Tapping 2011

[mapleack]

Theschwarz, I'm jealous! Still running 1.4% or so here. :(

[Turtlecreek]

That pic intrests me too. My sap hydrometer says to test at 64 degrees, so what happens if I test when its colder or warmer than that? is there a conversion factor for that? My hydrometer is a wine making one I was given but that doesnt matter it still reads in brix.

[PA mapler]

nice pic! Looks like some slush on the top, maybe that helped the sugar % some. Wish I had half that, though... :lol: I understood sap hydrometers are calibrated for about 40 degF?

[Gary R]

If your sap is colder than the calibration temperature, your reading will be higher than actual. If sap is warmer, it will read less than actual. I'm looking at my wine triple scale right now. It is calibrated at 68F. If the wine is 50F, you subtract .002 specific gravity. That looks to be a difference of about .5% sugar content.

Looks like a great weekend here in the Northwest!

[Sugarmaker]

Wow,
Very nice reading all the good posts on folks making from 1 to many gallons!
Gary, your going to have to upgrade that evaporator next season.
I have been sick since Sat with a nasty head and chest cold, called in sick Monday and Tuesday, they had to wait! the syrup couldn't. Cheryl and I gathered 826 gallons of 2%+ sap from 600 taps, finished about dark Monday and then went to get some DE for the filter press. [Thanks Jim and Chase]. Started boiling Tuesday morning and by noon I found I had serious leak in the front pan.
6 hours later I had the pan repaired and reinstalled. Boiled from 6 pm to 9 pm and made 21.5 gallons of syrup Monday. Ranging in grade from dark to medium, to light ,to ultra light.
AOF is dialed in at about 1/4 of the air. still sounds like a jet. [to date made about 30 gallons of syrup and used 1.5 cord of pallets] I think I am saving wood:)
WRU is taking sap up about 1% +? so I think I may be running about 100-110 gph?too many starts and stops to get good numbers.
Daryl's filter press really made nice syrup look beautiful. My first time using a filter press. I did a lot of pumping.
Drained the evaporator again since its supposed to get cold.

Hope things are good in the sugarhood!
Regards,
Chris

[kharvey]

New to this, not even sure if I'm using this thing right! 32 taps last year in my yard yielded 275 gallons sap; my arch wasn't done yet so lost 1/2 production at the sugar house. This year 52 taps yielded 55 gallons today (sap was running well after collection at dark last night). Will fire up my homemade 2.5 X 6ft. arch tomorrow; no idea how well or not well its gonna go; test run with water says about 35-40 gph. does that sound right?
So what's the story on Soft Maple; I have a bunch of them but only tap Hard Maple; is the sap and product that results equal?

[Dan W]

I collected 350 gallons tonight. Drained the evaporator because of the mid teens tonight. Probably will boil tomorrow after collecting. Looks like it will be a long night tomorrow.

[Sugarmaker]

Kharvey,
We all all in this together. Sounds like you are in good shape this year. Reds generally produce less sugar content. syrup may be a little darked and might have a little red tint. Still very good syrup.
As far as the trader goes most of the folks from PA are posting on this thread. [ there are so many threads that it can be a little overwhelming]. You are probably closer to me than some PA folks anyway:)
Regards,
Chris

[Maplewalnut]

I have been tracking you guys in western Pa and how you say the sap is running. Some night/day differences in timing but for the most part it seems I am about 12 hours difference in sap timing if temps are comparable. In both cases it seems to have corrresponded to when fronts have approached or moved through.

Snow is starting to finally melt in the woods and the next week still looks ideal for sap.

Chris- hope you are feeling better, I had the whole stomach thing yesterday, doesnt last long and there was sap to be processed!

Mike

[theschwarz1]

Kind of a weird looking pic theschwarz1. What do you have the hydrometer in and whats all the bubbles in the sap from? Is it ice in there?

Yes, its a bunch of flakes of ice floating on the top. Maybe thats why its reading so high? It says on the Brix meter that it records the brix at 38° sap. I dont know...but that sap was darn near 32°.

Anyway, my trees are out along a stream in the middle of two fields and in a few yards. Not much competition, lots of sun, lots of water...maybe thats why.

[theschwarz1]

If your sap is colder than the calibration temperature, your reading will be higher than actual. If sap is warmer, it will read less than actual. I'm looking at my wine triple scale right now. It is calibrated at 68F. If the wine is 50F, you subtract .002 specific gravity. That looks to be a difference of about .5% sugar content.

Looks like a great weekend here in the Northwest!

ok that explains it then...this was calibrated at 38° and the sap was at 32°

[Turtlecreek]

Well, I did it again burned up a pan, seems to be a yearly right of passage. This is my new pan so I guess its offically broke in now. This time it wans't so bad I was prepared had extra sap on hand for the pan and snow for the fire. I kept the burn to a minimum, but its still going to take a bit of scrubbing. I'm actually not sure how it happened, besides I was'n paying attention, I had a bit of scalding in the section that makes syrup, but it burned in the section over from that. Oh well scrub, scrub, scrub, I'll be back in bussiness by the end of the day even if I have to pull out the old pan I have in storage.

On a better note I did make 1 gallon of medium amber before all of this happened, and it only took 3 hours so its all good! I still have about 40 or 50 gallons stored and buckets hanging in the trees.

[Kev]

:cry:I think 2011 will go down as the year of the leaks here LOL.
when I cleaned up the gathering barrells all was good. On the second gather of the season the truck had sap all over the bed. I say self be more careful on those corners or you will dump barrell. So i drove down the street a couple blocks to me next stop. when I got back to the truck whith a couple more bucket loads I see the level in the barrell is lower than when I left the last place:cry: so I rush home and pump off what is left in the barrell.
2 nights later I am cooking away(dif gathers i try to never hold sap more than 24 hours,prefer 12 or less) theings are going fine....2 draws and and about a gallon and half. half way to my next draw I start smelling burnt syrup:o I am scrambling can find nothing.... duh finally look in the arch.
there was sap spraying into the arch from a drop flue:( shut down (oil so its just flip a switch)and start draining down, yada yada. found 2 pin holes in the 2 drop flues at first i assumed they were in seams. they were not they both were on the sides of the flue one near the front of the second drop flue the other at the back of the forth. fixed those (silver solder as no one in town has a tig and I had sap to boil) yesterday I pumped the first load off into barrells and went for more. when i got back there was 30 gallon gone from one barrell on the floor of the storage area
the barrells I understand we had started storing them where sun can get to them in the off season due to space constraints so I am sure they are brittle from uv. the holes in the pan I am still confused about. I would expect the solder joints 3/4 inch away to fail if it was heat + stupidity or inattention.
at this point i feel there had to be porosity in the SS itself. any thoughts?

[Oreocowfarmer]

take your Ice off the top. the sugar has a lower freezing point. so the sap that wasnt frozen is more concentrated. A few years a go we did that and found our sap was at 12 to 14% sugar content. less sap to boil for more syrup.

[Sugarmaker]

Turlecreek,
I had to use the oh s--t bucket four or 5 times Tuesday. I was taking off syrup in big batches and the float box could not bring in the sap fast enough. Each time I did this it droped my boil rate down but did not scorch the pan yet. Still plenty of time:) Feeling better today, Thanks!
Also had the auto draw off valve stick open and start to drain the pan.
And when I finished Tuedsay night I batched off two gallon by blocking the last channel. I was in the back room doing something went back to check and it was syrup and drawing off, caught it just in time and flooded the compartment as the syrup was exiting. Close ones!
Regards,
Chris

[Jim Brown]

What is they say Chris-"Ten seconds from a disaster at any moment" while running an evaporator!

Jim

[Turtlecreek]

Thats the way it goes, I was upset but then I remembered you saying that before Jim then I thought no sense in crying over spilt milk or burnt syrup in this case! I was thinking of cleaning the pan or reversing the flow anyway since I was getting a bunch of sand gathering, that may have led to the problem.

Its a good thing I still have my old half pint at least while I'm cleaning I can make some sweet. Hopefully it doesnt leak too much!

[Dennis H.]

Sorry to hear about your scrubbing job Turtlecreek. Knock on wood, I haven't had that happen yet.

Did a nice long boil today, about 5 hours and drew off 2 1/2 gals of Dark Amber syrup.

It seem like I will not make any light this year. I am going thru a ton of filter papers when I am filtering my small batches of syrup. There is a ton of sugarsand in my syrup. But is sure looks good when I am done.

Today the temps just broke the freezing point but that happen at 4pm so no sense in firing up the vac today.

My goal is to make 20 gals this year and it looks like I may do it!!:D My season tally is now just a 1/2 pint over 17 gals..

[Jim Brown]

Ok guys now it is time to fess up! A week ago Saturday my daughter Kim was firing and I was getting in the way.( as usual) The syrup float stuck and we closed the valve between the syrup pan and the flue pan so as to not flood the syrup pan.Well I thought she was watching and she thought I was and neither one of us was. "Smoke"
in the syrup pan and by the time the >>>>s<<<<< bucket was dumped she was really warped and burnt!!. I called Brian Ianson and he in turn called WH SUPPLY in Sheldon Vt.I sent them pic of the burnt pan they said they would make me a new one with out the burned and warped spots! It came today and the workman ship is outstanding!!! The price was 35% less than leader for the same pan.
They have their own web site: whsupplyllc.com
Highly recommend them if you are in need of replacement parts,new equipment etc. their prices are more than fair.
Oh! one thing all this took place in less than a week! from pic to delivery.

Jim Brown(offical burnt pan sugarmaker)

[Turtlecreek]

Well Jim it seems I'm in good company! I sae some of those small pans that brian has in the shop, they are really nice, and the small hobby ones are really cool! I need to thank you for turning me on to Iansons great people over there and easy to work with!

I'm sitting here now working with the old evaporator and its working out pretty good. There seems to be a small leak near the draw off that I didn't catch when I was looking for holes, but I have so much sap stored I have to do something. This weekend is pretty much shot tommrow is my daughters 2nd birthday so I need to set some time aside from maple to spend with her so tonight will be a long one. I'll post my numbers tommrow.

Until then good luck all and try not to join the club that Jim and I are chairing up this year!

[slammer3364]

boiled abut 6 hrs today and 4 the other nite,no syrup yet but it looks really close. Hope for some good runs next week and should start drawing pretty regularly....LOL

[Gary R]

All hands on deck! Mid 40's, rain and low pressure system. It's going to be a Saptastrophe.

Jim, sorry to here about the pan. It must have been chaos at the moment.

Sugarmaker, I think you passed on that cold;) I might have to stay home this afternoon.

