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Neato! You should post pictures of it when it arrives. Lots of pictures.
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Mar 17, 2022 02:36
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Have had a couple decent runs, but only at, I dunno, 150gals or something off almost as many taps. Boiling tomorrow and crossing my fingers that things don't trigger budding; we are supposed to go back into freeze/thaw next week but it's loving warm now. Still some significant snowpack around a lot of trees, though.
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Mar 17, 2022 08:41
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On the subject of buddy sap, I've learned a new word. acerglyn - Maple mead, also called acerglyn, is made by replacing some of the honey with pure maple syrup. I've found two recopies online: 1. http://www.donosborn.com/homebrew/acerglyn.htm 2. https://www.growforagecookferment.com/maple-mead/ They both call for pure maple syrup and water. I wonder what kind of results a person could get by concentrating sap to like 6 or 7 brix and adding brewers yeast instead of starting with syrup and diluting it. Could the enzymes present in buddy sap ferment to alcohol? I feel like this is something that should be possible, but I may just be on the wrong side of the Dunning Kruger graph. I don't know. If I get buddy sap this year I think I'm going to try to ferment it. Absolute worst case scenario is I ruin a bucket, right?
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Mar 17, 2022 15:55
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DreadLlama posted:They both call for pure maple syrup and water. I wonder what kind of results a person could get by concentrating sap to like 6 or 7 brix and adding brewers yeast instead of starting with syrup and diluting it. Could the enzymes present in buddy sap ferment to alcohol? I feel like this is something that should be possible, but I may just be on the wrong side of the Dunning Kruger graph. I don't know. If I get buddy sap this year I think I'm going to try to ferment it. Absolute worst case scenario is I ruin a bucket, right?  ) so I couldn't tell you.This might be the year I finally make THC infused candy though. I am gonna make a fuckton of decarb'd shatter this weekend, and setting aside a couple grams for candies is easy enough. If I do this, though, I am going for like, 100mg per candy, "if you're a normal person, split this with 4 of your normal friends, and if you're Cabbages & Kings, still don't eat more than five to ten candies in a sitting" sort of thing   How the gently caress did I ever do this without good video eyes on the shack from the house. It makes this poo poo so much easier. Pretty sure all my traditional Vermonter neighbors who do this poo poo with buckets and boil by lamplight, probably drive past all my taplines and see the loving electricity and internet poo poo in my shack and think "man, loving flatlanders and their loving bullshit"
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Mar 17, 2022 17:46
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Are you running co-ax, too? I keep thinking about getting a wireless solar-powered CCTV system but I don't know enough about security and the like to know what to buy.
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Mar 17, 2022 19:48
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DreadLlama posted:Are you running co-ax, too? I keep thinking about getting a wireless solar-powered CCTV system but I don't know enough about security and the like to know what to buy. nope, I just have a wireless IP camera down there riding a network extender that's wrapped in plastic and connected to the extension cords that bring power down to the shack. I posted this above but I more or less just keep adding IP cams to the exterior of the property. They get like 6-15FPS depending on network conditions and are useful for understanding if it's bears or coyotes destroying my trash bin. 
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Mar 18, 2022 15:55
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I am shocked this made it here before the end of sap season let alone right at the beginning, gonna put it together and give it a test run It's this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9WTS07xk0g
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Mar 18, 2022 18:15
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Who'd you buy it from that they shipped it? Edit: Also did they mention what's a good flow rate for the concentrate line? I changed all my filters yesterday and my homebuilt thing is clogged again after like an hour. I know I'm doing something wrong I just don't know what. DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 20:09 on Mar 18, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 20:05
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DreadLlama posted:Who'd you buy it from that they shipped it? CDL online but they shipped to the closest store, about an hour away. Took over a month for it to get to the store. Got it together and rinsed it all out, seems to work well. Going to take a bit of time to get it all in position for sap, will start that sunday and just concentrate while I boil. The sap has pretty much stopped here the last two days and probably tomorrow, too warm. e: on my two membrane one, they want 2x concentrate to permeate
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Mar 18, 2022 20:08
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That would be my problem then. I was much closer to 1:1.
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Mar 18, 2022 20:10
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DreadLlama posted:That would be my problem then. I was much closer to 1:1. yeah, I think it's a tradeoff between your efficiency gain and RO membrane life. The nano instructions have you washing pretty frequently with citric acid and lye to keep them clean and fresh, maybe you could revive your membranes a bit with that? https://www.cdlinc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Nano-RO_manual2.pdf e: the superflow green is sodium hydroxide/lye
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Mar 18, 2022 20:15
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Thank you for confirming that; I'd read superflow green was just lye. I have a pound on order now. Boiling like a chump in the meantime.
