Starting on Saturday morning, we were able to make 155 gallons of syrup in four days.  Our best day was on Sunday when we made 65 gallons of syrup.  This was a single day record for us.  The excellent sap flow on Saturday and Sunday was caused by a very cold night on Friday that was followed by a quick warm up during the day.  

The past few days, when temperatures have shot up into the mid-70's, we haven't collected as much sap because we haven't had freezing nights.  To keep the sap fresh we filter it and refrigerate it with our bulk tanks that used to be on dairy farms.  This preserves the sap nicely during warm weather.  Without refrigeration, the sap would degrade quickly with warm temperatures.

An interesting thing that we've observed this year is that the syrup tastes a lot better.  We aren't sure why.  My dad and I tossed around possibilities, including a better growing season last year, a well timed snow fall that allowed the trees to access nutrients from the soil, or the larger diameter filtering aid that we switched to.  Almost every large maple syrup producer uses a filter press to remove precipitated minerals from the syrup.  Essentially it is a small gear pump that pushes the syrup through fine papers.  A filter aid, called diatomaceous earth (DE), is used to increase the capacity of the papers before they get clogged.  The DE that we used to use was one micron in size.  After reading research that four micron DE still took out visual impurities, but allowed for a faster flow rate, we tried the larger size.  The syrup is still just as clear, but we are wondering if there are some other things that can now get through the DE that are adding to the flavor.  We don't entirely know why the syrup tastes even better, but the bottom line is the syrup tastes really good!  

There are still a couple of freezing nights that are forecast for the next week.  However, the 10 day trend appears to show that we are moving well above the freezing point.  We might be done with our syrup season pretty quickly because as soon as the buds come out, the sap tastes different and gives an off taste to the finished syrup.  Our total syrup production at this point in the season is 215 gallons.  Our overall total last year was 435 gallons.  

We have had a remarkable shift in our weather, with very crisp nights in the 20's and high 30's during the day. We received 5" of wet snow on 3/23 which provided much needed moisture.  Our naturalist friend, Jim Gilbert, said the snow had a moisture content of .43" of water.  This was 3 times what we received for the rest of March!

The sap flows surged to 1 gallon of sap per tap both Monday and Tuesday. We will be quite busy today in the sugarhouse and the forecast looks favorable for the next several days.

Get your favorite maple recipes together . . . you won't need to wait much longer!

The unseasonably warm weather for March continues. The warm days have been very pleasant but the non-freezing nights have resulted in a rapid reduction in flow. The amount of sap is being measured in ounces per tap instead of the expected gallons. The volumes have been so meager that we have not been able to use the reverse osmosis or even the evaporator.

 We have used a combination of techniques including ultrafiltration, refrigeration, and germicidal ultraviolet light to maintain the quality of our sap, until we have a large enough volume to process. When we eventually fire up the evaporator,  we'll see if these techniques have been successful. If we are not satisfied with the quality of our syrup, we'll drain our entire system, power wash all equipment and start afresh.

The forecast for this weekend is for nights in the 20s which we will gladly welcome.