Daryl, My UFA pipe was clogged with ash. It should run better now. I also changed all my sap ladders too two pipe type last night. I told you guy's not to call me the "expert". I'll give an update in a few days.

Selling my last two backyarder pans today. I'll need to make more for next year.

Father and Son, have you got started yet?

Maple Barrron:). What's going on?

[Sugarmaker]

Remember if it doesnt leak and hasnt been burnt yet, your really not making syrup:)

Turttle Creek sounds like your back in business. Hopefully the pans can be put back into service.
Jim,
Wow Nice recovery on the new pan. I was thinking the same thing on mine, just to darn bull headed to get new ones yet. Need to repair the same leaking spot again.:(

Cheryl and I gathered last night, dumped ice and had 275 gallons of 4% sap. Dont ask me when it ran, thought I was watching for a run apparently not!
Filled evaporator with sap drained from Tuesday probably 8%-10%, plus was adding 5% sap from WRU. Boiled for about 2 hours and the syrup temp never got above 213 F. RED FLAG! Started looking!! I forgot to close the bung near the auto draw on the old KING pans. So the "syrup" was being pushed back thru the entire evaporator. In fact it was making syrup on the other side of the rig from the draw off. Must have had 35% sap because when I plugged it we made 7.5 gallons in about 1/2 hour on three draws. Little scary! Thats too much syrup to take off at once so we had to add raw sap to keep the pans alive.
Gives me a taste of you guys boiling highly concentratred sap from R.O's.
Big run this weekend!
Just another day in the sugarhood,
Chris

[mapleack]

Just heard that the dept of ag is at the sugarhouse. Now I really wish I'd stayed late to wash the bottling room floor last night, did it the night before, but one evening of walking in from gathering makes it look like crap. Hope they don't raise hell about the dogs bed in the corner. :( No water test done yet this year either. Crossing fingers.

[Turtlecreek]

Sugarmaker I thin we will be ok I have a couple of small warps but no big deal. It sure is nice to have a backup pan just laying around it saved my butt last night now I have some sweet to sweeten the other pan when I fire it up again!! And she who must be obayed wondered why I kept that old pan around!!

[Dennis H.]

7.5 gals in 1/2 hour, WOW. Man that would be cool!
Kind of make for a little longer till the next draw off.

Getting ready down here for the rain, we are to get over 2" in the next 2 days.

With no sun today collected some sap but not as much as I was hoping for. I may leave the vac on over night cause the temps are not to get below freezing.

[Sugarmaker]

Cheryl thought we should gather but after two stops we called it a night, Not much sap out there and will probably gather tomorrow afternoon.
Took the syrup pan off and soldered the leaks again this afternoon. When I took off the front hood I found a scorched spot about the size of a gallon jug. This must have happened during one of the big draws. That new stainless brush on a 4 inch grinder made short work of that. I think the solder may have melted during the pan scorching event:)
Should be back up and going Sat. for the big run.
Chris

[waysidemaple]

Here's a pic of the syrup I got bottled tonight. just under 3 gallons. Stil have some sap in the bulk tank for tomorrow plus whats out in the woods.

[sweetwoodmaple]

Wow...one week turnaround for a pan. Glad to hear Bryan is still hanging in there. Everyone who has dealt with Iansons have stories to tell about good service.

Ran about 800 gallons so far today. Total for the year is 3500 gallons. Still running at a normal 1.7%. I've gotten used to it over the years having swamp trees.

Speaking of swamp and flood, here is a branch line photo from last Monday AM.

[Kev]

Wow...one week turnaround for a pan. Glad to hear Bryan is still hanging in there. Everyone who has dealt with Iansons have stories to tell about good service.

Ran about 800 gallons so far today. Total for the year is 3500 gallons. Still running at a normal 1.7%. I've gotten used to it over the years having swamp trees.

Speaking of swamp and flood, here is a branch line photo from last Monday AM.

at least you do not have buckets in there. lol

[Gary R]

My cousin has a sugarbush like that, with buckets. Two years ago he collected by canoe during a flood.

I boiled 100 gal. yesterday. I just checked and another 100 gal. in the bulk tank from last night. I'm at almost 900 gal. for the year:) Last year we only collected 406 gal. total. VAC runs weird, but it sure does produce. I've got to go start the fire. It's going to be another long day:rolleyes:

[Father & Son]

Gary R
This year seems to be one issue after another, and most don't involve maple. Still working on getting my mom's estate finished up. The whole family has been down with the flu since Sat 2/26. Today is the first full day back to work for me. Still not tapped. Thought Sunday after work but that depends on the rain. Monday will be spent at the Orthopedic Dr. Last night my wife had a 100lb suitcase weight tip over on her foot and broke a bone. Lucky it wasn't worse. She's in a temporary cast until we see if it needs surgery. Not enough hours in the day. This might be a year off. Hope not!

Jim

[ELM_DALE_MAPLE]

Fired for the first time this year last night. The south wind seemed counterproductive but it was nice to see steam rolling. We were getting sap at about 4.6% due to the ice in the buckets. Hoping for another run today!

[Dave Y]

[QUOTE=Gary R;138623]All hands on deck! Mid 40's, rain and low pressure system. It's going to be a Saptastrophe.

Gary I hate to throw water on your fire but the wind is out of the southeast. may get better tonite, when the wind turns around and come out of the north west. I have made 100 gal and am waiting on sap. thats an odd feeling i am used to sap waiting on me.

[Daryl]

Jim,
What time would you be ready to tap tomorrow? I will be over to help. Do I need to bring anything?
Daryl

[Father & Son]

Daryl,
Many people have offered and I appreciate the help but it's not only the time to tap, I don't know how much time I'm going to have to put toward boiling. I'll give you a call tonight after I get home from work.

Thanks,
Jim

[Sugarmaker]

Brian,
That's a classic picture hope you lines are Ok and still producing. You have had a lot more sap that we have. Hows the grade.
Dave Y,
Yes sometimes the sap just is not there. I agree that the wind and this storm doesnt feel like great sap flow weather. Good that you are at the 100 gallon mark. 10% of the way to that 1000 mark!
Gary,
That's a lot of sap. Fire that baby up and keep rolling! Gett some more containers for all that syrup. Wow the vacuum is really producing even in these lean times.
Jim [F&S],
Let me know too if you need help. Many hands make light work. You shouldn't let Terri handle those big weights:) Hope her foot is going to be OK, sounds painful.
Elm Dale,
Your about in line with us sounds like you had the same ice issue. Don't you have to go into NY state to get to Shinglehouse PA??:)
Wayside,
Nice batch of syrup! Thanks for posting.
Daryl,
Looking at the press and pump options.

Off into the magic land of the sugarhood! Away!
Chris

[PA mapler]

Just checked, the sap is just a slow drizzle. There's maybe 30 gallons in the tank, and unless it stays above freezing and picks up overnight, there won't be enough to boil tomorrow. It's been too cold here and the trees aren't awake yet.

Good news is the sap is 2.2%, which is as good as it gets for my trees! :D

[waysidemaple]

Made 6 gallons tonight that puts me at 12 gallons for the year...one more gallon and ill match my production from last year! WOOOOO!!! Sap isnt really running. Haven't had a freeze since thursday night. They are calling for 6 to 10 inches tomorrow night and one to two inches of rain before that.

[Gary R]

Well Dave, it's almost water, but I've been throwing sap to the fire regardless of wind:) Boiled another 150 gal. today and decided to quit. still another 60 in the tank. That's about 2 gal. per tap in 30 hours. Sugar content is up to a whopping 1.4%. Pulled 4 gal. of syrup today. Had a few technical issues, but a good day. Still dark. leveled the evaporator, but with the low sugar, I don't know if I'll do much better.

[Dennis H.]

The day started out good went bad and then went ok.

I left the vac run all night and was pleasantly surprised when I got home from work this morning to find the tanks filling nicely. I collected the buckets and for not freezing up last night they ran real nice. So I figure that at 2pm when I started to boil I had somewhere around 200 gals of sap.

Now the bad part.
I fired the evap up and about 2 hrs into it the I was just getting ready to draw off a syrup and I happen to look into the syrup pan and the center part just didn't look right. The bubbles just didn't look right for that part. Went around to the floatbox side and looked again and that is when it went right to smoke. Holy Sh!t. I slamed the float down to fload the syrup pan.
It looks like I had a slug of sugarsand go thru the pan and for some reason when it got to that spot, wham, it decided it wanted to burn. It took me about 2 hrs of srubing to get the burnt nasty off. It doesn't look like there is any harm to the pan. I guess I need to watch out for sugarsand better and clean the pan more often.
It seems like I am having a really bad year for sugarsand, how about everyone else?

So I fired the evap back up and boiled for another uneventful 2 hrs. Maybe this is why I haven't been able to make anything but DarkAmber lately.

The final good thing is that I now will have about 2 quarts of really dark slightly burnt favor syrup for myself..:rolleyes:

[Jim Brown]

Well we collected just under1000 gallons of 2% sap today.Started to pull some med Amber "At last" Just came in with the last for the day and left about 100 gallon in the woods. RO is running so to have a place to put incoming sap tomorrow morning. Pumps are on and will most likely run out of gas over night. Releasers were dumping at the rate of every 3 minutes that computes to the trees are running at the rate of 2 gallon per minute. Sap should run until after midnight and then start to taper off.Will collect in the morning and shut the pumps down High tomorrow will occur at Midnight tonight. temps at 7-8:00am should be around freezing. Kim is coming over in the morning to fire while I finish and bottle syrup.
This is what we all have been waiting for!!!

Jim(f&s) if there any thing we can do to help let us know!

Jim

[sweetwoodmaple]

Ha...no problem with the flood, the water has receeded! LOL...canoe for collecting, that would be a photo opportunity.

Well, another 1000 gal collected today. West, south, north...east....at 26" of vacuum at the releaser, it doesn't seem to much matter which way the wind blows.

The only problem is that I will probably run out of seasoned, dry wood this week if we get good sap weather. Figure I have enough to clear 7,000 gallons of sap. Oh well...I will be ready for it to end.

F&S - Hope things work out, but I know the feeling. I have taken several years off and there is no sense pushing and making it no fun.

[oldboyscout]

Hi,
I just started sugaring this year, in the Dallas area (north of WilkesBarre). Tapped 8 trees on 2/14 and they've been producing on and off. got 7gallons today (small trees).
When do I start worrying about it being budy? (buddy?)

[Turtlecreek]

Well Dennis, welcome to the club that makes 3 burnt pans this year (at least that is all that are fessing up).