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Mar 18, 2022 20:41
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Yeah, they have their MSDS sheets online if you want to look at what's in their other stuff. https://www.cdlinc.ca/en/material-safety-data-sheets/
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Mar 18, 2022 20:43
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Dude, sweet! Thank you. I love how they include the chemical names for most of the items but when it comes to the lye you have to go to the msds to get past the brand name.
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Mar 18, 2022 21:04
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Made my first batch of syrup this evening and didn't gently caress it up: Used an old small pot I had, since the big one is still ruined, so was topping it off with fresh sap every 20 min or so until eventually all 5ish gallons got reduced down. Took it to about 217 F on the big propane burner outside, then moved inside to a smaller pot on the stove:  It's a little light in color and taste...I might actually put it back on the heat tomorrow for just a few more minutes to get it closer to a Grade A: Amber Color instead of Grade A Golden Color. Side note: the "new" grading system is stupid. Bring back grades like Medium Amber and Grade B.
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Mar 19, 2022 04:55
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DrBouvenstein posted:Side note: the "new" grading system is stupid. Bring back grades like Medium Amber and Grade B. the thing with A/B was that B generally requires more boiling time per gallon, and lots of people (me!) like it better they renamed it at the same time they stopped selling it cheaper
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Mar 19, 2022 11:29
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Well, I may have left my taps in too long last year, or retapped some good trees too close to where they had been tapped -- I seem to be getting as much sap off my 45 new taps as off the 115 existing ones. These lines are 5 years old at this point. I think I am going to replace all my old 5/16" lines next year and also look into getting one of the $800 sap guzzler pumps. I might look at putting mainline along the bottom of the new taps and seeing if i can get all that onto vacuum; looks like the guzzler has to be shut down if it's going to freeze anyway, and I might just be able to move it from line to line? still waiting to see if we make it back into some real runs when we get back into freeze/thaw. likely the difference between a maybe okay season and garbage. Cabbages and VHS fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Mar 19, 2022 |
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Mar 19, 2022 15:52
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 two gallons in and my pans are still very sweet. If we get some more runs this week it could be a decent year, if not, I think we'll at least have ourselves covered.
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Mar 20, 2022 22:09
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An ok haul from my first time sugaring off of my one tree: And as said before, I could have had another 1-2 cups if I didn't burn that first 5 gallon batch. But live and learn. Even though the stuff in the left two bottles is very light and not "syrup-y" in texture, I might leave them as is. It's just for my own use, and there are times some lighter syrup is better than thicker, sweeter stuff, like on the right. Any decent ways to remove the "sand" that don't involve fancy equipment that a small batch guy doesn't want to buy? I filtered things through multiple layers of cheese cloth at several steps (when going from sap bucket to kettle, and from "almost syrup" on the kettle to "finishing pot" on the stove, and from that pot when it was the hot syrup into the jars), but I still have some. I even did my best to slightly warm up the jars after the fact and just try to pour it off into another container, and that got the bulk of it, but that still stirred up some stuff at the bottom. I guess I can get some sort of small siphon thing? Or just a freakin' turkey baster with the relatively small amount I have?
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Mar 21, 2022 18:32
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DrBouvenstein posted:Any decent ways to remove the "sand" that don't involve fancy equipment that a small batch guy doesn't want to buy? I filtered things through multiple layers of cheese cloth at several steps (when going from sap bucket to kettle, and from "almost syrup" on the kettle to "finishing pot" on the stove, and from that pot when it was the hot syrup into the jars), but I still have some. I pour it out of the evaporator through pre-filter in wool filter into a huge 3 gallon chili pot. Put a lid on it in the kitchen and let it settle for a couple days. Use a ladle to move it to two other pots and heat those up to 180-190 so it's not making more sand but hot enough to sanitize the jars. Use the ladle and funnel to fill up nice glass jars. Dump the last bit from the original pot with sand in it into a plastic bottle and put it in the fridge, nobody will ever notice. That's what I do when I want really nice syrup that'll stay crystal clear for a few years, I give it out as gifts and bribes. When I get enough of that, I just buy some of those plastic bottles in 2L and 4L so I can bottle it up quickly and the sand will settle and nobody will see it. 
