 All right with this is President's Day the 20th of February It's probably between 45 and 50 degrees out right now a real mild day and I'm checking the trees and See if there's any sap running Got my bucket here. I empty it into Take the cover off and if you'll note this cover is a very useful tool especially if it rains or snows or In this case if you look on this side of the cover It prevented this bird poop from going into the sap So it has many many uses so we got a We got roughly a half a bucket of Sap and it's really dripping I will I Will collect this again. I'll check it later in the day. It's around noon time right now, and it's really dripping Really well, we got two taps on this big rock maple now look at Look at the amount of sap in this one. I would say between those Those two taps we probably got about that's a five-gallon bucket. We probably got about three gallons This morning, and I had checked these yesterday and emptied them late in the day, so That sap is run overnight in and today. We had a mile night last night. I think it was probably When I get up this morning, it was like 36 degrees so stayed mild all night No, we got two more trees here on the lawn to check When we got about the same amount not pretty much filled that Five gallon peel of course. They only brought one pill with me, which is a big mistake So I got one more treaty empty, so I will I will Pick it up later. Well, this one is even fuller than the other one Crippin away. Yeah Hold the tree. Would you say this is Donnie? I can remember my mother planted this so I would say this tree is Probably 60 years old maybe 50 to 60 years old Yeah, the tree that we just had the two taps on I would say is well over a hundred years old How about your mom? She's a hundred and four And when And when she came to this place she was 24 when they bought this place so Yeah, all right Well today we're headed over to Wayne Jones's We had a pretty good saffron yesterday in the end Last week it ran pretty good not not a hundred percent, but it ran ran and So we're headed in his road now. He boils a sap down for me Which is great because I don't have an evaporator and takes half of what we produce and I get the other half Which to me that's one heck of a good deal because it's pretty time-consuming to boil down saff and And it takes a lot of time to sit there, especially when you get down here at the end it You have to watch it pretty closely so we're on the dirt road that leads him into his place and And he said he was boiling today, so we'll talk with him and get his take on on the sap business and and Go from there I dropped these buckets full yesterday Let's go in and check and see what the heck is going on inside Yeah, he built this shack. No, I think it was last year. He had a smaller one Do we sell it I've got another hundred gallons up there to boil up. Yeah, I hit 330 last night, and I wrote it down Do you want to introduce him to the world darling? Oh Your sap maker this is Wayne Sir make That's the finisher paw And we're trying to get it down to 59 bricks on this I go on it up Here, but we cheat and use one that's called the mercy cup so This will adjust to the temperature So then this needs to float Whatever the dial says to be Sarah It takes a lot of guesswork out of it. So this is the science of it. That's not it. It's a big science project people What's the mirror for? That mirror is so old when you sit down in that chair Joe Look at the mirror. Yeah, you can see anything of the pot. Nice. So you don't have to stand up all the time Especially with a guy that's head vertigo getting up and down can trigger vertigo Yeah, we might be laying on the floor right in the ball It's not a very pleasant thing to have that's pretty sweet, huh? Yes, my son and his family Like in the new shop a new sugar house fantastic nice and really You left room for a bigger evaporator There's a couple of pointy wings there in the sugar house and one of them is a wife that goes along with it All right, so we click we click the sap in the afternoon and We need to take a walk over to my shop, and I'll show you the reverse osmosis over there and Then we'll come back over here. Perfect. I can leave the wife in charge. I think she's selling. Yeah She's doing the important Yeah I Turn that down because that will boil over watch that hot later, please This is a reverse osmosis And what this does it will take water out of the sap so I hope bring my sap into the shop in the afternoon and hook up and Let this run overnight And it will reduce by 50 60% So in other words it takes out at least half the water most of the time I come in it 2% which is 43 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup And I bring it down to around 5% which is 17 and a quarter gallons So this takes a lot of the boiling time out of the equation This runs all night. It has a low low pressure shut off So we'll shut right down when it's out of sap Which is a good thing so I can get a good night's sleep Because I'm not one to go and boil watch it all night because I'll be asleep and it will burn out But this is worth every penny you spend on it to reduce the amount of fire Would you go throw into that evaporator? I've heard tell me they use the water that you take out of the sap and they bottle it Yes, the