I do seem to have a bunch of sand this year also and I think some of mins settled in the center of my pan and that's how I scorched mine too. I was about to reverse the flow, or dump my pan to clean it on my next boil, but it s or he'd too soon!

I was at my moms in the poconos today and the local paper is doing an article on sugaring tommrow, did anyone on here get interviewed?

[Gary R]

Sugarsand has been high. A lot has been coming out when I draw.

Bummer Dennis, hopefully everyone's done having their issues:)

I have about 100 gal. to boil today. Wife wants to can this morning first. I'll be boiling the rest of the day. Visitors welcome:)

[Daryl]

The RO is doing it thing as I type. We have 230 gal for today to run thru. We made just over 4 gal yesterday. The last several hours we were drawing about 1/2 gal every 15 min., firing at 12 min with 3 sticks 4" dia. Concentrate sure is nice.

[waysidemaple]

Drained and cleaned the flue pan this morning. Snowing like crazy outside right now. Probly 3 inches on the ground so far and they say we are looking at 10 to 14 inches by tomorrow. Just when the problem of getting to my tanks had ended we get more snow. Ordered another cone filter today, yesterday the filter got clogged up and I was drawing off syrup to quickly to clean it. Another filter should slove that problem. Wednesday looks to be the Next day for a run up here which is okay with me. One gallon left to make before I meet last years production. All my syrup so far has been Med. Amber.

[Jim Brown]

Well we started the RO again this morning and went out in that snow storm this morning at6:00am and collected 500 gallons. Kim lit the fire around 9:30am and we are shut down and cleaned up with 35 gallon of Med Amber to show for the day! Will run through the filter press and bottle tomorrow and bulk some for later. Temp here now in 31 . Trees are recharging>


Hey Daryl Got to love them RO"s

Jim

[PA mapler]

Had my first boil of the season this morning! There was only maybe 120 gallons of sap in the tank from yesterday and last night's mediocre run, and only 5 gallons out of all the buckets. The reds are barely running yet. BUT, it was a good trial run to get the kinks out and it felt great to be boiling.

Didn't draw any syrup. I'll drain today's boil into buckets, rinse the pans, and hopefully it'll only be a few days til the next run. Sap was 1.9% this morning.

[Dennis H.]

Sounds good Daryle 2gals every hour, not bad.

I did love that pic of the water and tubing, could you imagine going out there to look for leaks.

Well for me today went alot better. Went thru all the sap I had today and drew off 2 1/2 gals of Dark Amber. I then used the filterpress to clean out the syrup pan. Work good. I took the inlet hose and put it in the drawoff box and the outlet hose into the float box and pumped. After about 5 min the syrup in the pan was clear with very little sugarsand.

I also made a little over a gal of syrup out of the stuff that I took off the pan yesterday with the burnt thing. It doesn't taste burnt to me but I will still set it aside for my use.

So my year today total is 20 1/2gals!! Just think last year I only made 4gals and 2 years ago when we had great sugar'in weather I made 10gals. The only thing is that I have not made a drop of Light syrup and only one batch of Medium. It all is Dark. I am starting to wonder if my grading set is old.

We are to get a freeze up tonight so we should get another good run tomorrow.

[mapleack]

We got a little over 1,000 gal today, while I was stuck at work. This puts our season total to 10,340 gal of sap. Around 155 gal of syrup. Yeah the sugar content is lousy. 10 day forecast looks great, so I'm crossing my fingers for 200 gal plus of syrup, though storage is going to be a problem!

[Dennis H.]

What the heck a double post how did that happen?

Sounds good Daryle 2gals every hour, not bad.

Brian, I did love that pic of the water and tubing, could you imagine going out there to look for leaks.

Well for me today went alot better. Went thru all the sap I had today and drew off 2 1/2 gals of Dark Amber. I then used the filterpress to clean out the syrup pan. Work good. I took the inlet hose and put it in the drawoff box and the outlet hose into the float box and pumped. After about 5 min the syrup in the pan was clear with very little sugarsand.

I also made a little over a gal of syrup out of the stuff that I took off the pan yesterday with the burnt thing. It doesn't taste burnt to me but I will still set it aside for my use.

So my year today total is 20 1/2gals!! Just think last year I only made 4gals and 2 years ago when we had great sugar'in weather I made 10gals. The only thing is that I have not made a drop of Light syrup and only one batch of Medium. It all is Dark. I am starting to wonder if my grading set is old.

We are to get a freeze up tonight so we should get another good run tomorrow.

[Kev]

tapped 31 more today (used those aluminum buckets i hate)...I quess i hate spiles in a can at this time of year more than i hate the buckets:lol:

[ELM_DALE_MAPLE]

FIRST SYRUP OF THE YEAR!! Drew off about 2 gallons of medium (just shy of light amber) tonight after gathering up the last of the late run yesterday. Sap still hanging steady at 2.7% Love it!

[Sugarmaker]

Boiled last night and had several visitors Daryl, his son in law Mike and Mikes father Jerry. Also my brother Ernie and his wife stopped in too.
We pushed through 17.5 gallons of med and light syrup on 660 gallons of 2.5% sap. Finished about 2:00 Sunday morning.
Today we gathered 180 gallons of 2.5 % sap and boiled for a couple hours while visiting with our Daughter Kelly her husband Mark , grand kids Mike, Marly and Addi. We made sugar on snow.
Also Jan Wood and Jessie stopped just as we lit the fire.
Made another 1.5 gallons of syrup tonight.
At 56.5 gallon mark, so we are doing ok.
Good news! Repaired front pan seem to be holding!
Stopped and visited with Keith Talbot, he made about 5 gallons of syrup today.
AOF really seems to make a harder/ more even, boil than the previous AUF system alone. Seems to save some wood too.
I see Jim Brown and Gary are doing a good job. Brian is making lots of syrup too. Dennis is staying real busy.

Regards,
Chris

[sweetwoodmaple]

Well, no warped pan for me (yet)...but have two mishaphs to fess up (thanks Jim for getting this started).

1. Two nights ago, I was adjusting the position of my releaser on the top of my tanks and unknowingly loosened the connection between my top and bottom releaser tank. Basically what that does is make it a one tank system with no chance of dumping vacuum. So....next MORNING...I discovered the moisture trap full and ball blocking the vacuum and almost no sap in the tanks. Yup...missed vacuum on the tubing all night. Fortunately, the moisture trap saved my vacuum pump from sucking in water all night and making junk out of it.

2. Starting the fire and getting things going this evening and did the unpardonable....doing one too many things in the sugarhouse. The one too many was starting a bucket of syrup filling from my canner tank. Forgot about it and found, to my horror, about 5 gallons of medium amber syrup making it's way from my over full bucket to the floor and drifting slowly to the back door of the sugarhouse. Quickly shut the valve and got the hot water hose...crying as I rinsed all that out the back. I would have got the shop vac, but all you folks would have turned me in! ;-)

Sounds like fun to be had by all. Up to 55 gallons of syrup plus what's in the evaporator and sweet. I think I'm running about a 65 gallon ratio this year :-(

[FunnyFarm]

Glad to hear I'm not the only one with mishaps. This is my 1st year with tubing and short of having to tighten everything up a little that went well. My problem came with the bulk tank 1st the gasket was leaking and then the clamp on the outlet piping came lose i lost around 100 gallons of sap. So it goes all up and running now cooked down about 300 gallons this weekend and looking forward to more.

[Dennis H.]

Well, I found one downside to using white plastic buckets and lids to collect sap in.

When the wind blows them off right before it snows it can be really hard to find them, ok impossible to find them.:rolleyes:

I can not find the 6 lids that blew off last night. Luckily I have a few extra that I will put on. I knew I should have run up to look at them before I called it a day, just was tired from boiling all day and wanted to kick back for a little.

[Low budget maple]

The father inlaw and I collected 100 gal about noon on sat and pulled 2.5 gal of med amber. This weeks forecast is looking like a low to no sleep week !!

[Turtlecreek]

We got almost two feet of white stuff here! Gathering thisevening is going to suck, can't expalin it any better than that. On the up side I have plenty of snow to bury my holing tanks in!

[Paddymountain]

hey guys,
I hate to break the news, but its sunny and 80 in Honduras I hear we have some snow at home, my work here is done I fly out Wed noon, hope the snow is gone til then, the wife and crew have made some syrup while I've been gone but I'm not sure how much. happy boiling
adios
paddymountain

[Dennis H.]

Thats right, paddy mountain is out of the country.
Sunny 80, wow. Soon, very soon, just not quit yet.

Safe trip home.

[Gary R]

Big sap weather starting tomorrow for a couple of days:) I even got about 30 gal. today. I've made over 13 gal. of syrup so far. Over 1000 gal. of sap. Terrible sugar content. I think I'm going to set one of my chainsaws out by the trees;) I've burnt more than a cord of wood. Plenty of wood left, but I'm going to cut extra this year. The wheels have really been turning in my head:rolleyes:

Father & son, I heard some of the troops helped get your taps in. Let me know if there is any way I can help. Good luck!

[Sugarmaker]

Gary,
Your doing good with your sap. If you've boiled 1000 gallons you have earned your stripes! Big time!
Glad to hear Jim got some taps out! Thanks for the update.
Regards,
Chris

[sweetwoodmaple]

Well, got 2/3 of a cord of tinder dry wood tonight.

The man who got me into sugaring has since gone on to be with the Lord (died of lymphoma), but his wife remarried and volunteered wood if I needed it. It has been split and in a dry shed for probably 8 years.

Just picked it up tonight...packed the trailer and got it kind of stuck in the yard...so we'll have to do some wheel barrowing to the sugarhouse.

There is probably 2 more cords there left, but the yard is getting soft, so may not be able to get more.

[Dennis H.]

Gary you to with the low sugar? The trees on buckets are running at 1.5% everyday, they don't change.
Today I checked the sap in the one tank from the trees on vac and they were running at, get this, 1%! OOCH!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Brian,

Take a wheel barrow with you and cart it from the shed to your trailer. Better than running out of wood.

[Gary R]

What, all quiet in PA? I guess everyone is boiling. So am I. Started about an hour ago. Have about 80 gal. My fathers going to boil all day tomorrow. I took Thursday off to boil. If there one thing I'd like to get accomplished this year it's how much sap can I get. A good base line for years to come.

Dennis, I'm up to 1.3 today:rolleyes: I have read some guys in Mass. have gotten 0.5. What kind of buckets? I used bakery buckets and left two of the tabs on the lid. They stayed on well. The other thing is, at my place there's rarely snow when saps flowing.

Dan W. Haven't heard from you lately. How are things cooking?

Sugarmaker, have you learned how to spell Oberdorff yet:D

[Dennis H.]

