Checked our tanks last night and we have another 300 gallons in the woods to collect and boil tomorrow. Will run it through my RO tonight so I should only have 125 gallons left to boil in the morning. Last year we made 50 gallons of syrup and sold out so hoping for another good year this year.
Dan – post a couple more pics of your evaporator – I’d love to get a better glimpse of your operation! Whats your filtering process?
Dan that sounds like quite the setup! Yes, as Gitchi commented share more info please. I have no intention to do it myself, but it would help a lot of others out I am sure. Im just curious to see what is all involved.
Boy that stuff sure looks good. I used to have a coworker who’s parents lived in Vermont and they would ship syrup whenever she requested. I was the beneficiary of some of those shipments. That real deal maple syrup is a great treat. Unfortunately, the two maples on my quarter acre plot in the cul-de-sac sure aren’t going to put out enough sap for me to make it worth the money for the equipment.
Here’s a better picture of the evaporator. I built it myself. I have a run of copper pipe in the steam hood that I can feed either directly from my RO or from a pump from the tank. Sap goes in the preheater at 40 degrees and comes out at 120 into the preheat pan on the back and I can adjust the valve on to keep my sap level consistent. I fill the woodbox every 7 minutes with slab wood that I buy from the Amish.
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Started drawing off the evaporator this morning and it’s looking like it has great color
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Boiled down yesterday and got 13.5 gallons in 12 hours due to some mechanical failures. Our preheater pump went out so we were dumping cold sap in to the pan. Here are some more pictures of our operation.
you have a highly efficient system Dan. Do you mind sharing what RO system you have and how much you have into it? also, do you have a finishing pan or how do you finish a batch of that size after you pull off the evaporator?
I originally had an RO system I built and had about $250 into it. It would process about 10 gallons an hour going from 2.5% sap up to 7-8%. I could easily walk you through building one. This year I bought an RO Bucket single Post RO that will do 60 GPH. Think I paid $1100 for it but the time savings is big as well as efficiency. No finishing pan, I just test the syrup with the Hydrometer and when it’s at the point I want we just pull the pan off to the right (frame welded to evaporator in the picture) then filter directly from the pan through our Filter Press. Filtered syrup goes into stock pots then into house to get put into jars.
Homemade RO
Pic of RO
For some reason none of my pics will upload. I can send you pictures of more things if you’d like.
It is probably the size of the pictures. Might need to downsize them to get them to load. I have had that same problem.
Test
Test
I hope you didn’t mind!
I DO NOT understand what the issue is with loading them onto here!
Don’t mind at all. I have no idea why they wouldn’t load here. Back to syrup stuff….
Went and checked tanks tonight and we have another 300 gallons in the woods. Collected 100 tonight to make some room since I have to work late tomorrow. Should be another good boil on Saturday.
The ladies on sap patrol as I travel for work this week. Boiled down over 120 gallons last week. About as much as I could handle. I’ll do one more boil but fishing is starting to take over priority.
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It’s been running like crazy for us the last few days. Our three 55 Gallon drums were full Tuesday with more left out in the woods. Started boiling yesterday morning, hoping to curve the time its going to take this weekend. The weather doesn’t look very pleasant.
Unfortunately, the two maples on my quarter acre plot in the cul-de-sac sure aren’t going to put out enough sap for me to make it worth the money for the equipment.
I live in a first ring suburb with a single maple in the yard. Neighbors all say yes when asked to tap their trees. I run 15 taps, get five gallons or so using aa wood fired barrel stove. Likely not cost effective but fun and tastes fantastic.
I live in a first ring suburb with a single maple in the yard. Neighbors all say yes when asked to tap their trees. I run 15 taps, get five gallons or so using aa wood fired barrel stove. Likely not cost effective but fun and tastes fantastic.
That’s how the addiction starts! I see guys on bookface asking if they should tap the two trees they have in their suburban property. I tell them all yeah! Then go talk to your neighbors and tap theirs too!
Collected 470 gallon yesterday and have it running through the RO while I’m at work. Will start boiling tonight to burn some off then finish the rest tomorrow. Should get another 13 or so gallons of finished syrup. Sugar content dropped a little this week down to 2.5% but still not bad.
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