4d023 - 2y
Maple sugaring season is here! We make enough syrup to use as our sugar and have plenty more to sell. 14/60 taps in so far. Shooting for 15gal of syrup this year. Takes ~50gal of sap to make one gallon of syrup. Sap is collected, concentrated with reverse osmosis filter, then finished with propane. One 20lb canister of propane finishes around 2gal of syrup. Sugar from trees! I love our sugar bush!
WARTIME PSYCHOPATH™ ☣️⚔️ @WARTIME PSYCHOPATH™ ☣️⚔️ - 2y
Niiiiice!
Follow Rev.Hodl he is a good pleb friend of mine. He's always doing interesting things and thinking of new twists for mining, V4V networking and regenerative farming. But please don't buy anything from him. His stuff sells fast and sometimes leaves me hanging dry. haha #[0] #[1]
Maple syrup! 21 taps in so far, 14 the first day and 7 the next. I expect a quart of syrup per tap and I'll have to burn one 20lb tank of propane to get 2gal of finished syrup. I'll probably do the first sap collection in a few days. https://imgur.com/a/fIv6y7Q
Maple syrup! 21 taps in so far, 14 the first day and 7 the next. I expect a quart of sap per tap and I'll have to burn one 20lb tank of propane to get 2gal of finished syrup. I'll probably do the first sap collection in a few days. https://imgur.com/a/fIv6y7Q
Sugar from trees, 11 more taps in today and the sap is flowing. Something special about working in the woods, especially when the weather breaks well above freezing. The earliest glimpses of spring.
First sap collection of the maple sugaring season. Collected 50gal off 32 taps. First taps went in a week ago, added more throughout the week. Looking to get around a gallon of syrup from this collection. I also got to test out the new collection skid I made so we can use our 2 haflinger draft horses to collect the sap instead of the tractor. I think it will work just fine. https://i.imgur.com/hSnny8d.jpeg
79b64 - 2y
that will make a fine 1.25 gallons 😅
yegorpetrov @yegorpetrov - 2y
Are you going to sell them?
Yes, I will have syrup for sale. I'll certainly bring some to the next Chicago meetup I can attend.
I hope so, haven't tested the sugar content yet.
Nice! Will buy one 🫡
Yeehaw!!
After collecting the 50gal of maple sap, it is filtered with a homemade reverse osmosis system. This sap is 1,8% sugar to start, the filter removes water into a separate container and concentrated sap is sent back to the collection tank. It took 3hrs to remove 10gal of water from the sap and the pump uses 28w of power, a very low energy way to remove lots of water. As the sap gets more concentrated it takes longer to remove water. Once concentrated a much as the filter can handle, the remaining water is boiled off with a propane burner. This the third season using the reverse osmosis membranes and they are still working efficiently. The filter paid for itself in propane savings the first season. Now it's all about good maintenance to see how long before the membranes need to be replaced. https://imgur.com/a/FroIKyu
Boiling sap into maple syrup. The reverse osmosis system concentrated the sap to ~6% sugar leaving around 15gal of sap to be boiled. Once the sap reaches 66% sugar it becomes syrup. Boiling in a building is ideal as wind will slow progress and waste fuel. Today I'm boiling outside for convenience but next time I will boil in the garage. Shooting for 1gal of syrup from this batch to be finished on the stovetop and loaded hot into jars. https://i.imgur.com/PbYVg4n.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/OAHxPbl.jpeg https://imgur.com/a/ehHN0DG
Ended up with just over 3qts of maple syrup from the 50gal of sap. Not the most impressive yield but I was able to use only a small amount of diesel fuel on the tractor (45min), less than 1kwh of power for the filter pump, and about 2gal of propane. I'll be looking to decrease the inputs even more on future collections this season. https://i.imgur.com/Ckflzyx.jpeg
Maple Sugaring Thread: Finishing Syrup #[5]
Maple Sugaring Thread: Second Collection of the Season #[6]
Filtering the water out of 100gal of maple sap from the second collection of the maple sugaring season. The homemade reverse osmosis system was easy to build and removes about 3gal of water from the sap per hour. It's capable of filtering ~70% of the water before starting the boil. We save as much as the water as we can to drink and any extra goes to the animals.
Finished up tapping the maple trees today, 60 taps total this season. I started with just handful in 2016 and have pretty much doubled each year since. Not sure if I have enough trees to double to 120 taps next year. Many still have a ways to grow before they're big enough.
Just finished up the 4th collection with 75gal of sap. Filtering water out of the maple sap directly into my water bottle with a homemade reverse osmosis system. Just over 3gal/hr of water can be filtered out of the sap, concentrating it to about 6% before boiling with propane to finish the syrup. It might be in my head but the water from the maple sap is very good, better than water filtered from our well. The 3rd collection of sap was small and only ended up with a couple quarts of syrup, but with this latest collection we should have all the syrup we need for the year. Everything else will be for sale at Bitcoin meetups and direct homestead sales. #P2P #maplesyrup #homesteading #permaculture #maplesugaring #structuredwater #bitcoin #forestfarming
https://i.imgur.com/wDxzN41.jpeg Maple sugaring supplies are all packed up till next season. Lots of downsides to using buckets, one being where to store them. But they are accessible and useful if sugar making doesn't work out. Will probably expand with bags moving forward. https://i.imgur.com/DbAdlqe.jpeg Ended up with about 4 gallons surplus syrup to sell and am nearly sold out already. Thanks to the plebs at the Michigan Bitcoin meetups for the support! Looks like I have to double the number of taps yet again next season. https://i.imgur.com/RXVcO2G.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/b9ud6ob.jpeg Got a little discouraged when I let my reverse osmosis system freeze and it was destroyed. It was a good excuse to upgrade to a larger system though. This new filter has 4x more capacity than the previous system and will handle all the possible potential sap flow capacity here on the homestead as more trees get large enough to tap. All in all another successful sugaring season but not without it's failures and setbacks. #permaculture #permies #homesteading #grownostr #regenag #regenerativeagriculture #maplesyrup #bitcoinmeetup #circulareconony #sugarfromtrees #forestfarming #woodlandagriculture #theproblemisthesolution