big guys are bottling the water which they're calling some are calling it tree water or Maple water and it's pure. I guess you can't really get much purer than that as far as drinking water Yeah, it does have a shelf life. That's the downside of it Because it probably still got a little bit of sugar in it according to the hydrometer Here for the sugar content that is the water that came out of the arrow last night and it's rated zero So let's tell me there's no sugar in it to speak of but typically it runs Coming out of the tree around 2% Don he has a couple of trees at his mother's house that will produce 3% Which is only 28 gallons and a half to make a gallon of syrup so 1% Is a big number Yeah, yeah, because if you even we go from 2% at 43 gallons to one and a half or up to 57 gallons So that's your red maple. Yeah in some longer in the season the sugar content will come down The big guys they don't care though Arrow it at 1% because they've got you know, great big ones that do thousands of gallons an hour Do you ever get down to like five six seven or not out of the tree? No, no only through the arrow Yeah, and if I ran it back through the arrow I could take it down to 8% if I wanted to well then I like boiling it So that gets it some good flavor And obviously the less liquid in it the less boiling time we have How are you how are your trees doing that you collect from good good? They run about 2% everything I got. Yeah, um, even those trees over long Yeah, yeah, they're around about 2% That's it's funny. My mother's trees are so hard Yeah, you know, it's just just the nature just the nature of things. Yeah one of these have this memory filter in it, oops, sorry and this is how thick the filter is and The sugar that suspended in the sap will not go through this filter These were designed for drink for your household drinking water to take contaminants out But in the sugar business we save the contaminants, which is the sugar So there's one of these in each one of those housings and I think it's 75 gallons an hour goes through each filter so they they're in series So it keeps passing through each one. How often do you have to change? Well, I change ease every year because they do Say there's I think it someone has around three thousand gallons per filter and It's to me. I use them up pretty hard and I just replace them every year then there's no Worries about them failing mid-season, right? You can wash them. They have a Product you can run through if you're not going to use it for some time or if you just want to purge them And I usually do it what I what I think is mid-season. I'll run up they call it an arrow soap through it and Clean them out. They'll run a little better after that The main thing is you don't wash any of this equipment with a soap actual soap like a dish soap because finished syrup Will take on that flavor just like that So everything from here out is washed with just hot water And so far we haven't had any contaminated syrup This is that I rode Sat from last night. Okay So we had over 300 gallons There was a I don't know about 135. I think in this tank this morning And That flows into the sap house So how's it how's it been running Into my preheater and this will warm up The cold sap To help on the boiling for pre-heat. Yeah, pre-heat off the heat of the stack Which this is just a piece of stainless. So it's super hot The phone Burn on to the side of the team Do anything with a phone? No, I guess you could put it And you like the burn pine or anything you got anything I got these are slabs from When I sought out the beams to build the sugar house. Oh nice So the process here is on fire and keep boiling How long does it take to boil? I probably boil 15 16 gallons an hour off so If it's 5% sap we're bringing in it's about You know about a gallon worth of syrup. We can make about every hour Once we get going here So you're boiling down into this I boil it and this this is supposed to be the finished pan, but We have trouble getting it real close near finished. So we end up putting it over here on the small stove where we can control and Boil it down to the finish syrup. Hopefully this one will be ready This this this will boil over When you turn around to look at something And the closer it gets to sir easier it is to boil. Okay I'm sure there's a science on temperatures. Yes, what we're doing is what? Boiling out all the water that's in the sack To make syrup water boils it to 12 most days sir Finish sir is up around 219 to 220 Depending on your elevation and the barometric pressure of the day And the closer to serve it gets the small in the bubbles up But which is the best? Nice And you keep track of your gallons and you got some old taps over there This is how much money you got into this place. Yes, that's how much money you have in maple syrup here No That number is a number of drops of sap out of a tree to make one down with that Okay, so we I figure some government guy sat there with a counter twice twice Cool I Cool to see the different paths. Yes. Oh, wow You guys ought to make some of those Those are a little bit more efficient I bet yes, these are your filters over here. Yes No, is that are these finishing filters or are they before like pretty well The funny shake once in the middle those