One benefit of our chilled concentrate tank is that we know exactly how much syrup we’ll make when we boil. In 1946 C.H. Jones discovered the rule of 86, which states that you can estimate how many gallons of sap it will take to make a gallon of syrup by dividing 86 by the sugar content of the sap. For example, 2% sap takes 43 gallons to make a single gallon of syrup. Our 2023 season sap averaged 1.20% and took ~72 gallons to make each gallon of syrup!

Our concentrate tank holds 3000 gallons, and lately we’ve been concentrating to 18% (20%+ tends to prematurely clog our last membrane). Using Jones rule we know our final ratio is 4.8:1, so a full boil will yield 625 gallons of syrup, or more if we’re adding to the concentrate tank while boiling.

On March 3rd we noticed one of  our vacuum pumps running a bit louder than usual. The very next day our Datacer system showed a vacuum level of only 18″. Before we had a chance to investigate, the vacuum ended up dropping to 0, and the next morning we found a seized up pump. This is exactly why we have a backup for every piece of equipment.

While navigating the wet area near our Robinson road pumphouse is not something we like to do, we ended up successfully swapping the pumps, though we did get the tractor stuck for a while! After hooking up the backup, we were disappointed to find that the wires leading into the motor were damaged and shorting out. This left us with a good motor attached to a bad pump and a bad motor attached to a good pump. Luckily the motors were compatible and similarly sized, after swapping a few couplings and re-attaching the motor we were up and running again! The two days without vacuum most definitely shortened the tap hole life on this property, but we ended up getting several more loads of sap before the season ended.

We’ll check out the seized pump next month. Based on the noise leading up to the seizure our guess is the bearings failed first, leading to additional failures. We’ll be sure to purchase another backup over the summer, one without wire damage, to be ready for next season!

March 25th and April 2nd were not good days. In the eight years we’ve lived here we’ve never seen wind like this. We were thinking about shutting down for the year before the first storm, the damage helped us make that decision. Then just a week after the first storm we were hit with another equally bad one, this time taking power out for over three days! We’re just now catching up with the damage around the sugar shack and houses, it will take all spring/summer to fix what’s in the woods. Fortunately nobody was hurt and we’ll be able to fix everything. Here are some photos from around the house.