.5% sap, I would draw a line at that, Heck I was pondering dumping the 1% that I got yesterday but I decided to put it in some totes and let it freeze up overnight. Did the natural RO thing this morning and took out the ice. Helped a little.

Trees are a little slow today. Nice clear sap but just not running real good. Even the trees on vac are not doing that good. Collected about 75 gals this evening.

Got a 3 hr boil in right before that. It looks like I will be able to give the good old chainsaw a workout this year. I have gone thru about 1/2 of the wood pile so far.

I bet Sugarmaster is looking like Popeye with the forearms the size of small trees!:lol:

[Jim Brown]

Collected 425 gallon today .Sugar was at 1.5% but sap was clear. Left the pumps and generators on tonight as the releasers were tripping every 4 minutes. They will most likely run out of gas before morning.Don't know if we will get a freeze tonight if so I'll refuel and let them go tomorrow ,I'll start the RO and go check tanks at 6:00am. Should have 85-100 gallon of concentrate to boil after the run over night
Looks like a day or two off after tomorrow.

Jim

[PA mapler]

Didn't warm up here enough, sap ran a few hours slow, and have maybe 40 gallons in the tank. It was sunny, but only mid 30's and I'm on the dark side of the hill. It'll break here one of these days!

[Dan W]

This morning I got inspected by the Dept of Ag. This was my first time. It went very well. They only had 2 requests which will be easily taken care of. For those of you that may not know, (I didn't), Uncle Ed Rendel passed a law that took effect in January that requires all retailers to get a license ($35). I think previously it was only required for over 1000 gallon producers, now it is everybody. Anyhow, I was boiling while they were here and finished up everything I had on hand around 12:30. Since it was too early to collect, I decided to clean the front pan and tidy up the sugar house. Later I collected 230 gallons and it looks like tomorrow is going to be another flood day. As of today, I have collected twice as much sap as all of last year and it looks like there is no end in the near future (last year I was done on March 12). So far I have bottled 20 gallons with 11 in storage waiting to be bottled. That will be a day this weekend maybe. This is what it is all about!!!!

[sweetwoodmaple]

Got another 1,000 gal today@1.6 percent. Releaser is still dumping every 10 min. I'm over 5,000 for the year, and I'm pooped.

[Father & Son]

Well thanks to Daryl and Scott got most of my taps in 3/6. Still about 20 buckets to hang. Very little run on Monday, didn't start dripping till about 1:00 pm. Yesterday took my wife to the orthopedic group and to have a CT scan done. Still waiting to see if surgery is needed. Didn't start to collect till about 6:00 pm very late start. 160 gallons of sap on 164 taps (121 gravity tubing and 43 buckets). Evaporator filled, floats leveled, ready to fire tonight after collecting. Everything is finally a go!

Jim

[Gary R]

Brian, I know what you mean. The vacuum is working. I collected about 250 gal. in less than 24 hrs. I boiled 100 of it last night.

Jim Brown, I'll be over soon to get a 5 gal. container. I've made enough syrup for myself:)

Father and Son, Good to hear all things are a go. Good syrup making to you!

[Dennis H.]

Long day down here, started to boil at 8am and cleaned up the kitchen area after finishing the syrup for the day at 6pm!

Made 3 1/2 gals today!

Trees are starting to slow down a little here. We are to get more rain the next 2 days so it will not be getting back below freezing for a few days. I notice that with the rain this past weekend the buds on the trees are getting larger. Sap is still running clear so I will keep plugging along till it gets to nasty to make.

I already sold some syrup from this year so this year is looking good.

Dan that is interesting to hear that everyone who sells syrup must be inspected. I hate to do it but I may have to look into getting that done. I will wait till after the season when the sugarshack is clean and stays clean for longer than 2 hours!!:lol:

[Jim Brown]

Well we collected over 1000 gallon today.Sugar is starting to drop 1.5%.Boiled for 5 hours today and then went to check tanks. Hauled another 500 gallon out of the woods. every thing I own is again setting full of sap. Going to start the RO at 5:30-6:00 in the morning should have room for the stuff on the truck and Trailer by 9:00. Going over to Gary R's to pick up sap in the morning (just a soon as I have room for it). Our son Doug is enroute from Dayton,ohio to help out the next few days Got a call this evening from one of the folks we buy syrup from and they have 4 drums ready to be picked up and said bring 2 more drums when we come over. They are also having a good season.
Well have to get a bite to eat and then to bed.

Tis' the season !

Jim

[waysidemaple]

Collected 250 gallons today around 4pm, new sap hauler worked great. Start to boil that tomorow am. Runs havent been to spectacular nor has my sugar content....running about 1.5 average with my highest so far this season at 1.9 Feelling alittle under the weather tonight so hopefully by taking it easy tonight and waiting till tomorrow to boil will pay off. 9 days till my 21st!!!

[Father & Son]

First boil of the season (yes I know I got a late start) went well. Collected 265 gallons on 121 gravity tubing taps (you vacuum guys must be flooded). Sugar at 2.5%. Sweetened the pans and made 4 gallons of light amber. Left the buckets uncollected, supposed to be windy and I figured it would help keep them on the trees.

Jim

[Gary R]

My father boiled 150 gal. yesterday. Rained all day and could not get the fire and boiling rate up. Head tank is full and about 120 gal. in the bulk tank. I'll need Jim Brown's assistance. He can have all the sap out of the bulk tank. We just can't keep up. We're going to drain and clean the pan this morning. Then haul more wood:rolleyes:

[Dennis H.]

Raining cats and dogs down here!!

Besides that I am already getting orders for syrup!:D I took some into work last night and got asked by others for some.

Now I got to go collect in the rain oh yeah!!

[waysidemaple]

BOiling here. Had 250 gallons from yesterday that I'm boiling off now...run the evaporator hard till four then let it cool and go collect and then start it up again. It's going to be a long night. On the bright side ive drawn off a gallon and a half of syrup already.

[Slatebelt*Pa*Tapper]

big time dumping tomorrow, jugs are filling up with rain water. 4+ inches of rain do here.. now we got mud..

[Paddymountain]

I'm back from Honduras. got in around 2:00 am,still a little sluggish. Wife informed me that her and company beat me ,they made 20 gal of syrup while I was gone. I have about 150 to boil ,getting ready to start and wishing it wasn't so humid out. gonna dump the buckets tomorrow clean things up and get ready for the next run!

[waysidemaple]

clollected another 175 gallons tonight in the rain. In for dinner then back out to the shack to continue boiling. Long night ahead of me!!

[Dennis H.]

Paddy Mtn glad to see that you made it back safe. I hope the wife didn't rub it in too much on the amount of syrup she made!

Trees not running that good today. I collected about 80 gals. There was one bucket that I could not get to. I would have to wade thru about 2' of water. There is a low spot in the stand of trees that I tap and it has filled up with rain water. That one bucket is about 4' out in the water but it drops off fast at the edge. I'll get it another day.

Started to boil this evening but shut it down early to bottle up some syrup for people and also to clean the pans. I was going to do it before starting to boil but somehow it slipped my mind.

Its not looking good fro sap flowing down here much more beyond next week. I am hoping to get another 2 gals before the end. That would put me over 25 gals!

[PA mapler]

Finally had a decent run, boiled most of the day. The trees started running yesterday about noon, and have been running slow but steady ever since. Still running now, but had to shut down since I was boiling faster than it was coming in. 2% sap, drew off maybe 6 gallons unfinished syrup, looks medium amber.

[sweetwoodmaple]

Got just over 200 gal boiled tonight. Just too beat to get out there and stay up late.

I have around 1000 gal in the tanks left to boil. I think after that I'm done for the season. Trees only running 1.4 to 1.5 percent. I'll be at 6200 gallons total.

Weather looks like another good run or two next week then no freeze for a while. Usually, I'm scrambling and loose a run or two at the beginning of the season. This year, I'll be missing the last two.

Looks like everyone is having a great year. Best wishes to all...

[Paddymountain]

Last night boiled about 170 gal of sap, tomorrow I'm going to chase it through the evaporater and finish it . Sun-Tue looks favorable I think it will be our last run.

Dennis H . Sounds like you had your new evaporater chugging along pretty
hard all season 25 gal is a respectable amount of syrup.

[sweetwoodmaple]

ya know...I would have been ok with ending this season WITHOUT burning my pan.

Got talking to dad and forgot to remove the plug. ARGH.

soaking in acid for the night...at least it was the puckered one that I burnt the last time.

[Jim Brown]

Welcome to the "Burn't pan club" of the year Brian!!

We finished off 35 gallon today and collected about 550 gallons of 1.5% - boiled 7.5 gallon this evening. Going tomorrow morning and checking lines after the snow storm...got about 8-10 inches here today.Will refuel the gens and get ready for the next one

Jim

[Sugarmaker]

Man you folks have been busy!
We get to rest tonight. I did not even look in a sap container:)
We have made 96 gallons of syrup mostly light grade. Much better on qty and grade this year.
Burnt 4 cord of wood and keeping our fingers crossed that the front pan holds. Maybe getting 100+ gph.
I agree with Brian. A break sounds real good. I hope to make syrup, weather permitting, for another 3 weeks if we get the weather and the taps stay open.
We have our Taste and Tour, Maple Open House March 19 and 20 so we are also making product for that event. Usually have 200 to 300 folks come thru and visit that weekend. We made crumb, maple mustard, BBQ and cream so far. {cream machine will be for another thread}
Plowed 8 inches of partly cloud from the drive tonight.

Keith Talbot also did the flaming pan thing on Wed and now has a new front pan in place. I need to go see it in the morning.
I boiled 100 gallons of sap for him so he would have room to gather, while the pan was being built.
Regards,
Chris

[mapleack]

I took the day off work today, we had 15 kindergartners in for a tour and pancakes in the sugarhouse at 9 am, then 35 highschoolers in for a tour at 1 pm. Got another 700 gal of sap, total over 14,000 and we hit the 200 gal of syrup milestone tonight. Sugar content is still terrible, hoping for another week at least of sap.

[Turtlecreek]

Just plugging along here. I'm boiling now. I made an adjustment to the firebox tonight that seems to be working. I took out my air under fire manifold I made and am just pumping the air right in the front the way Dan W sold it to me, and that was the ticket, I guess don't fix it if it ain't broke would apply here!

Anyway last night I made another gallon, tonight I have made about that much so far and I'm going to be out here for a while yet. I collected about 50 gallons of sap and tested it it came out to 1.5 so i guess I didn't get as much rain in the buckets as I thought, so I'm going to boil it.

I'm with Paddy mountain I think the first few days of this week will be about it for me too, unless I run out of wood before then.

