Out Like a Lamb
Good Morning from Wayeeses Farms. It's April 1st and the maple trees have been producing sap generously for the past seven days. So our daily routine has been:
- Sunrise visit to the sugarbush to check things and rinse the RO machine. If it froze overnight then all is quiet.
- Mid morning check and clean our front pans from yesterday's boil. Usually the vacuum pumps are on and sap is running in.
- By midday the tanks are half full so we start the Reverse Osmosis machine to begin removing water from the sap. You need to remove about 39 gallons of water from every 40 gallons of sap in order to produce 1 gallon of maple syrup. You can remove all of this water by boiling the sap or remove some with the RO.
- About a half hour after the RO has been running, we light a fire in the arch and commence boiling sap in our evaporator. The RO typically runs for 4 hours or until the sap tanks are empty. We boil all of the concentrated sap, which takes us at least 6 hours.
- By evening we are done boiling. We drain the partially cooked syrup from the front pans, fill the pans with water, clean the filter press, wipe down the evaporator, scrub the sap tanks, wash the floor and close the door. Usually home by 9 PM, ready to get up at sunrise and start all over again.
The ride home with Venus and the crescent moon in the western sky has been beautiful.
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