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Mar 21, 2022 18:52
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It's specialized equipment you won't use for anything other than maple syrup, but I recommend buying a big filter sock bag and the prefilters to go in it. And a filter stand: https://www.amazon.ca/Winco-FF-10-Filter-Medium-Chrome/dp/B009Z21LOI https://www.amazon.ca/Filter-Edible-Package-Filters-50-Pack/dp/B087B3GS7K https://www.amazon.ca/Maple-Syrup-Wool-Cone-Quart/dp/B00TSQYMEW You want the prefilters because they get clogged up as they work. So you want to stack them up nested one inside the other. As you pour syrup through the filters they will catch the sugar sand (a.k.a. niter) and let the syrup pass through. So if you have multiple prefilters in your filter bag, you can pull out the top one and dump its syrup into the remaining prefilter layers. The sugar sand sticks to the prefilter so don't worry about dumping it out. The second filter will start out filtering quickly but it also will slow down as it collects more and more niter. You will be pulling it out and dumping its contents into the 3rd prefilter eventually, and so on. So have lots of prefilters on hand. There's a reason they're sold in packs. They're washable, but you will want to use multiple at a time. Anyway, the syrup passes through the filters, so you are going to want something underneath to catch the syrup. I have tried both filtering directly into a jar through a funnel, and filtering into a big pot. The big pot method is a lot better in my opinion. The funnel method involves cramming the filters into a funnel and standing it upright by sticking it in the jar. It balances kind of ok, especially if you have a canning funnel. And it works until the jar gets too top heavy from having a funnel full of syrup on top of it and nothing in the bottom. This will happen as the filters clog. And you can't stabilize it because both your hands are busy holding up a pot of maple syrup. So the jar can tip over and you lose whatever was in it and in the funnel, which is now dirty because it probably fell on the floor. In my opinion you need a big pot catch your syrup. This is what CDL sells: https://webstore.cdlinc.ca/en/mini-filter-tank-5-gal-imp. Its just a tall pot about as big around as the filters are, with a spigot at the bottom to drain syrup out. Since it's not in stock this pretty much the same: https://www.cabelas.ca/product/129582/bass-pro-shops-stock-pot-with-spigot-and-basket-60-quart. The spigot isn't strictly necessary and you could absolutely ladle the syrup out from under the filters. But it is *very* convenient. The most important thing is that the syrup go through the filters. I believe cheesecloth is slightly too coarse and coffee filters are too fine. Speaking of filtering has anyone found that their post-boil filter goes a lot better if they did a pre-boil filter? My RO machine is clogged up right now so I didn't use it on my last batch and I noticed it filtered a lot slower and was cloudier than the previous batch which I'd done with the RO. It's got a 5 micron filter and a 1 micron filter before the membranes so I wonder if putting the sap through them didn't help later on. Edit: Also I forgot the reason I came to post today. I found this on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Homebrewing/comments/204voj/can_you_make_wine_out_of_maple_syrup_yes_should/ quote:I have made several acermeads, as has my uncle, who is a maple farmer. Our best ones have been made with flor sherry yeasts, which complement the funky aromas from the syrup. If you know any maple farmers, they will have many gallons of partially boiled sap left over in the evaporator that is usually discarded. It is too thin for syrup, but perfect for fermenting. Last year after syruping I took home two 7 gallon buckets of 1.110 sap and made them into acermeads. They do taste better if they have a bit of residual sweetness. quote:I had a friend do that with a brown ale, using 100% sap instead of water. There was a barely detectable undertone of maple. Syrup has about a 50:1 ratio to sap, so using 5 gallons of sap would be like adding 12oz of syrup. However, a lot of the syrup flavor comes from caramelization during evaporation, and you will get none of that with sap, so the flavor contribution will be even less. DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Mar 21, 2022 |
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Mar 21, 2022 21:41
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DreadLlama posted:Caramelization is important, so there's an argument for using syrup over sap. Now I wonder what's the least amount of boiling you can do to get it to caramelize. 90 seconds, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NV0RrD7ZE4Q&t=170s
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Mar 22, 2022 03:52
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can anyone talk to me about releasers I am looking at a sap guzzler diaphram pump which doesn't need a releaser. But a releaser lets you have a much lower risk of pulling ice chunks through your pump diaphram. Also trying to decide if I shoyld put in new mainline if I am putting in vacuum, or if I can just patch unwanted holes. I'm definitely putting up entirely new droplines.
