Now the miles of tubing and pipelines are connected to each tap. While snow covers the ground, daytime sees rivulets of water forming under the snow, and falling off roof tops. Sap is gathered daily, even more often, because the best maple syrup comes from sap that was boiled in the evaporator right after it came from the tree. This is especially true for the first-run Light Amber or Fine grades of maple syrup . As soon as there is enough in the storage tanks to begin boiling in the evaporator, the fires in the evaporator are lighted.
Horse teams pull more cord wood for burning in the evaporator up from the splitting area.
It's one cord of wood burned for every 25 gallons of syrup, and it's 25 - 45 gallons of sap for every gallon of syrup. Sap buckets on the maple trees are not used much anymore. If the sap run is heavy, the evaporator roars around much of the clock. The cold sap enters the rear and is warmed, then boiled as it passes through channels in the evaporator under which is a roaring wood fire. Water vapor billows off the open top of the evaporator and up through the hooded vent at the top of the sugar house.