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Syrup Season is Upon Us!

by Peter 3/20/2011 3:36:00 AM

Sap flows on Friday and Saturday were very strong.  There was a strong freeze Friday night with a nice warmup to about 46 degrees on Saturday.  The trees have finally awakened from their winter freeze and the sap flowed quickly all day and night.  Sunday morning we woke up to our 800 gallon bulk tank being completely filled with flow from the overnight hours, which is nearly unprecedented.  This means that we collected over 1 gallon of sap per taphole overnight.  Overnight temperatures stayed in the mid-30's, keeping the sap lines open.  Usually the sap will not keep flowing without both freezing and thawing but we think that since this is the first strong warm spell, the sap kept flowing.  So far we have collected over 2000 gallons of sap and processed much of it into syrup.  The syrup is a very tasty, dark amber.  

 

Taps In

by Peter 3/12/2011 4:56:00 AM

The 670 taps have been installed this year, but we haven't made a drop of syrup yet.  A cool (cold) start to the season has us waiting for the first big sap flow.  The weather forecast for this upcoming week looks promising, so we anticipate using the reverse osmosis machine for the first time, followed soon after by an increased rate of syrup production.  

The ideal weather for maple sap flow involves a quick warm up in the morning from about 20 degrees to a temperature in the mid 40s.  Sunday evening until Monday should give us those good flow conditions.  If you look at the weather from Monday until Wednesday, it doesn't look like there will be a very strong freeze, so the sap should stay fluid in the trees.  With the aid of a vacuum pump, we should be able to collect sap on those days as well.  If we didn't have a vacuum pump, it is likely that the sap would not flow much on its own.

 

Mound, MN (55364) Weather

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Updated: Mar 12, 2011, 9:45am CST

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Today Mar 12 Sun 13 Mon 14 Tue 15 Wed 16
Few Snow Showers / Wind Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Few Showers Mostly Sunny
Few Snow Showers / Wind Partly Cloudy Partly Cloudy Few Showers Mostly Sunny
26°F 30° 40° 47° 49°
High High High High High
11° 18° 37° 31° 40°
Low Low Low Low Low
Chance of Snow:
30%
Chance of Precip:
10%
Chance of Precip:
10%
Chance of Rain:
30%
Chance of Precip:
10%

The Reverse Osmosis Machine

by Peter 9/11/2010 3:47:00 PM

The reverse osmosis machine is about the size of a small refrigerator.  The tall metal cylinder in back is what holds the membrane that filters out some of the excess water and keeps the sugar.  It is able to do this because sugar molecules are much larger than water molecules.