I was thinking I only had 1 barrel of dark left, I actually have 2, a 26.5 gal and a 40 gallon barrel, plus I still have one barrel of Amber, a 40 gal. Once they are gone I won’t have more until the 2025 season starts.
Lately the seasons have started earlier than traditionally which was late February to mid March. In fact not too many years ago my first boil of the season was March 28. Lately the season has crept up. Last year first boil was Jan 21. Last boil was March 14 and in the middle there were 2 extended freezes with no sap flow.
The season starts when we get warm days and cold nights. As the temperature falls into the 20’s, ideally 27 or colder the trees get a negative pressure in the tree (a vacuum). That as a result it pulls water from the ground up thru the roots into the trunk of the tree, then as the temperature climbes into the upper 30’s and to the 40’s a pressure is created in the tree which then pushes sap up to feed the buds which will eventually become leaves on the tree. When I’m tapped at that time, I collect a small portion of the available sap. Additionally I run vacuum on my tubing which helps me collect more sap, but still a very small percentage of the tree’s total. I combine that with the sap from all the other taps and then I can make more syrup.
While in the past I’ve had up to 1320 taps, I sold my bigger evaporator and bought a new smaller one. My old evaporator was a 3′ x 8′ unit able to evaporate about 70-75 gal per hr off in excess water, burning wood, my new evaporator is only a 2×6 and hopefully I’ll have it converted to an oil fired rig before the season, but if I don’t get that conversion by time to boil, I’ll be burning wood for another year. If on wood the new one will do about 30-35 gal per hour, on oil likely 40-45 gal per hour. I’ll see. I plan to have 200 to at most about 300 taps for 2025, then in yr 2 I’ll do maybe up to about 425 taps. That will be essentially the max in my woods surrounding my sugarhouse. I do however have a neighbor who has 2 rows of maples adjacent to my property line that her dad planted over 40 yrs ago. They are about every 15-20 apart and 500′ long rows thus maybe 50-60 more possible, if she allows me to tap them. In any case all sap will flow directly to the sugarhouse, thus no trucking. Back when I had my 1320 taps, all sap was hauled from 7-9 miles away.
Oil would have a huge advantage on a fw fronts. First, an oil fire starts boiling in less than 10 minutes when turned on while wood takes almost 20-25 minutes. Second, the oil fire is always perfect, while on a wood fire it goes thru cycles. Just after adding wood it takes 2 or more minutes to get back to full boil, then at 7 minutes in, I need to add a full arm load of additional wood because the boil has slowed some. As I open the door to add wood, the boil stops as a rush of cold air rushes in over the fire and under the pan, then at about 15 seconds later I close the door and the fire gains full heat within about 2 minutes or slightly longer. Oil is always at 100%.
Then on the other end of the boil, as I get down to about 12-14 gal of sap (Or concentrated sap, because I removed some of the water using Reverse Osmosis (RO). I need to stop adding wood and wait an hour to an hour and a half for the boil to stop, before I can cover everything , shut off the lights and go homeTypically that will take the sugar % from about 2% up to 8%, if I do a second pass about 11-12%. My RO is not capable to get over about 12% sugar. There are lots of far more expensive RO’s that do 15, 18 even 24% and a few that can get sap up to even 35% but those RO’s at concentrate that high require uniquely different evaporators. For example my evaporator has a 3.5′ long sap pan with raised flues and a 2.5′ long syrup pan with a flat bottom. The syrup gets it’s flavor from caramelizing in the flat pan. An evaporator for 35% concentrate might often be 18-20′ long, with 6 or 8′ long sap pan and the rest all flat pan in order to have time to develope the maple flavor. Back to my rig, if I get converted to oil fired I’ll be able to finish all sap or concentrate and then just turn the burner off, the boil will stop instantly and I’ll then be able to cover everything (I make a SS cover for the syrup pan, and each float box of which there are 3 to be sure no moths or whatever get into the pan. The back pan, the sap pan, already has a full hood over it which keeps everything out. I even cover the steam stack when not boiling. My head tank, which is outside on a raised platform and feeds the evaporator always has a cover on it.
Thus my shut down proceedure would be maybe 10 minutes on oil, but 75 to over 100 minutes on wood. Yes, I’d need to buy the oil, but cutting all of the firewood takes loads of time and fuel to cut down the tree, drag it out of the woods, buck it to length and then split it to wrist size so it will burn super hot. On my firewood it is all split so if one dimension is 3″, the other it at 2″ or less, if wider than 3″ the thickness is at or under 1.5″ thick. That takes lots of time, but if the wood is larger the boil will not be as fast.
Today I just got the price on the oil burner I’d need to use. It has to be able to fire 3.5 gal per hour and the gun before installation is $1095 cost. Then I have a good tank I could use but the fuel hook up, the fuel lines (1 in 1 return), the filter the wiring and such will add maybe another $100 plus then I’d need to buy the oil at whatever the price is when I order it. In later seasons I’d order when the mid summer prices are lower typically but in year 1 that won’t be possible. If I don’t get set for oil in 2025, I’ve been getting more wood ready just in case. What I’ve been cutting is almost all dead standing ash. Sence the emerald ash borer got here I’ve lost most if not all of my ash trees. Most are still standing but they are quite dry on the stump. As I buck them and split to wrist size they finish drying fairly quick. Plus, from my previous evaporator I still have about hslf a season’s worth of wood for that and I also have about 3 face cords that has been drying in a tent shed with both ends open for at least 6 years, maybe 8. Thus At most I likely only need 2 or 3 face cords more. For those not familiar with a face cord it is a stack of wood, well stacked 4′ high by 8′ long and at whatever length the wood is cut. In the case of the wood for the 3×8 evaporator, it’s cut at 21″ length, the wood in the tent shed is 14-15″ long and what I’m now cutting is 15″ long. All of those lengths will work in the new evaporator, but it will like 15″ the best. To get a super hot fire I need to criss cross the wood to get the most air thru it, the 21″ will need to be placed partially diagonally to one side then a layer to the other side, the 14 or 15″ will be easier to keep the criss cross pattern.
On my previous evaporator I added high pressure air for both under and over the fire, which made the fire far more efficient. I won’t do that on this evaporator because that method is not used for oil fired and the new evaporator will only be fired on wood for 1 yr at most, maybe not at all.