Wyeast 1084 + Nutrient + starter + Stout == BOOM!

I haven't seen this kind of activity in a while.  It's definitely exhilarating!  I honestly don't know if 1) it's the stout recipe I used (a modification of the deception cream stout from HomebrewTalk forums), or 2) using yeast nutrient (haven't in a long time, tried again this round), or 3) enough aeration (still shaking the fermenter, but I did it for longer this time), or 4) the Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale yeast I'm using (my first time using this yeast). 

Anyway, it's nice to know it's doing its job!

Sugaring season- time to tap!

Well, we are about a week late tapping this year, but the weather over the last week was probably not very good sugaring weather anyway.  So, today we got out to tap our two sugar maples!

We use TreeSaver taps which are a little bit smaller than the "standard" 7/16" taps.  We drill a 5/16" hole, about 1.5 inches deep, at a slightly upward angle.  Then gently tap the plastic tap into the hole...

Then connect the tubing to our collection bucket, and we're ready to go! 

During the week, we store the sap in a 13 gallon pail buried in snow to keep it fresh, and we sugar off on the weekend.  In the height of the season, we may sugar off 10-15 gallons on the weekend!  Of course, 10 gallons of sap generally only makes a quart of syrup, but there's something incredibly satisfying about drilling a hole in a tree, boiling down what comes out, and then eating it on your waffles.

How you know your slant is infected...

Really the photo says it all.  This was one spectacular failure!  This was my first attempt at slanting, and the slants are now about 3 months old.  Not sure if it was my slant preparation procedure, my inoculating procedure, or my storage that was at fault here, but I did do all the prep without a pressure cooker, which could have contributed.  We'll see!  I have another set of slants that I did more recently, and have just successfully propagated the yeast into a batch of beer through a 2 stage starter (375 ml and then 1 l).