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Mar 22, 2022 21:53
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Got the float valve thing going. It's a little sketchy, I need a way to make it more finely adjustable. I just duct taped it to the top, didn't want to drill a hole in my float pan if I didn't like it. I love it, having it on a siphon to the 15 gallon tank means I can stuff wood, walk away for an hour and it'll just stay at the same level. I can't just pick up the whole pan anymore when it's done though but I can open the pour off valve and the float valve opens to push the near syrup out. The float valve and head tank  A nice gradient  Pour off with filter. Couldn't find prefilters, used a t-shirt. 
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Mar 23, 2022 20:20
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The tank is as full as I've ever seen it today, finished making another 2gal, 60 gals boiled so far, maybe another 40 out there?  prepping and cooking a waffle iron grilled cheese for lunch 
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Mar 24, 2022 21:07
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I'll be at around 400gal today when we go back into freeze for 2-3 days. Could juice another decent run or two, we'll see... buds forming, but tiny. ~5.5gals finished, pans are still very sweet.
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Mar 27, 2022 13:44
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Does anyone keep track of mast years?quote:Every few years, some species of trees and shrubs produce a bumper crop of their fruits or nuts. The collective term for these fruits and nuts is 'mast', so we call this a mast year. Two of our most recognisable trees, oak and beech, fluctuate massively year on year in the amount of acorns and beech nuts they produce. quote:Research indicates maples have mast years every 2-5 years; sugar maple mast years reduce sap production the following year. when a plant will put all resources (even if it may mean death to the plant), into seeds just to get their genes into the next generation. quote:For much of Michigan, the late spring and summer 2020 were relatively dry. Trees often increase flower bud production when they are under stress, so the dry weather in 2020 resulted in increased production of flower buds that emerged in spring 2021 to produce the acorns we’re stepping on this fall. For spruces and firs, it is similar phenomenon; tree stress in 2020 resulted in increased production of cone buds that emerged and developed in 2021. In addition to weather in the previous year, reproduction in trees is also influenced by alternate bearing cycles, where heavy mast years alternate with lighter years. I remember seeing reddit post about how leaves were changing colour early last Summer. I noticed similar changes on my trees. If trees produce large quantities of seed in response to stress, and last Summer was stressful. should we expect lots of seeds this year? Does anyone remember the last year you saw a good deal of maple seeds? Here is an article about seed collecting. The reason I ask is because the seed store I frequent is out of acer saccharum seeds and other stores aren't better. FYI if you have seeds collected they say they'll pay you for them.
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Mar 29, 2022 12:49
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DreadLlama posted:If trees produce large quantities of seed in response to stress, and last Summer was stressful. should we expect lots of seeds this year? Does anyone remember the last year you saw a good deal of maple seeds? I know nothing about this, but now it's on my radar. Lol, lost a bit of sap today -- when the freeze came I had left the spigot on my main tank open! It's a good thing I went down there to check; based on what's coming into the plastic bins I think I missed part of a run but probab;y not too much. Things are waking up, and will probably run to some extent all night, and if nothing spoils I will boil tomorrow. Forecast calls for some more freeze/thaw after that, but we'll see, I don't think we're going to get another deep freeze like the one that just passed and I am kinda getting anxious to get my dirtbike out.
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Mar 31, 2022 18:29
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We're still boiling in my area, but I guess we just barely stayed cold enough. Was talking to some people from a little further south who said they're done for the year, as little as a two and a half week season for some of them. We're only a little ahead of last year on production, but we've doubled the number of dead tractors dragged home from the woods.
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Apr 3, 2022 02:00
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Uncle Lloyd posted:We're still boiling in my area, but I guess we just barely stayed cold enough. Was talking to some people from a little further south who said they're done for the year, as little as a two and a half week season for some of them. We're only a little ahead of last year on production, but we've doubled the number of dead tractors dragged home from the woods. I can't tell how this year stacks to last, because I added 40 taps on 40 big trees, and my old lines are all 5+ years old and need to be replaced. In terms of pure sap, I ended last year at 280gal and I'm at 460 boiled this year with another 30-40 from today sitting out there.  No snow on the ground anymore; we have 2-3 nights of freeze/thaw and then I think we're locked into melt weather. I'll probably do small incremental boils and then do a big boil next weekend and shut everything down. I am running out of wood, anyway.
