The sap season is going strong. Had a few windy days that knocked over my tent to the point where this will be the last year it gets used. I have it patched up enough to get through the season, but there will be no folding it back to where it fits in a box. Oh well. I believe I lost 3 or 4 buckets during the same wind storm. Replaced the buckets, rehung all the ones that I could find, and had to put the taps back into the trees as most came off with the lid. For some good news I collected 50 gallons of sap the next…

This past Sunday – February 20th – I put in my 50 taps to prepare for maple syrup season. Even got a few drops of sap in the buckets while doing so! The weather this week is looking to be perfect: Above freezing days and below freezing nights. I’m hoping to have enough sap by mid week to try out the new reverse osmosis. I have the odd habit of calling my sap buckets, sap traps. No idea why? It rhymes and makes me smile I suppose. I’ve been thinking of adding 15 to 25 more taps this season. If the reverse osmosis works as well as advertised, I would…

I decided it was time to step up my reverse osmosis game and leave my home built version and get myself a professionally built, but still hobby, maple sap RO. I still have my personal version and it works great, but just too slow… I need to run it overnight most of the time and when I do, sometimes the pump will run dry. I’m pretty sure I ruined last seasons pump. I haven’t tested it, but I recall it not working very well at the end of the season (if at all). This version will still get my sap up to 8 brix but at a blazing 50 gallons…

First and foremost I kept horrible track of everything this year. Was an odd year to say the least. While the sap is still running for some, I ended up pulling my taps due to the 0.5 sugar content coming out. Even with my Reverse Osmosis, that’s not enough for me to keep going. So I called it. Pulled the taps, cleaned the gear – even had a neighbor want to keep going so he borrowed my pan and burner. So timing was perfect for him! Overall made ~ 7 gallons of finished product which is on par for what I normally do. I was hoping to get over 10…

Winter decided it wasn’t over and a cold snap came back through issuing a cease and desist on all sap running for a time. It was nice to have the reprieve as work has kept me busy and the wife was out of town for a work conference. I did get another 35 gallons (only at 1% sugar content) which I ran through the RO to get it ~ 5% I hopped into Ghetto Sap House Version 3.0 ( 2.0 crashed and burned ) and fired up the burner! Somewhere along the line I decided that it was the perfect time and temperature to light up a cigar, so I…