[waysidemaple]

Made almost 8 gallons between yesterday and today. Still have about 200 gallons of sap in the bulk tank but just to tired to keep going. It will be there tomorrow. That puts me at 21 gallons so far of mostly med amber. The new tractor is working well so far. Tonight is the first night I was able to get to all the buckets and barrels when I was collecting. Looks like it will just get below freezing tonight so maybe a run tomorrow.

[Dennis H.]

As of 3pm yesterday I had 2 buckets UNDERWATER!

If I can and if they still are I will get a pic in the morning.

We got so much rain down here that yesterday morning I went to check on the buckets for missing lids and found that I couldn't see buckets from the road, Then I looked more closely and saw the one bucket UPSIDE DOWN still on the tap!:lol:

The other was floating nearby. That means that hole is somewhere around 6' deep! This is in the middle of the woods, it is a small depression. It just filled up with water from all the rain. Not sure when I will be able to get to them, may JUNE!

[Gary R]

Well, you guys are keeping us reminded to pay attention:) Brian, If your hanging it up soon stop by. I'm going to boil for a least another week. We should have a couple of weeks of sap weather. I may sell sap to Jim.

I stopped at Old State Farms yesterday. Joe was boiling. Sounds like the season is going good for him. I also stopped at Jim's and sponged some more DE. Looking forward to a decent run today. I should be boiling this afternoon and most of tomorrow.

[Dennis H.]

Here are the pics of my buckets under water. I took the pic this morning. I see that the water has gone down a little. The buckets was hang completely upside down now it is on it's side.
Ok maybe I will be able to get at it some time in April not June!

These buckets were put at about 3' above the ground!

[andyp]

We finally got caught up yesterday bottled 6 more gallons. We now have a total of 37 gallons. That is a lot of boiling on a 30x60 flat pan. Went through tons of wood may run out before the season is over. It sure has been a hetic season. Taking a well deserved rest to day.

Andyp

[Gary R]

OK fellow traders, some crazy stuff going on here! The sap is running big time. Over 100 gal. in 6 hours. I did some sugar content tests on 5 sugar maples on my tubing system. They usually ran about 2% when on buckets. Readings were 1.5, 1.5, 1.4, 1.1 and 1.0. The sap in my bulk tank is 1%. I have a small Sugar maple bush that I used to do buckets. It's not on tubing because it's over a hill. I tapped 5 of those and let them run for a half hour. Readings; 2.5, 2.5, 2.5, 2.1 and 2.0. All season I have made B syrup and I am tired of boiling 1%. I hung 30 buckets this afternoon. tomorrow I am going to drain and clean the pan. Finish the sweet on the turkey fryer. I am going to boil the bucket sap and try make some respectful syrup. I need a bigger rig or an RO if I want to make anything nice out of the 1%. Jim Brown has the RO, he's getting the 1%. We'll see what happens.

I have read last years report from UVM Proctor. They said vacuum makes no difference to sugar content. Next weekend I'll test the buckets again and see how much they've fallen. Does anybody else have any idea as to why this is occurring?

[Turtlecreek]

I was boiling until 1:30 last night including clean up. Tonight I'm just going to collect sap and boil all day tommrow. I figured I would get all I could tonight and boil tommrow with the time change tonight I figured there was no reason to deprive myself of sleep and reset the clock too.

[Dennis H.]

I am now caught up on sap.
Folks came over this afternoon to help out boiling.
I even had enough time to scrub out the sap tank, it was starting to look funky!

Season is comeing to an end down here. It will be 4 days of above freezing and then it looks like only 3 days of just barely below freezing before warm up again. By Wed I will know if it is ended for me.

I surpassed my goal of 20 gals and now I am being greedy and want to make 30. It will be close, it just may be really dark syrup. The sap is not clearing up, it is staying cloudy.:cry:

It sounds like it is really starting to kick in up north. Go getting guys.

Gary R I know what you are talking about. The trees that I have on vac average just above 1%, anywhere from 1-1.3% The trees that I have buckets on are running right at 1.5%. My take on it is the size of tree canopy. My vac trees are smallish trees while the buckets trees have nice big canopies. That stand of trees had been logged out about 15 years ago and they only took the oaks an other hardwoods. They never touched any maples, now they are Red's, so they were able to gain size in the canopies. This is what I want to do here at the house, thin out the oaks.

[Low budget maple]

Gary vaccum always gives up less sugar. Don't try and suck the tree dry and let mother nature he kind to the wood pile with a nice sugar percentage. Sometimes old school is best !!!

[sweetwoodmaple]

Well, I'm not sure I'm getting less % on vacuum. My trees are 2 percent or less, even on gravity tubing. I have kept track for several years. Small crowns and great access to water seem to be the key.

Also, I've ready that high percent sugar can mean the tree is stressed.

Anyway, last year had disaster written for folks without vacuum. For me, vacuum has many benefits, including helping collect for those of us who can't spend the time collecting or pumping sap. My sap is pulled from everywhere, up hill or whatever, to my central collection tanks.

[Gary R]

All of my trees are about the same. Woods trees with smallish canopies (40%?). They are all in good health though. Only 11-16" trees. Over the past few years, I've thinned all the stands. I'll retest during the warm up mid week. Maybe I'll post and ask Dr. Perkins if he has any thoughts. Thanks for the feedback!

[PA mapler]

Finally had my first big run of the year. The sap was coming into the tank faster than I could boil it off. I quit at about 1am, when the sap finally slowed down, and will finish boiling it today. Sap is 1.8%, and the syrup is hanging in at med. amber. Great taste this year too.

[waysidemaple]

Did a syrup count this morning and I'm at 27 gallons and a quart. Spring break is over for me so we are packing up the car and headed back to school. Hope to get a run early this week so I can boil on wednesday.

[Dennis H.]

I am now officially at 26 gals 1 pint.

The last 2 gals are Grade B though. Haven't had a freeze up in several days, I am think it is over fro me. I have maybe another gal in the syrup pan.
If it ends now I will be happy with the out come of this season.

[KV Sappers]

[QUOTE=Dennis H.;141975]I am now officially at 26 gals 1 pint.QUOTE]

Great job Dennis. What with all the rain we had this week you probably would have had at least another 10+ gal.

[Dennis H.]

What did you end up with KV Sapper? Did the buckets run for you? Are they yard trees?

I will have to try and swing by sometime. I have an idea where you are but you will have to give me more details. Or you are more than welcome to swing by here. I'll pm you my number.

Believe it or not but I didn't think the trees ran all that good during that spell of rain we got. All I really eneded up with is 3 buckets that I couldn't get to because of water!!

[Gary R]

My lesson for the the day is to not rely on the sugar content of a freshly drilled hole:) I got 49 gal. out of my 30 buckets. Sugar content is 1.6. It is so clear, it looks like permeate. There's hope I'll get something good out of it.

I've made one pint shy of 21 gal. of syrup. I've collected 1,858 gal. of sap so far. 325 went to Jim. That sap has been a little cloudy since late February. This week actually looks to be the best running one yet. Good luck to all.

[KV Sappers]

What did you end up with KV Sapper? Did the buckets run for you? Are they yard trees?

Believe it or not but I didn't think the trees ran all that good during that spell of rain we got. All I really eneded up with is 3 buckets that I couldn't get to because of water!!

Thursday and Friday I only collected 3 1/2 gal and yesterday only 1 gal. Today the buckets aren't running at all. I'm holding out till Tuesday and then I'm pulling the taps. Weather isn't looking the greatest. The trees I have are
on a lot I own behind my house. If I get more great otherwise I'll end the season with making 1 1/2gal. of syrup. Not bad for a beginner with 6 trees.

[sweetwoodmaple]

I was over getting wood yesterday at a friends and while we were talking noticed the buds popped on several silver maples in the yard.

My tally is 6125 gallons for the year. My last boil is this evening. Too many meetings and work this week and the wood pile is short. The weather will be too warm for sap to keep 4 days until I can boil next.

Last sap collected was 1.4 percent.

[Father & Son]

Boiled Saturday till 3:00am Sunday (really 4:00am forgot about the time change). Boiled in all the sap I had and made 8 gallons of light just turning to medium amber. Developed a small leak around the drawoff fitting on my syrup pan. It had been a leak before but the sugar sand sealed it off. Now its a small drip. Looks only to be a spot not properly welded originally. I have the pan in the truck and already have it scheduled to be welded today. collected only my 81 tap woods yesterday for 175 gallons of 2.5%. Below freezing last night so tonight will be interesting.
GaryR- Looks like a bigger rig in your future - maybe a 2x8 hint hint!

Jim

[mapleack]

Still boiling along, up to around 220 gal of syrup made. The weather forecast doesn't look good though. I made it in one of the local papers today, my family and I put on a program at the Crooked Creek Environmental Center yesterday, with a reporter in attendance. Here's the link : http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/leadertimes/news/s_727313.html

[Dennis H.]

Well My season is officially over. I just went out and collected the buckets.
Not a single tap had any wettness on them. It has been something like 5 days since we had a freeze.
The buds on the trees are almost breaking open.
I just pulled off the remaining syrup in the syrup pan and should be able to add almost 1 gal to my total fro the year. This batch will be Grade B just like the last one. It was tough boiling that stuff. I don't like to add defoamer to the syrup pan but I had to with this stuff and often. It didn't have a real maple smell but it sure taste good. So I now have a good supply for family.

Now the fun really begins, the clean up. Oh Yeah. scrubing 105 buckets!! No wait 103, 2 are still not able to be reached because of water!!:D

So by my notes that I have I tapped 2/11 and pulled taps 3/14, so that makes it about 4 weeks. It is almost the same length of last year but weather like 2009 when I the trees ran for 6 weeks. You can never predict what mother nature will give us.

[Jim Brown]

Well the pumps are on and the releasers are dumping at the rate of every 2 1/2 minutes.
Going to run till they quit tonight ,get the over night freeze( low of 27) and run again tomorrow un til they quit.When they quit the next time the fat lady is warming up in the wings!!

Anyone in NW Pa have any extra barrels? I'm in need of 30's or 55's

Thanks
Jim

[waysidemaple]

Temps dont look promising up my way. After tonight it not showing another freeze until next wednesday. This wednesday may be my last boil for the season. I plan to boil everything I have wednesday then chase with water and wait and see if it freezes up or if the forcast will be right. Hopefully it isnt. If its the end its the end...as of now Ill have just over 30 gallons made with the sweet thats in the syrup pan. Hoping it holds out a little longer!!