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Apr 3, 2022 02:04
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Still rolling but I expect we're in the last run; in any case I want to be done, and we're hitting diminishing returns. Probably close to 550gal when everything that's out there is boiled, but I'm just going to do easy boils until I pull my taps, and then do one more longer fire to finish off whatever that last batch will be. I think we've made around 9 gallons so far.
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Apr 4, 2022 19:42
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It's supposed to be the end of the season but over the past three days I've gotten more sap than I had in the previous three weeks combined. I'm just glad it isn't buddy.
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Apr 4, 2022 20:02
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DreadLlama posted:It's supposed to be the end of the season but over the past three days I've gotten more sap than I had in the previous three weeks combined. I'm just glad it isn't buddy. Nice, person! Enjoy it! There's no predicting nature. I had around another 20gal this morning, but there is no more freeze projected at all, I can see early buds formed all over, and it meets my needs pretty well to call this a wrap with exactly 600gal sap on the board, making this not my best season (especially not per tap), but absolutely destroying last year's total. Looks like I'll have around 6gals of stuff to hock for $25/quart in addition to the 5gals set aside for our own use, so, that pays for like 1/3 the infrastructure upgrades I want to do this year alone
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Apr 6, 2022 16:54
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annnd I'm done for another year, started pulling taps and taking lines down today. 600gals sap, just over 12gal syrup. pretty consistent 2% all season because I'm still hitting that now on the taps I haven't pulled, but, I'm loving out of wood and done stick a fork in it. feeling lazy about getting a bigger chainsaw and atv this year because I just took a new job and I also need to replace all my lines, so I'm just going to buy a couple cords of thin split pine. it's silly, but, it's a hobby, whatever
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Apr 7, 2022 01:58
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We did our last boil yesterday. Ended up with a little over 400 gallons total, fairly well ahead of last year as it turns out, the sap never really dropped off at the end. We had hoped to get a bit more high grade syrup this season which didn't entirely happen though. Planning to pull all the spouts next week.
Uncle Lloyd fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Apr 8, 2022 |
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Apr 8, 2022 03:56
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I'm not done yet.There should be another sap run next weekend. But my DIY reverse osmosis unit isn't working again and I'm trying to troubleshoot it. Does anyone know the modes of failure for a diaphragm pump? Mine seems to be sucking air or something and the pressure never gets above 25psi. It started the last time I cleaned it - two 30 minute flushes of sodium hydroxide. The motor part is fine and it generates a modicum of pressure, but not the 80psi it used to. And there's more air bubbles in my flowmeters than there used to be. What did I do? Edit: I left my RO unit out overnight in the cold and ice formed in the pump, damaging the diaphragm. DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 11, 2022 03:07
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Uncle Lloyd posted:We did our last boil yesterday. Ended up with a little over 400 gallons total, fairly well ahead of last year as it turns out, the sap never really dropped off at the end. We had hoped to get a bit more high grade syrup this season which didn't entirely happen though. Planning to pull all the spouts next week. very nice, if that's sap how much syrup? if that's syrup, yow, how many taps? I'm going to redo my lines this summer. reposition the tank next to the sugarhouse and build a trap door. I'm giving serious thought to a Leader Vermonter evaporator, too. they're like five grand I'd never make back but they appear to boil 30-50% faster than I can off 66% the footprint, so I think it's a lot more efficient and the DIY arch I have now, minimally needs significant work this summer to make it safe. alternately I rock this setup for another year but add $300 bucket RO and then see if I end up drowning in sap next year. Cabbages and VHS fucked around with this message at 16:13 on Apr 16, 2022 |
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Apr 16, 2022 16:06
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You know how I post experimental stuff nobody wants to read about? Guess what this post is about. There's a website called https://hydrosolar.ca/ who sell solar thermal stuff. I e-mailed them a question, "What would it take to boil 5 gallons of maple sap per hour?" and this is what they e-mailed back:     Unfortunately instead of being a thermosiphon this design requires a circulation pump so it still needs some electricity. But I suppose it makes sense to elevate the collectors instead of elevating the collectors and then needing a water tower on top of that to save on a pump. But I'd still like to see a design that requires no moving parts save for the fluid. That'd be something you could leave to your kids. DreadLlama fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Apr 26, 2022 |
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Apr 21, 2022 15:07
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That's super cool, DreadLlama. Meanwhile, I am just committing to a future of being a polluter, because I am seriously looking at going up to a Leader Vermonter evaporator this year, around a $5-6k deal when all is said and done and with an entirely new arch, etc. At 2x4' it's 33% smaller than my rig, but has 15 flues and so gets 22-24gal/hr boil (I can barely manage half that). I am also looking at adding vacuum and a bunch of modifications to my space, and I got permission from my neighbor to put permanent mainline across his property, so I will probably keep this thread going through the summer as I build this poo poo out. My goal is to have all new lines in place and vacuum tested (and MAYBE a new arch and pans in place) before we roll into winter, so that all I have to do in the spring is walk around and drill holes and put taps onto existing T's. I am just loving buying my wood this year like a heathen, too, because with all this, a new job, and two kids in the mix, I do not have time to gently caress with chainsaws and ATVs this year.
