ratio, grabbed another 30 gallons of sap today which I’m processing a bit slower at a 1:3 ratio (concentrate to water). Especially with it running like crazy still. I emptied the buckets this morning and will need to empty the again tonight by the looks on how fast the sap is running, following by a good run tomorrow. Another snow storm is in the future for us this week which might prolong the season. Honestly, a season…
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Sap collection is back on full as a winter storm that dumped 18″ of snow just passed and we’ve returned to 20 degree F nights and 40 degree F days. Sap is running out of the trees at a quick pace. Collected 25 gallons today and will collect again tomorrow at lunch. I have enough already to boil for a couple of days. Going to split up my concentrate so I’m not spending 7 hours boiling again. I’m hoping this is the robust style syrup – aka Late Season Dark in my speak. That’s honestly my favorite style of syrup. I love the flavor profile of the dark syrup. I’d…
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I’ve been itching to get back into scuba diving. When I was a teenager, scuba diving was my life. Logged 100’s of hours and received my divemaster certification by the time I was 18. I really haven’t been since. College, then met wife in college… She doesn’t scuba dive – and it’s too bad. I don’t have anyone to go diving with anymore so it’s really held me back from enjoying or even going to exotic places to enjoy the sport. It’s odd to have something you used to dedicate so much time, effort and love into to just have it put aside. Figured if I didn’t have anyone to…
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After many long days of warm weather the trees just stopped producing. I was getting ready to throw in the towel when the calendar said winter storm. Now we should be getting 12 to 18 inches of snow tomorrow, but the past two days were perfect for sap. I didn’t get a ton of it, a little less than half a gallon per bucket, but it’s enough for me to keep the buckets on the trees. At least until this coming weekend. Then the taps can be pulled. Of course I’ll check the weather just to make sure it won’t get dragged out longer. 5 gallons of sap concentrate in…