[GramaCindy]

Wayside Maple…what do you mean, (I have heard it mentioned many times here on MT by "chasing with water?" I am new to this and have a 2x4 Mason divided pan…do you mean that you add water in the end of the season to the warming pan to "push" the concentrate to the draw off end? How does this work?:confused:

[Dennis H.]

Wayside are you running vac? Buckets? or Gravity Tubing?

[PA mapler]

Got a little sap today, but didn't warm up and run until late this afternoon... down in the teens tonite, might get a good run tomorrow if it warms up fast enough. Tough weather up here, but I've boiled well into April some years.

[Dan W]

Yesterday I dumped about 30 gallons of real nasty stuff. It is supposed to go to 26 tonight so today I dumped all of my buckets and am hoping for one more day. Looks like the end is here or near-tomorrow will tell. I was hoping to make some commercial once the buds popped out however the weather doesn't look promising at all. Updates to follow.

[waysidemaple]

GramaCindy- Yeah you pretty much got it. Its just a way to get all the sap out of the flue pan and into the syrup pan.

Dennis H- Mostly gravity tubing that will be on vac next year. Ive got a few buckets hung but thats just because its not the same without going to collect a few buckets.

[waysidemaple]

My sap is still nice and clear im just afraid without a freeze and no vac it will shut down and the holes will dry out.

[Turtlecreek]

Just was out and dumped all of my buckets, not that there was much to dump it hasn't ran here in a day or so. It's supposed to freeze here tonight it's now 31 degrees and there is frost on the ground, things are looking up for tommrow. While I was dumping the buckets I was giving the trees a pep talk, "one last run he guys this one is for the gipper I know you can do it!" not sur if this will work or not but it's worth a try.

I drained out my pan and cleaned it. I put the sap in the freezer so it will keep until wendsday when I will boil for the last time this year, I'm throwing in the towel.

A couple of questions before I go:
Should I throw out the ice when I pull it out or should I thaw all of it then boil?

How do I "chase the sweet" with water to get all I can out of my pan, remember I'm using a halfpint with a preheated.

Maybe I'll vet around to the potter tioga maple weekend, any idea when that is this year?

[green4310]

Pulled 11 gals tonight and 8 gals yesterday. This vac. is sweet.

[Gary R]

GramaCindy and Turtlecreek, I'm another backyarder with a flat pan. I have not chased the sweet. I think if you do, you'll still have to finish the front section and you'll spend a lot of time firing and have mixing. I would just shut it down so there's less than an inch in the pan when cold. Then finish on the stove and turkey fryer. I did this just the other day. I took 5 gal. of sweet and finished on the stoves in an hour or so.

We should have a big run today. I've heard that some near Spartensburg are just getting started. 3' of snow still?

[Paddymountain]

I'll be hanging it up after tonight also, I boiled about 130 gal last night. It got down to 24 last night ,so we'll see what happens this afternoon. Like Deniis H and most of you I tapped 2/12 or so. We've had a pretty good season as far as I'm concerned. I don't have my numbers tallied yet but it's around 2500
gal of sap which was all 2.3-2.8 %, and I think we'll go over 40 gal of syrup by a few. amazingly almost all of our syrup was LA, only one batch of Med
and one of Dk, I'm sure what I have to finish yet will be on the dark side.

[Dennis H.]

That is some good numbers you got there paddymtn.

Sugar content was normal for my trees, which are red's. The buckets ran at 1.5% and the trees on vac started out at 1.5% but ended up running at 1% the last few days.
Once I finish off what is in the pan I will be right around 27-28 gals. So that puts my sap count at 1700-1800 gals of 1.3% average sugar content.
Never made any Light and just 2 gals of Medium, 3 gals was Grade B and the rest Dark.

All in all I am very happy with the season. I wish it would go for another week but I will take what I can can get. And the new evap work awesome!! Already planning on doing a few mod's to improve thru put so I can add even more trees!!

[KV Sappers]

Maybe I'll vet around to the potter tioga maple weekend, any idea when that is this year?

March 26 and 27. Here's a link http://www.pamaple.com/MapleWeekend.htm

[KV Sappers]

I'm officially done for the season. Pulled all the taps today and boiled off the last batch. Ended the season with 1 1/2gal. 4.5 oz. Tapped 6 trees this year already planning on tapping 15 next year. It's been a blast and I'm looking forward to next year.

[theschwarz1]

helped my boiler collect 200 gallons today. Sap ran well last night and today. Nice and clear. Looks like not another run for a few more days, this weekend its supposed to cool back down and next week looks not too bad either. My trees are still pumping 3% (down from the 4% earlier) and clear.

My biggest problem is all those little bugs...snow fleas? They are all over and in my buckets every time!

Super duper season so far! My boiler thinks he has about 40 gallons of syrup so far and maybe end up with aboutn 70 by the time all is said and done. He has about 200 taps and I have about 35.

I started collecting Feb 22nd and have gotten 240 gal so far of sap ranging between 3% and 4%. So for about 30 taps that's 8 gallons per tap in less than 30 days.

[Sugarmaker]

Most folks in our area have been overwhelmed with sap. Too tired to type:)
We have made a lot of nice syrup mostly light.
Currently at 144 gallons, if things hold together we should break our old record of 148. [ thats if we have a sugarhouse in the morning] We had to put out a fire in the roof near the stack tonight.
Hope things are good out there in the sugar-hood! I have many notes and stats to report later.
Gathered 560 gallons of 2% and made 9.75 gallons of syrup tonight.
Big open house this weekend too.
Regards,
Chris

[Turtlecreek]

I rolled the dice and won! My trees were dried up with no freeze for a few days, buut the other night it froze, and I left the buckets hang for one last hoorah. Well
I collected this morning before work...FULL BUCKETS!!!! and tey were still running. Depending on sugar content I may have a long night tonight,
im hoping on making some dark stuff, I have loads of folks asking for dark, and all I'm making is light, with one small batch of medium.

GAME ON!!!!!!






i

[deacm]

I only hang about 50 buckets each year, but the sap is coming at me fast and furious. Should be a record year and for someone who only makes syrup just to give away as gifts, I better find A LOT more friends and FAST! All of it appears to be light amber with little change in color from the batches I did last week vs 10 days later.

[Turtlecreek]

Sugarmaker, I thought burning a pan was bad, but a roof? Lets not start a I burnt my roof club like we have the I burnt my pan club!

[jrthe3]

i at 100 gallons of syrup did not get to hang buckets this year and still have alot of snow in the woods have not go the real big run yet got two bushs that have not really run big still waiting on that 60 degree day to thaw things out

[waysidemaple]

Dad collected 400+ gallons for me this morning. All my buckets were running over. Came home from school to boil. THis is my biggest run yet!

[PA mapler]

Maple season finally hit here. I'm at 20+ gallons of dark amber now with another tankful of sap I hope will hold til Friday. The sap started running yesterday morning, and is finally slowing down now with the thermometer showing 32.

Still have a foot of snow up behind the house on the dark side of the hill, but the snow line is "creeping" up the yard every day now. Yay!

[theschwarz1]

Dad collected 400+ gallons for me this morning. All my buckets were running over. Came home from school to boil. THis is my biggest run yet!

Likewise...we emptied out everything last night and today collected 400 gal! Overnight! All buckets overflowing. Dec a big run up here. :)
hang in there bc Saturday and next weeks are supposed to cool off again.

[waysidemaple]

MAde 8 almost 9 gallons tonight. Good night I'm tired

[Gary R]

Boy, pretty quiet here. Everyone must have quit or swamped in sap. I am finishing up my bucket sap right now. I hope to have at least 1 1/2 gal. of decent stuff. The only freeze in the future is Saturday night. Not sure what I'm going to do. Jim may be getting his last load from me tonight.

Good luck to all those hosting taste and tours! I plan to visit a few on Saturday. Tapper, we haven't heard much from you. I hope the word got out in Warren. The folks around here get a few hundred people for the weekend.

I'm off tomorrow, may check in on Father & Son. Shopping in Meadville also.

[Paddymountain]

I boiled my last sap on Tuesday evening, drawed of a little over a gallon, drained the syrup pan Wed. have it in the fridge and need to finish it. should be about two gallon. Tonight I took down about 85 buckets and taps, I think if
I had gathered yesterday morning, I might have got enough to boil. I'm officialy done,I have about 75 or so taps and buckets to pull and then start washing. Overall I think it was a pretty good year.

[Dennis H.]

I am happy with the season also but it seemed kind of short didn't it?

I mean the weather while the sap was flowing was good. Unlike last year where it had long warm spells. It just seemed like it wound down early.

Maybe it is just me, well most likey it is me. Ok I am kind of bored now that I don't have to go collect sap from the buckets!:lol:

[FunnyFarm]

We're still going up here I've got 300 gallons to boil right now and it looks like a freeze Saturday night and again mid next week. I've been getting 300 plus gallons of sap for the last few weekends and looks like that may continue for another few.

[PA mapler]

The sap won't stop running now that it finallly got started, and the next two weeks look really good. Got home from work yesterday and the tank was flowing over, boiled til midnight, will clean the syrup pan this morning before I fire up again... Up to about 30 gallons so far,still dark amber.

[waysidemaple]

hopefully what sap ran yesterday and last night will still be good when i get home tonight but we will see. I am officially 21 today...woooo...had a shot of jack daniels last night at midnight and went to bed. If the sap is still clear ill have my firt boiling soda in the shack tonight!!!

[Maplewalnut]

Congrats Wayside enjoy your boiling sodas but like hunting keep the majority of them for after the fire is put out for the night!!!!

[Sugarmaker]

Folks,
Beth your doing great at 30 gallons!
Gary looks like your winding down. I may have a guy taht needs a small pan do you have any more?
We are busy making product and cleaning for the open house tomorrow.
Stack now has a 15 inch stainless tube around the 12 inch stack with air gap and added 5/16 dia vent holes in the roof jack to vent hot air. Can you say close one! Someone was looking out for us that night:)
We have 800 gallons of somewhat cloudy sap waiting for boiling this weekend. We may boil at 1/2 speed right through the Maple Taste And Tour to allow folks to see how we make syrup.
Not sure the sap will run much today.
Regards,
Chris

[Gary R]

Sugarmaker, I'm out of pans. There was a lot of interest in them, thanks to Craig's list. I'm going to make a bunch more this summer. Have that person contact me. Thanks!

Dennis H., I know what you mean. We're boiling right along and all of a sudden, Bam, were done:( Even that terrible last year, I boiled until March 25.