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May 10, 2022 19:19
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On I plow! Rented a Ram 2500 yesterday, which was Much Fun to drive, and drove out to check out this evaporator. (2-3 hr round trip, rental was only $150, figured I'd rather gamble 150 than get there in my Forester, decide it's great and definitely needs a truck to move, and then have to go back anyway. I grabbed a local friend who said he was up for a road trip. I wish I had taken pics on the drive, it was stunningly beautiful spring weather winding through the mountains  Unit is a 10 year old Dominion & Grimm Sportster 18x63" arch and stainless pans. Thew flues are NOT warped, that's a photo artifact. The arch body is galvenized with a cast iron door, so that was a concern, but when I pulled the firebricks and insulation, the metal under has some rust, but nothing I can't take off with a wire brush. Likewise the cast iron door has a bunch of surface rust but nothing that scared me. I was unable to get a 2022 exact price on this same unit, but we're ballpark $5500-6k is my guess. Selling is upgrading to a larger unit, said he was getting 20 gph off this which is consistent with what I've read (and close to 2x my current rig, in addition to being a drop flue and not flat pans. We ran water through the whole thing; there's a tiny dribble under the 2-side divider in the flue pan but that looks very TIG weldable and also won't affect function much; the pan itself is watertight and all the flues run flat, no evidence of anything ever getting burned out that I could see. One very, very slight distortion in the final flue that I can feel with my finger, but barely. Fingers crossed this is a real good deal for me, generally these seem better regarded than the Leader units I was looking at, and there I was looking at $6k new. I financed all this poo poo by selling half my magic collection, and I could get a 6k evaporator, but why buy new poo poo when old poo poo works?  The former owner said when he bricked it up, he had to make a template in CAD or some poo poo and i would do well to remember what goes where unless I want to completely rebrick with new bricks (lol, at 2022 prices? no thx), so I brought paint pens and did this We'll see how helpful that is when I get around to rebricking it, maybe in a few weeks.  Here's the back pan, now sitting in my shack. Don't drop flutey flakes, do drop flues. (MAYBE drop acid , you do you  ) These are soot black as you'd expect from being fired, but straight. The bottoms of my flat pans are also black. Soot makes poo poo black! Including my lungs  (I'll be wearing a p100 and goggles cleaning this stuff) The cast iron front of the arch has a bunch of surface rust.  I have my work cut out for me. Next steps for this evaporator: * remove all the old arch insulation that I didn't already pull * wire brush the inside of the galvenized arch body * wire brush the outside of the cast iron doors * repaint and regasket the cast iron with black stove paint * reinsulate with new fireblanket * rebrick and hope I can tetris that all back in * assemble, connect to my exhaust * do a test boil with water, make sure everything is set up right and understood, then drain completely and cover well. Next steps for summer: * show my old arch/flatpans to neighbor. If he wants them, $500 for him. (This is a real good deal, I am selling 2 of these pans in good shape (https://okhardwarestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=41&products_id=1471) which is $700 by itself new, and I am including the DIY arch I have and bricks, which, while it needs a new fireblanket and some tinwork, fires just fine. If he doesn't want it I will list it on CL and maple groups locally for $750.) * move my tank so that it's right next to my shack, cutting a trap door in the shack * run new mainlines * get sap guzzler pump, connect to mainlines, verify vacuum * probably put mainline on my neighbor's side and figure out how to get under my driveway so it's just one line. Verify vaccum. * run new taplines, verify vacuum * cut 150 new T's, splice in to lines, verify vacuum. If I can get all that poo poo done by the end of September I'll be a happy camper. Oh yea, I have some syrup for sale, $25/qt plus actual USPS shipping.
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May 15, 2022 12:49
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