are you got the evaporator? Come filters and then they have a thin paper filter that goes inside of them They call a pre-filter. Oh, wow. Yeah, this will collect the big stuff And they're easier to wash because these are a heavy They call all on filters. They're like a felt. Yeah, they're a pain to wash And you have to wash them out of your time because they'll they'll literally plug right up with contaminants out of the syrup It's your boiling and then the square ones we use After it's syrup you have to filter it one last time before you bottle it Because when you're bringing up over a hundred and ninety hundred ninety five degrees it creates sugar sands. They call it and If you don't filter them out, they will settle to the bottom to be a joke. Yeah, and be like a piece of rock candy So the final filter is the most important Anything you do in the sugar house and hopefully we can Get this pot finished and we'll run it through my vacuum filter over here which is a Homemade one so this is a vacuum filter. Oh, wow. So we took apart cut the bottom out And we put these two filters in and we put a fitting in and We put the shot back hooked up to that When we fill this up with finished syrup and it will suck it through the filter in an instant That's brilliant. If not, it goes through Like molasses in January pretty slow Yeah, they they make them commercial versions of this but they're you know $800 and up Yeah, and this is I probably have 40 bucks in that Plus the vacuum when everybody has to have a vacuum. Yeah. Yeah, you already got that And and with this little Damper on the a fit and for the vacuum that I did that to help keep the sap Finish sure it from getting sucked into the vacuum. Okay And it seems to work And then what temperature do you bottle it at 180 degrees? Wow, that's done over back here This is another one of our homemade regs. This is a Water boiler and this has a dial thermostat so we can if it's will keep temperature at 180 degrees And this rig here is a foot operated all nice So it runs you hit that paddle it will run right out and as soon as you pick your foot up it Shots up. That's nice. There it is Good cat. He's sorry Bubbles are getting smaller That's what happens when you're talking to my And then you got a meter over here that's showing you how much on the wall how much that yeah, is that showing how much saps in the To It all it one thing it does is advance the preheater, okay, and it tells me this bottom line Is when we're at it when we're out. Yeah So this morning I got going and it's filled up and Well, it was floating and then all of a sudden Liquid dropped out And it must have been some icy Pre-heater something that caused the jam and I was starting to panic because the fire is hot and we're making We got we had a problem. So when what I can do is like this is a flow Keeps evaporator constant Level mm-hmm, and if I touch this that you watch that Yeah, oh, okay, so that tells me when everything is working because my Carol asked me the other day. Well, you got that. I said so I can tell if it's flowing right in this morning That told me we had a blockage And a blockage would be something that would be there was some No, it was in the preheater. They must be Must be holding some liquid and freezing on me. No would that ruin your evaporator well eventually it would if you ran the pandra Yeah, so you always should have a bucket of water. Yeah sat on the floor. Yeah that you can throw in in a hurry But yeah, that's a Good safety device That's quite a for your Made that all that actually was in the house when we bought it around some beans I had a one-stop really and I saved them because someday I was gonna need them. Yeah, that's awesome Yeah, do you tell you how many drinks it took? Yeah, the general count of those Yeah And Donnie you're glad to have this part over the job. Oh, hey, can you imagine they see you Darrell? So you don't mind handing this part over Donnie No, I think he's got the the worst end of the deal Collected You're like your mother you don't have time to sit around and watch this The whole deal it's a lot of science in this isn't there. Yes a lot of math. What science? Yeah Great project for kids in schools to do Donnie's daughter does in some schools here. Yeah Yeah, she does it a couple different schools right now. She teaches in a district of five different schools and she Does the sapping on two of the schools because they got some maple trees on the property and My neighbors allow them to tap their trees and so they do it and it gets the kids out and they learn something, you know and really have a great time and and every so often they get enough Saperity and they the janitor made a homemade evaporator and they bring the kids out and they evaporate it make some syrup and Darcy gets some ice cream and they have a Syrup and ice cream. I bet they hate that. Oh, they hate that. Yeah. Yeah, so so in Wayne was good enough to donate some buckets and lids and taps and For that project and which is wonderful. She appreciates that way She won't walk. Yeah, those kids will learn way more doing that. Yeah, they will Yeah, yeah, yeah, they really like it. Hopefully they don't get addicted to it Joe asked if that number was how much I had in my business Pretty close Yeah, probably