We finished our bucket sap today. 133 gal. of sap and got 2 gal. and 1 pint of dark amber. It just missed medium by a whisker. Some of the sap was boiled six times. I should of drained each boil and finished all the same day. Pretty happy though for 60 degree weather syrup. Visited Father and Son and Daryl today. At this point I have 80gal. of cloudy 1.2% sap to haul to SDURF in the morning. Hopefully that will give them something to boil on a flat pan for the Taste and Tour. Pumps still going to run until Sunday. I'll decide what to do then. I then need to tap some Birch trees for wine.

[Dave Y]

For those of you that are wrapping it up Hope you had a good season. I personally think we have two more weeks. I am at 585gal of syrup. and have enough sap to make another barrel. trying to can some syrup. with the weather getting nicer there are folks out driving around. so some sales may come my way. I believe it will freeze tonight and sap will flow tomorrow.

[BC Birch Tapper]

Gary you can also try making some birch syrup if you've got enough time & fuel.

[waysidemaple]

Just finished bottling what we made last night...last nights boil puts me just above the 40 gallon mark. 40 gallons and a quart to be exact. Headed over to pattersons to get more bottles, Ive only got 3 quart bottles left!

[Gary R]

Lots of visiting today. Stopped at Hurry Hill, Yatzor Maple, How Sweet it is, Our Lil' Sugarhouse, Howles Family Maple, Dennis Farms and Firth Maple Products. Sap was scarce today. 18,000 taps at Firth's and no one at the Sugarhouse!? At 11Am at Hurry Hill there had to be 400 people there. They had 5 or 6 tractors pulling wagons of people to the sugarhouse. A waiting line to get on a wagon:)

Boy, my wife is PISSED! I came home and collected my buckets. She thought I was washing them and putting them away. I rinsed them and put them back on the trees;) Bulk tank is washed and vacuum still on. People folding their tents all around me. Dave Y is right. There is no way we can let Sugarmaker be the last man standing without a fight. Sorry, PAMapler, I think you will be the last woman and syrup maker standing. It comes with living in the icebox of PA:lol: 3 or 4 more boils and I'll need to cut wood or start burning the house wood.

I'm in the market for a 2X6 or 2X8.

BC Birch, I've tried to make it. I don't have the patients to simmer it. I crank up the fire and burn the fructose. I've had a couple of types from Alaska. It's not for me. There is definitely a lucrative market for it. The wine is excellent. I'm going for five gallons this year.

[andyp]

We are finished in Ford city Pa. Every thing is cleaned up and put away.It was a pretty good season. Now we'll just wait and see what next year has to bring.

andyp,

[sweetwoodmaple]

ha ha...well, I said I was done...but I got a little too close to the evaporator today and accidentially lit a fire! LOL

I had 220 gallons of nasty sap at 1.2+ percent sitting in the woods, so pumped it up to the head tank and boiled.

It smells between buddy and yeast, so sorry, Dave Y...unless we were in for commercial, our season is done according to the trees. I'm sure the mountains and latitude make a big difference. Hope you keep that force 5 humming for a while.

I will use this batch for Vinegar (should make about 20 gallons)...that is my next market ploy. We have about 3 gallons that is just getting done from last year, some of which was aged in a small oak barrel. It is excellent stuff...makes great maranade and dressing. Awesome on fries if that is your fancy (which it is mine).

The vinegar will combine well with some fresh garden veggies. We are planning some nice glass bottles to combine the vinegar and vegetables to sell.

[BC Birch Tapper]

Yes it does take patience to make birch no question. For us that's all we have so we make it work. The big thing here is selling the experience. It's what it's all about!

[Dennis H.]

My tank smelled like that also sweetwoodmaple, It had this yeasty smell. Also was very cloudy.

I wish I did not have such a long warm spell, this coming week it is to be back in the 20's at night. But when the trees are done they are done. The past few days have been in the high 60's and low 70's. That has really caused the buds to swell, they are almost open!

The wife picked up 10 gals of white vinegar yesterday so I have the chore to do, pickle the evap. Almost everything else is cleaned up and put away. Trying to everything finished early this year.

[PA mapler]

Ha ha Gary, but after hauling a beat-up old Adirondack chair up to the sugar shack this year,I'll be the last woman Sitting... good thing I use a kitchen timer to time the firewood,it was so comfy the other night I fell asleep a few times!

I figure we're about halfway through the season up here. Still have snow on the hill, although it's getting patchy down low. It was below 32 all day yesterday, and is 22 here now, setting up some possibly perfect sap-weather for today and might run all night into tomorrow (but can you ever really tell for sure? :lol:). It was nice to take a day off and catch up on sleep!

[Jim Brown]

Well we too have pulled the plug.Finished the year with 135 gallons. Had a great year as did everyone else.
Now to get everything pulled out of the woods, washed and put away.
Gary R. if you want some light syrup and Laura is still on your case, stop over I have a little over here you can have! May save your marriage when you put in that new rig and increase the bucket and tap count(lol)

Thanks All
Jim

[Daryl]

We also pulled the plug Friday night. We had 197 taps on red's on vac and 341 pails. We started boiling on 2-20. We boiled 4370 gal and sold 220 gal for a total of 4590 gallons collected. We made 80 gallons of mostly dark amber and some grade B. This was all done on a 18" X 63' D&G Sportsman and a home made RO. The longest day of boiling was 11 hours. It sure was nice running 6% concentrate.:)

[PATheron]

Daryl- Do you have pics of your ro? Theron

[Dave Y]

Cleaned tanks today , fixed vacuum leaks and brought in 1500 of the vacuum .that was from about noon when it started till now. a bucket check shows half full buckets. the bucket brigade will be working tomorrow. this warm spell was and interlude , not the end. bring on the sap I still have about 26 cord of wood left.

[seedspreader]

I am up in Bear Lake, NW corner of Warren County and I JUST tapped yesterday. Yes it's a bit late (working too much and finishing my evaporator) but I think I have at least another week of sap. It flowed well today. I've only got 13 taps out and I pulled in about 23 gallons for the day.

Oh, first time posting here. Hello all.

[waysidemaple]

SAp ran today....boiling 150 gallons tonight then back to school...really clear sap too

[Gary R]

Jim, I think things will be OK. She forgives me pretty easily:)

Rinsed pan and tanks again. First 50 gal. of sap yesterday looked bad. Cleaned tank again and now the sap is decent. Only boiled about 80 of what I got yesterday. Going to empty buckets this morning so I can get that sap in my cool barn. Adding ice jugs to the tank for today. Looks like I'll be boiling today, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the least. Over 2500 gal. on vac system alone. Shooting for 30+ per tap.

[mapleack]

We pulled the plug yesterday. Had an open house with over 100 in attendance on a beautiful day. Drained the flue pan and boiled down all the sweet in the syrup pan. I'm sure we could get more sap later this week but there's no doubt it would make nasty commercial just like the last week. We decided it just wasnt worth the money to keep making 'mersh, that and all the help is tired. We've had a record breaking season, over 18,000 gal of sap, and somewhere around 230 gal of syrup. Still have to finish and filter about 15 gal, I'll update season totals then.

[Low budget maple]

Well here in Waterford things are going great. As of last Sunday I burnt my flue pan. Got it all cleaned up and on line Monday nite. Only had 7.5 gal of syrup. As of sat morn have 23 gal. Cleaned rig and tanks, wife retapped 75 for me and had a nice day of planting a tree and yard work with her yesterday. The day of relaxing with her was awsome. The steam away I built still does have a bubbler in it but works very well and the hot water is an added comphort in the sugar house !!!! Looks like 1 more week for my 30 gal goal and I will pull the plug. Time to get the boat ready for summer fun. Boil on folks !!

[PA mapler]

Looks like a break up here for a while, getting colder. Finished boiling this last run today, and I'm up to about 40 gallons and have enough firewood for maybe 10 more. Great taste this year!

[Paddymountain]

2561 gallons of sap : 45.6 gallons of syrup from about 220 taps; 25 on reds in woods, the rest roadside sugars, and yard trees

[heus]

Daryl I would like to see your ro sometime. I have had marathon boiling sessions (one time 16 hours straight) this season with 331 taps and my 2x6 and am thinking about some kind of small ro for next year. Not complaining though because we have bottled 109 gallons so far most of it light. I know Im an Ohioan on the Pa thread but only a couple of miles across the border.

[Daryl]

Jason,
I'm around most of the time. You are welcome any time. I think that you have my phone #. If you don't, it is on pamaple.org.
You are close enough to Pa to be part of our maple assoc.
Our 196 taps on vac were all reds and gave only 1 - 1.5% sap. The RO saved hours of boiling.
Daryl

[slammer3364]

Very sucessful season,made 16 gals plus have to finish off the sweet in evap,had one nasty looking bucket tonite but rest was clear. lots of luck to everyone going yet Slammer (www.sorgsugarshack.blogspot.com)

[heus]

Jason,
I'm around most of the time. You are welcome any time. I think that you have my phone #. If you don't, it is on pamaple.org.
You are close enough to Pa to be part of our maple assoc.
Our 196 taps on vac were all reds and gave only 1 - 1.5% sap. The RO saved hours of boiling.
Daryl

Daryl,
Yes I have your number in my phone. Maybe next week some time. Thanks, Jason

[Gary R]

I'm gearing up for BIG SAP! The last two nights I only boiled 180 gal. I dumped another 60 tonight. The sap does look bad. I did get a draw last night and tasted it. It's seems OK, dark and bold. I drained the evaporator and will finish it separate. I bleached and rinsed the bulk tank, releaser and head tank. I turned the pump off and opened the valves on the ladders and pulled some taps for better drainage. Thursday AM I plan on turning the pump back on and dump the first bit of sap. Should be boiling all weekend:) Tomorrow I need to cut and split wood:o

As the big boys say, "Ya gotta want it".

[Dennis H.]

It looks like winter is coming back down here in southern PA.
The past week and half we have had high 60's and warm nights, enough that the buds are now just about open. Now the forecast fro the next 7 days shows lows down in the low 20's, and snow and sleet! There would have been no way to keep the sap going this long of a warm spell, heck the tap holes haven't even weeped any sap since I pulled the taps.

I guess that is what I can expect since I ran the gas out of the snowblower and also got the mower ready for this mowing season!!

I also have to get the water out of the pans today so they don't freeze. I figured I would fill them up with water till I could get to them with the vinegar to pickle them.

