Sugarin'

2.29.20 -
     Tapped two black walnut trees.

3.01.20 -
     Tapped 3 maples, (Red/Sugar/Norway) and 1 black walnut

3.02.20 -
     Tapped 4 maples (mixed variety - to be ID'd)
    
     Checked first round of taps - lost one bucket due to a bathing racoon. That's going to be one sticky critter.
     Collected one gallon of walnut sap and nine of maple. Reduced walnut sap by half by volume.
     J.T. traded fish and venison for syrup from his trees.

3.03.20 -
     Collected 25+ gallons maple sap.

3.04.20 -
    Began concentrating maple sap. Largest pot can fit 3 gallons at a time leaving headroom to avoid boil over.

3.05.20 -
     Reduced another batch.

3.06.20 -
     Temperature dropped overnight and snow. 1st location only had 2-3 inches of sap after several days. Collected more than 20 gallons from 4th location. Pulled buckets and lines from furthest maple tree. Very little production and could use the buckets elsewhere. Lost 5 buckets to contamination. Placed 2 buckets and a bag in the chest freezer for longer-term storage. Boiled down another batch.

3.07.20 -
     Reduced another few batches. Moved 2 buckets to garage fridge and combined reduced sap from water jugs to clean food safe bucket.

3.08.20 -
     Near 60's and sunny today. Pulled lines from walnut trees at 1st location. Just aren't producing this year. Started big batch at 7:30. K.T. is assisting with collection and storage at 2nd location. Discussed pulling lines and ending season. Buckets at 4th location overflowing - can't get to them yet.

3.09.20 -
     Near 60 and rainy. END SEASON. High humidity means longer boil times. Note: taps purchased in 2020 are more brittle and likely to break when attempting removal.

3.10.20 -
    Reduced another batch of maple and transferred unprocessed walnut to gallon jugs to free up buckets. Filled 2nd bucket with reduced sap and placed in garage fridge. Check on chest freezer - frozen solid. Will attempt the freeze-thaw reduction method. Still need to pick up final collections and lines from remaining 3 locations.

3.12.20 -
    Picked up five buckets from 4th location.

3.13.20 -
    Lost three more buckets to cloudiness and dumped. After extra research - cloudy sap can be used as long as cloudiness is minimal and still tastes fine. Resulting syrup will be darker. Cloudiness can be caused by oxidation or contamination from container.
     Reduced more maple sap. Picked up 5 buckets from 2nd location.

3.15.20 -
     Lost two more buckets to spoilage. Can't process the sap fast enough.

3.17.20 -
    Frozen bucket of sap took almost two full days to thaw enough to pull and toss ice.

3.24.20 -
   Finished walnut syrup. No hydrometer test. Hot packed in sanitized glass bottles. Yield: around half gallon?

3.26.20 -
   Finished maple syrup. No hydrometer test. Hot packed in sanitized glass bottles. Yield: around gallon and a half.