never ends Seems like it's going out better today than it has in some other time He's figuring out how to get it. I guess try to get the building as fast as I can before I stop somebody built the building too tight and The steam doesn't like to go out. If we close this door, this way this door is open So let in air so that the steam will go out. But if I close this door, you give it a minute And that steam will start building It doesn't take long does it? Yeah, it rolls the downed up straight. It's already starting to build Yeah, I've been in here when he's first started a doctor That's it then And that's the truth In this yeah, in history, I don't really know what I know and somebody we won't mention our name Thought we'd really built something that we weren't going to be able to use Oh What kind of temperature you think you're running in there? Yeah, I Mean it's gotta be up near thousand. Oh, yeah, it will probably yeah over. Yeah, there's actually a ball underneath Yeah, I saw that Listen to the boil. So this is what you'd have if you value it open the damper But that's nothing Well Yeah Right well, I was telling Joe these little slabs that came off the beans when I saw the beans up to the sugar Oh, okay, we're getting all we're getting a whole tree, right? Yeah, now she's kind of the life. Yeah, oh girl That that will sometimes almost jump it will jump out you can see it on the top of the pan now Don't want to stick in No, as long as you have fluid coming you can't be too hot on that right now. Wow You know, this is obviously here look at this has got a good boil going in now So it's it hmm to 12 is boiling water. What we're boiling right now Don't check that back being really That's looking so far down. Do you get this fan? Well, I would like to get it close up, but I had seen to get it there It'd be nice if it was within a degree or two of 220 but I'm gonna say it's probably 14 maybe I Table You know That's an idea sell himself and he can know when he comes on Sundays you can take some of this papal I'm not both big Now it's nowhere to be ready. Yeah, what are the test out it didn't even float it But that's party Now, what about color on syrup? How about the gradient and stuff? How's that the gradient? Obviously the early of the season typically is lighter syrup Obviously the longer you boil it the doctor it gets and if you if you keep it As saff in a bucket along you keep it quicker the more the Bacteria will start eating the sugars that's in it and it causes it to be doctor, but we have this little electronic Rig here that we use for grading And they give you a liquid that you calibrate the Grader with is there a grade that people want Well, if you're me, I like it all if you're in Vermont Everybody likes Delicate they call it. So this is ready for a sample of syrup. We don't have any here And we fill these little jazz up with a sample Put them in here and it will give us a number and then on the back of this That tells you what color it is by what number that it comes up as We we make a lot of dark Further into the season it will go to very dark and most people that have never tried the dark Love the duck once they try it because it has flavor. It's got more flavor. The delicate. Yeah Golden golden delicious That has very little flavor You know, so You know, it's to everybody's taste. Yeah, there was a price difference on the back Not my house. There is no price difference, but in Vermont the delicate or It sells for more money. Yeah Right, we also add cinnamon sticks to our syrup Right in the we put them in the jazz and That will flavor it It is just like having fresh Cinnamon on your pancakes I usually take one of these, you know, I got a I got a quart in my printer right now every Well, I'd say about every day Screw the top. Just take a guzzle. Yeah me too. Yeah Yeah, oh man, it's really tasty Now you guys must sell some if you're producing that kind of amount you want to do you guys sell it Would you sell it online or is it just If somebody wanted your syrup or bounty syrup where would they get it Licensed to sell it anywhere, but I'm staying down in Damasca our clocks I'm staying in a cell around 150 gallons. Wow Every year yeah, because Jigas says Every person in August comes to the door buys Paint at least a pint of maple syrup to take back with So we we keep it local Do you guys smell how nice it isn't here to get used to it? I can't I can't it smells It smells so nice in here This would just take that beam and resell it that's a smell fragrance. Come on. There's a lot of sugar makers So price is probably a little less there could be a less competition We don't sell anything what they clap anything over a gallon in a container is considered bulk syrup And it's sold by the pound Okay Yeah, and it's I believe it's about 11 pounds for the gallon and Depending on the grade of this Serpia selling It's around two dollars and 40 cents a pound But both because big guys, you know, it's 55 gallon drums. Yeah, I was in a sugar house over the other side of rain please two years back In guys first year It made 13,000 gallons of syrup his first year He said the biggest trouble was giving enough 55 gallon grunts and enough de-foamer keep the phone down in the evaporator Because he had he was running about 30,000 packs and