Wednesday March 2, 2022
Viscosity
Darkness came quick on Tuesday such that everyone agreed the sap would still be there in the morning...it was! Bob ran errands in town in the morning and got a fire started in the late morning. Today was a brighter, prettier day than yesterday but still a bit overcast. The humidity always slows the process of boiling off a bit.
Bob stayed home to boil sap so Dale and Karen drove to Cleveland to get Cody at the airport. He made a pit stop at the house for old clothes and boots and headed to the woods. They chided Cody for wearing Kelsey's shirt tonight...he retorted that it should not have been hanging in Brad's closet if she did not want him to wear it. There are a number things wrong with the above statement....choose your battles.
Ava, from the Bellevue FFA came out to the woods and assisted Bob and Cody in gathering about 160 gallons from the buckets we gave up getting last evening. They were concerned that these might run over...and rightly so....a few did.
The exact same crew from last night returned to help tonight minus 2 Shumways and Gerri who got home from work late and plus Kelsey and Susan B. . The guys had a nice fire going that of course smelled terrific! Bob sent out a text requesting help at 2:15pm today stating that the volume would be about half tonight. He lied. They found 775 gallons and it took nearly until dark again tonight. People returning to the camp had steam rising from their heads tonight indicating a pretty good work out!
Walle left the woods on the east drive to dump as it was too full to make the complete loop.
Melissa made a fantastic supper of sloppy joe's, strawberries and dip and oranges! We ate in shifts that worked out well. Susan and Bob went to church for Ash Wednesday services this evening. Adam went home early to put Henry to bed. Brad and Cody visited with Evan and Kelsey and Megan and Collin .......perhaps more than they were paying attention to the evaporator...they managed to run the bowl dry just when Bob returned. Kelsey pointed out that these things never happen when Adam is in charge.
Megan and Collin ...gonna need the camera flash next time!
Supper together always encourages stimulating conversation. Cody suggested several upgrades to the camp that were flatly vetoed. The preferences of pancakes vs waffles and the possiblity of making them soon was a happy little subject. Shamefully long discussion on viscosity tonight. Kelsey accused brother Brad of not understanding the concept of viscosity. There was some discussion about the meaning of viscosity. None of it serious...but here is why it is relevant to making maple syrup.
Viscosity is the measure of a fluid's resistance to flow. SO...a highly viscous fluid would be honey or cold maple syrup. They tend to be thick and flow more slowly. When you add heat (energy) the moelcules become less densely packed and slide past one antoher more easily and thus pour more easily. Syrup is made of large chains of carbohydrates that do not move past one another easily. Water has smaller molecules that roll past one another more easily. This is relevant to syrup production as we check the viscosity of each batch of sap as we boil it down prior ot pulling it off of the evaporator. We use a hydrometer to measure this each time before opening the valve to remove syrup from the pans. So the punch line is here we watch the ability of the syrup to sheet off of the edge of a ladle, check the temperature and the viscosity each time before taking the syrup off. Perhaps we can take pictures of this tomorrow!! Pictures in the morning!
Total Sap Today: 775 gallons
Total Sap To Date: 1, 620 gallons
Total Syrup Off Today: 6 gallons
Total Syrup Off To Date: 6 gallons
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