It’s hard to believe we’re starting our tenth season! Last Wednesday we began drilling, and with the help of Jacob’s Maple Products we got 2/3rds of our taps in. We’re taking a break early this week while the temperatures are really low to catchup on some candy/inventory, then we’ll be back in the woods to finish things. This is the first winter in a long time where we’ve actually had low temperatures and snow, and the forecast doesn’t show a real thaw for a while. We’ll be ready whenever the sap starts flowing!
The 2025 season is almost here. We’re busy installing new spouts and drop lines while repairing any new damage in the woods. This summer we rerouted several lines on the west side of our Robinson road property. 800 taps will now be connected to an electric releaser with a heated box instead of a mechanical releaser, which often malfunctioned at the most inconvenient times. Last year, we had a great success with our 3,000 test arc-barb spouts, so we’ve decided to install them on all our taps. This season we’ll try 2,100 antimicrobial spiles on the west side of Robinson. With nine years of sap collection history we should have a good idea if it makes a difference relative to the east side of the property. We’re also trying 8,000 antimicrobial drop lines. They may not show any additional benefits this year, but we hope they’ll maintain their performance longer than traditional drop lines as they age. January’s weather forecast continues to look cold, we’ll most likely start tapping next week!
This April, as usual, we cleaned our evaporator after the season ended. Processing nearly a half million gallons of sap will leave a little calcium in the rig! We alternate between food grade phosphoric acid and sodium hydroxide, along with many water rinses. One morning, after leaving the pans to soak overnight, we were surprised to wake up to an empty flue pan! Somehow during the season a hole developed in the bottom of the pan. It must have bridged with minerals during the season, but once we cleaned everything off it became exposed and leaked into the fire box. We’re still not sure how a hole like the one in the picture develops, but fortunately we were able to get some help from Firth Maple Products welding it back up. We installed four come alongs to lift the steam pan, then TIG welded the hole shut. Now that the Christmas candy rush is over we’ll finish cleaning both the inside and outside, and weather permitting we’ll have syrup boiling again within the next month.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the crew at Nova Maple Syrup!