He said on a good day it was coming in at about 3,000 gallons an album You know the sugar house so he just But his reverse osmosis is constantly running the shrink Liquid in the bank 50 gallons of men Almost a gallon a second. Yeah, you go on computer in this Sugar houses in Canada that are pumping the sack three miles from Things quite a crew of the woods just to keep those lines They're checking those lines, but now now on the satellite with the vacuum on them. There's now Electronic readers they will send a signal For how the vacuum is doing and if they've lost that So then they can send somebody out. They know where they are in the woods and they can send somebody out on that line In the tree and come down or nutrient through it or who knows what it is There's one in northern Vermont now. It's running somewhere around a quarter of a million taps It's a year round They're you know making half a quarter of a million gallons sir Just a minute. It's amazing What what's out there for businesses that Sat related, you know, nobody's up to you guys wrong. Oh Most of us are red maple which are don't produce as much The ones out here behind sugar house. I have a sample on it Down through the woods and then comes over the roadside to a milk tank and it has a Little IV water pump in it that will create a vacuum and help pull the liquid out of the line and that's got I think a hundred and Sixty something taps on that line We got 70 buckets out of 70 line Yeah, we got 70 buckets out the grandkids look the common help put out buckets and collect so And I got another couple places with natural vacuum, which is 360 line run on a slope and that will run on its own and We've got two of the two areas with that And you just back up and pump the tank out and you're all done Somehow we've got the 70 buckets out and the grandkids go skiing every week Tax trees and he goes on vacation Are you boiling for any other daughties? No, yeah, he's the one of a kind Only one daughty in the world He's what they call a gentleman in syrup, right? Yeah, he'll put the taps in I'm certainly a little man on a total fall when it comes to, you know, I think I got 65 buckets out and You know, I just enjoy it I'm gonna do keep the Get you out of bed in the morning. Yeah Oh are they What's de foam or is it like an oil this is We put butter in way back Way back in today they use butter the old timers would have a wire hanging over the evaporator and then hang a piece of salt pork on it in the heat from the evaporator Would cause it to drip oils out of salt pork to keep the foam down Other people will use milk You can if you're not gonna sell it but you know the You know adding something to the sir you're early asking for trouble, especially a dairy product Because somebody's allergic to dairy. They might not like that Francis, yeah We used to throw hot dogs into yes I was going to tell you to bring some of them lowest in lobster. Yeah, we don't want them So this is an old-fashioned yoke that the old time issues when everything was on buckets And they put on their shoulder and then they could carry a five gallon bucket on each side Without using their ass Well, they probably had wooden buckets like that one. Well bigger than that to carry to the collection tank With a loop handle So you can you imagine doing this all day on snowshoes? Five six hundred buckets They were rugged. Yeah. Oh, yeah, they went to bed early There was no watching movies How is the first how did the native americans figure out to get to boil down maple Sat and get zero who are the first ones? Yeah Right, but they they claim the indians used to Heat rocks and they'd have hauled out Wooden bowls and they would put the hot rocks into the liquid to boil it and they also used the mother nature's reverse osmosis was throw up the ice It's in the bucket because there's less sugar in the ice And uh That's the big debate for anybody with buckets. Do you throw out the ice or not? Spends on how much that you got you don't want to stay up all night boiling you throw the ice out Ha ha ha ha But yes, so they the native americans started Heating rocks putting it into the wooden bowls to boil it off Do you ever bust around with birch or no new so the problem is with birch birch stats When maple is over maple runs when the temperatures down around 20 20 25 at night and gets up to 38 40 degrees maple runs birch runs When the temperature stays above freezing maple syrup Is 43 to one birch is close to 100 to one So birch you gotta boil a lot longer. It doesn't taste as good either. I I I call it the moxie. Yeah maple syrup Yeah Yeah The problem what happens is I washed this yesterday Biggest mistake you wash it. You're gonna boil over You leave it dirty It's just like How's this year shaping up Good we made 15 gallons in february, which Unusual unusual, you know, usually we get a run rig the end of february. This was Around uh 17 to the 24th We had a good run And we made 15 gallons. It's always nice to get started It's even nicer to finish I read the cleanup is uh, yes, I will spend Probably four days washing collecting washing drying putting away All the stuff Everything that the saps been on the buckets the tanks the saps lines Pharmative, yeah that he knows a lot about that Boiling down stuff. Oh, that was great