Based on the forecast it looks like this Saturday might be my last boil. We had a freeze this morning and will again tomorrow morning but then the temperatures get too warm. A freeze is possible next Wednesday but that will only help if the tree buds have not opened. Even then, with so many days in the 50’s and 60’s I’d need to run the pumps to pull all of the soured sap out of the lines and then wash the tanks again before I could collect any good sap.
Even if this Saturday is the end, We’ve had a good season, we have all 3 of the lighter grades, I made no very dark this season. Some years I get the very dark as I do my last boil of the year, other years not, but that is by far the slowest selling grade.
I now have Golden, Amber and Dark packed, after the season is over I will pack more from stainless steel (SS) barrels to meet demand. In fact I repack again from SS barrels several times a year, as inventories sell down.
Right now in bourbon barrel aged maple syrup I have 2 barrels aging, one will be ready either late this month or as late as mid to late May. I still have a good quantity of the $12.00 size as of right now, but only 2 in the larger $20.00 size. I just failed to estimate how well the larger one would sell when I added that size and then I tried on my next order to get more of that size bottle but I couldn’t find it anywhere, unless I ordered a full tractor trailer load of just that one size, and then
I’d have had to pay freight all the way from California, build a larger warehouse too. 72,000 bottles that size fill a tractor trailer 53′ long semi. That was not going to happen. I would have never needed to buy more that’s for sure. Finally I got some of that bottle in early December when their long standing order arrived, from a distributor just 100 miles from here. I now need to order more for my next batch, I only got 8 dozen in and they are now gone. My next order will need to be much larger. It seems I sell the smaller size to people first trying the product but then they buy multiples of the larger size when they reorder.
In addition to my 2 barrels aging now, I will be filling another barrel in a few days, this time it will be a 15 gal barrel. The larger the barrel the longer it takes to age. I need to age a 5 gal barrel for 3-3.5 months, and a 10 gal for 6-7 months, I might need to age a 15 gal for 8-10 months, time will tell. It likely may not be ready for Christmas sales.
I guess I need to get up to my sugar bush lease now, it is now at 32 F, the pump needs to be fueled and started.