Maple Syrup: Season 2. For Sale and B.S. thread

It's so nice to be outside on those 40-50 degree sunny march days. Not so much when its 40 and raining but it's a good way to finish winter thats for sure.
I have trees that give us 3 or 4 gallons of sap per day so well over a gallon of syrup per year. No idea why some are like that, the trees that give a ton of sap are usually old...really old probably 150+ years old.

 

My wife made me start watching Riverdale. It ain't the Archie comics that I remember, more like Dallas or the other night time soap opera that I can't thnk of the name of. But, apparently the Cabot family are maple syurp magnates that are about to lose their empire because of a knocked up high school girl. Drugs, gangs, murder, secret real estate deals, and high school football.
@Pudge, stay safe and avoid the serpents, bad juju. And that Jughead guy keeps secrets.

 

Some late morning French toast and sausage.

 

Where did you get that syrup????? Must be that cheap manufactured knock off stuff........

 

I love these bottles. They are the old style CT maple association ones that I can not find any more. But I hear they still make them, just cant figure out how to get them. I have about a dozen left I have reserved for myself lol.

 

You still have some of that sweet, delicious syrup left?

 

I sure do. Planning in mailing out a few orders Tuesday

 

The large sized plastic ones? Like 2 or 3 of them?

 

I think I'm out of the big plastic ones. I'll check again on Tuesday and let you know but I'm pretty sure those sold out. I have everything else though.
Next year I'll definitely do more plastic quarts. 2 years ago I did 80, last year 120. Next year I'll go for 150 I think. It's a learning curve on the inventory. Plus this year the tundra peeps bought soooooo much syrup. Like 3x as much as the previous year

 

Sounds good. The kids love your syrup. This would be my 3rd order this year. If those are out, I can do the next size down.

 

Yeah man you've been a great customer. I really appreciate it so we'll get a deal done for you. Next year I'll have to explore some special customer 1/2 gallon jugs, or maybe even 1 gallon? They're nice but take up a lot of fridge space.

 

Bacon, sausage, egg, pancake sandwich anyone?

 

Got the floor framed for the "fire wood shed" off the back of the syrup room. It's going to be 16x10 feet. Was able to salvage quite a bit of lumber from a deck demo, had to buy a few new boards. Also had the 6x6x10ft beams you see that are sitting on concrete piers that I poured a while back.
Next up is 4x4 posts to hold the 2x8x16 ft roof rafters. The pitch will be flatter than the syrup room itself, if I stayed with that pitch I would lose too much head room. We will be using metal roofing. Floor will scrap random width 1" thick oak planks from a sawmill buddy, who is also supplying us with pretty much unlimited slabwood to burn. Back and end walls will be heavy wire fencing. No front wall planned.
This will hold less than half of a seasons wood supply. The rest will be on pallets behind the shed under tarps. No budget for a shed big enough to hold all the wood.

I have a big pile of pavers and brick that I'll be using to make a walkway from the side door of the barn to the wood shed, and a step to get up in there. Will be nice to eliminate the muddy walk to get wood.

 

Awesome.

Stupid question though, why use wood vs gas/propane? Maybe you explained it prior posts on how you make the syrup.

 

Yeah. Taste the meat, not the heat.

 

Not stupid. Plenty of the big boys use gas or oil. We use wood for fuel for 2 reasons. 1, our evaporator is wood fired and those are much cheaper than oil or gas units. And 2, we can get free wood, takes some labor but it's free. We can burn any kind of wood too, and around here people give away pine cuz they can't burn it in their furnace/stove/fireplace

 

Sean,
You want pine? Come here and I will let you cut down a lifetime of pine for free.

 

I’m about to take down 15 pines at my house. They are all yours lol

 

When's the season 3 sign up list starting? Put me down for a repeat of this year please?

As for firewood .. Get a trailer down to wilmington, I'm surrounded by fallen hardwoods begging to be either split or milled. Literally, the roadside is piled 6' high with hardwood trunk sections in my neighborhood

 

Damn that sounds glorious lol. I drove around with my trailer in August after the state did some tree trimming. Gathered what I could lift without cutting. Probably got a cord of hardwood.

Season 3 will start around Valentine's day. I will probably start a thread soon after the new year. You and all you guys are so awesome for buying my syrup, it keeps me going that's for sure. I need to remember to bottle even more plastic quarts this year. I ran out of those in June, which is unheard of for us.

 

We have a stack of probably 4-5 cords of well seasoned log length hardwood to cut and split in the next month or 2.
Once that is done I will be off to the sawmill for line slabs, which is what we will likely burn primarily from this year on, it's free, easy to load and cut and split and it burns fast and hot which is great for boiling syrup.

 

Did I hear you say gallon jugs this year.....?

 

I can do some pre ordered, prepaid half gallons and or gallons. I have a few reservations about them though. 1, if they get screwed up or break shipping, it's a huge loss at 100+ bucks a gallon. 2, idk if they'll fit in flat rate boxes. And 3, that's a big jug that will need to stay in your fridge. But....I can do them

 

Fair points..

Let's be real, you can ship it to me by the ounce for all I care, just ship lots of ounce packages...

 

Damn, you gonna need one of these soon.

 

Lol that would be awesome.

 

Is it available now?

 

I actually just got a box of labels in the mail today so I will be able to start sticking them on bottled and mailing them next week.
I have 8,12, and 16 oz glass bottles available as well as some of the 3.5oz maple lead bottles. I am sold out of plastic quarts. This is all 2018 syrup. I will start making 2019 aka season 3 in February. It had a long shelf life so its still very delicious and fresh.

 

Let me know how I can get some from you bro