[Sugarmaker]

Hi,
Got back to the trader! First post I saw was Gary R still making syrup! I thought he had given up a week ago! He MUST REALLY want IT!
Casbohm maple has moved to clean up and marketing!
Last night we completed the final boil of sap for the 2011 season. We have been in the sugar house 10 years. Cheryl just mentioned that if we were to build another one it would be bigger! That was based on the fact that we had somewhere between 500 and 600 folks through our building this past weekend. I just smiled:) Nice to have her working right beside me for 40 years and still allows me to do these hobbies.
We have lots of stories and stats form this season as we blew away all previous records for our operation.
Off to cruise the trader and try to catch up:)
Regards
Chris

[Sugarmaker]

Welcome to the trader feels like my first post to after being "away" for a week or so! We are in the neighbor hood! Hope your season is good. Not to late to tap. Looks like some maple season weather left.

Chris


I am up in Bear Lake, NW corner of Warren County and I JUST tapped yesterday. Yes it's a bit late (working too much and finishing my evaporator) but I think I have at least another week of sap. It flowed well today. I've only got 13 taps out and I pulled in about 23 gallons for the day.

Oh, first time posting here. Hello all.

[Sugarmaker]

Andy P,
Glad to hear from you. Hope things are good!
How much syrup did you make?
Still have some cows?
Regards,
Chris

We are finished in Ford city Pa. Every thing is cleaned up and put away.It was a pretty good season. Now we'll just wait and see what next year has to bring.

andyp,

[Gary R]

Well I'm on my third vacuum pump. The back up to the back up is a small gast dry rotary vane. Fresh rebuild, but only about 20" on the system. I must get to Bearings Inc. tomorrow. Bearing is bad on the lubricated Gast. Lesson for the day is don't trust used pumps. Just got done dumping buckets. Look to get a fresh start tomorrow. I looked at the weather and it could be too cold for sap to flow the next few days!?

Sugarmaker, I thought you'd hang in there:)

[Sugarmaker]

Gary,
1. I have left some wood in the wood shed for seed:)
2. Sap quality really went south over the last week! Containers in the sugar bush were getting loaded with bacteria):
3. Truck electrical system failed Sunday night, and left me with only the big pump to pump sap to the tank on the truck. I had to bucket the last 550 gallons of sap from the containers to the truck:(
4. Last syrup made did not filter well at all, it was very dark/ black, probably B or maybe C due to strong flavor.
5. The AOF [air over fire], saving wood in combo with the WRU [water reduction unit] making 2% sap into 3% sap, helped!
6. We still had long boils as sap flow was very good!
7. We did real well on mostly rebuilt, home made equipment.

Some numbers and data for 2011:
- Qty of sap we brought in for 2011 was approx 8100 gallons,
- Sugar content 2%+ and two small frozen sap runs were at 4%.
- appox. 14.7 gallons of sap per tap
- we made 193 gallons of syrup!
- burned 9 cord of wood,
- approx 21 gal of syrup per cord of pallet wood.
- .35 gallon syrup per tap.
- the freezer is full of quality light and medium syrup.
- all the 2.5 gallon jugs are full
- 10 gal. of the un-filtered syrup in pails
- 500+ folks came to Taste and Tour weekend, wiped us out of product!
- T&T sales were very good!
- We still have a sugar house after the roof fire was put out! WHEW!
Regards,
Chris

[andyp]

Sugarmaker,
Sounds like you had a super good year.

Andyp,

[Sugarmaker]

Andy,
We did very well! Lots of work and some fun mixed in there too:)
Regards,
Chris


Sugarmaker,
Sounds like you had a super good year.

Andyp,

[Gary R]

Chris, those are some impressive numbers! Congratulations, you probably exceed some vacuum producers. I hope that wood seed turns into a big pile:)

I'm sure the coming syrup I make won't be for the table. One advantage I've had is that I've been able to wash my tanks probably six times in the last two weeks. Even after one run during warm weather they get scummy on the sides. Good luck to anyone remaining.

[doocat]

We are still hanging on in Susquehanna County. Waiting for the freeze to end so we can get back into it...

[Slatebelt*Pa*Tapper]

buds are all popped here.. we have been out of the tree's almost 2 weeks now..

see you all next year.

hope everybody had or is having a good year.. ;)

I thought i had 160 taps in, but only had 118 in, made 15 gals of finished gold for the season, not to bad....

[waysidemaple]

SAP is pumping out of the trees up my way. Boiling tomorrow night when I get home.

[PA mapler]

Drained the evaporator and the sap-tank, and am patiently waiting for maple-season to come back... really didn't expect such a long freeze! It'll be interesting to see what happens as far as sugar %, sap runs, and quality.

[Sugarmaker]

Pulled all the containers from the sugarbush tonight, and hope to have all the lines down by the weekend.
May get a chance to go see some others boil.
After reflecting on our numbers for this year I told Cheryl I know why we felt tired! We had two season packed into one!
Regards,
Chris

[Dennis H.]

I am with you also Chris, It seemed like a short season but it also turned out to be a good year for syrup!

[mapleack]

We filtered the last of the 'mersh last night. Our season syrup total is 272 gallons! Total tap count still not confirmed, going to have to count some areas as we pull them. Our vacuum taps did about 0.4 gallons per tap. Season sap to syrup ratio was 68:1.

[theschwarz1]

SAP is pumping out of the trees up my way. Boiling tomorrow night when I get home.

Good to hear. I havent been checking since the cold snap and heavy snow. It was actually a nice break!! Guess I'll check tonight. Its been so cold I figured it wasn't running.

We are still hanging in to see what comes after this thaw. Commercial grade makes good sugar! =)

[Gary R]

March 25th and too cold for sap:confused: I boiled the 33 gal. I got yesterday, tonight. It only got to 33 today. My ladders were frozen. I have the new bearing and plan on getting the bigger pump back online tomorrow. Rinsed the bulk tank again. I had ice to wash out of it this evening.

[waysidemaple]

Well I have the sap to boil but it freezes up as soon as I try to get it through the feed line to the evap. Owell try again tomorrow when the sun is out. Bottled 16, 250 ml glass maple leafs instead.

[andyp]

Sugarmaker,
Things are much better this year. Last year was a bummer I had hip problems. The pain was so bad I could hardly make it through the maple season. Had a knew hip put in september. It is working great. Made about 40 gals. syrup. That is a lot of boiling on a flat pan. I think Its time to start thinking about up grading. Yes we still have cows we're into grass fed beef now. Thinking about next year and what size evaporator to consider.

Andyp,
Ford city Pa.

[Gary R]

AndyP, How big is your pan? That is a lot of boiling. I'm in the market for a real evaporator also. Good to hear your hip is better.

I was wondering if anyone is interested in a lunch meeting like we did a couple of years ago?

[Dave Y]

If you can wait till the season is over I would be interested.

[andyp]

Gary R
Our pan is 30"x 60" there are no dividers in it. Just a straight flat pan. We have to do it in batches and that takes a lot of extra time. I would love to have another dinner with all the maple traders it would be great, but I don't know if we can get away. My mother inlaw is not very good and there has to be someone here with her all the time. Maybe we can arange something later on.

Andyp,

[PATheron]

Dave Y- How you making out this season? Having good runs? Theron

[Gary R]

After season lunch, sure. I know everyone is still busy. Even if there cleaning up. I still have gotten very little sap. Just too cold. What I have gotten is almost skim milk looking. I may not reach my goal of 30 gal. per tap. I did finish about 2 1/2 gal. of very dark syrup yesterday. It was from sap earlier this week. It smelt and tasted OK.

Dan W. stopped yesterday. I gave him the whole tour. It was nice trading ideas from similar sized operations. I'll think the building idea over hard.

[Dave Y]

Theron, this season s has been ok. Jack would say its been a good season but it has not meet my expectations. my vacuum was down for 12 days. thats like half of the season. Finally got it going again. then it freezes so hard you could skate on the sap. still hasn't warmed up enough to run. I am currently reaming all my taps that are not on vacuum. so we will see what happens.

[waysidemaple]

After much debate I decided to hang it up for the year. Made 46 gallons from 250 or so taps all on gravity. Been fighting a cold for two weeks and just can't seem to kick it. I'm really tired of driving the hour and a half home from school to boil during the week. Made my goal and tripled the amount of syrup I made last year. That's my goal for next year...triple it again. Boiling on a real evaporator was amazing...new sugar house couldn't have worked better. I don't imagin it will run much after this week anyway. Next weekend ill start cleaning up and then the upgrades begin. Sold 200 dollars worth of syrup so far so that's good. Good luck to all who are still going at it.
Scott

[PATheron]

Nice job Scott- Thats a lot of syrup especially living away like that. Dave, What was up with the vac? Theron

[Sugarmaker]

Man, Gary is still making syrup! Nice job!
Davy Y how many gallons so far. Was it a good test for the Force IV this year?
Theron are you still waiting for the weather to break again?
15 miles to the west of me folks are still setting taps!
Chris

[Dennis H.]

How is that possible that you are done for the year and 15 miles away they are just finally putting out taps??

Were they running behind or what?

[Dave Y]

Theron,
I had releaser problems. took a while to get the parts I needed. Lesson have spare parts, Vt is another world away from NWPA.

Sugarmaker, I am at 685 and holding waiting for the promised thaw. I believe we will have one week after it thaws. the force 5 has done a good job, i have use a bout 16 cord of wood.Love the steamaway.


I have redrilled over 1000 buckets this weekend. thanks to Dan W.

[PATheron]

Dave- Thats too bad about the releaser. They can be a pain for sure. Chris- Im waiting for the thaw. Looks like itll thaw out today and start running good again tomorrow. Im trying to clean my remote tanks today once it thaws out. Im hoping for two more weeks yet. Im going to go till I cant process it. Theron

[Gary R]

Yesterday I visited another up and coming syrup maker. He lives a couple miles south of Mercer. Last year he used a turkey fryer. This year he had 30 taps and a flat pan. Next year he plans on going all in. He should have a few hundred taps on gravity and buckets. A building for a sugar shack all ready. The only down side is that he works with my wife. I was hoping we had a lock on syrup sales at her work. Could be competition now:)

[Dan W]

Gary, Tell him that you suddenly have this urge to do a Texas Chainsaw type masacre on some maple trees, his being at the top of the list. He might get the message!! Just kidding of course!! Thanks for the tour, I have really been thinking about putting one 75 tap woods on tubing and I learned a lot from your set-up. I've been thinking of our talk about a sugar house. I think my 12x20 is plenty big enough as a sugarhouse with the 2x6, but 12x24 would have worked out better for me since I put my tractor and other stuff in there in the summer. Just think of your final layout as to the use of doors and accessing wood etc. Like I said I would have had a door leading to the wood shed if I did it over. Thanks again for the hospitality.

[PA mapler]

Still waiting patiently too for maple season to come back. I need to clean the pans, which I do by boiling them with a mix of water and white vinegar then scrubbing. But my frostless spigot by the 'shack and the chicken coop froze up, and the thought of hauling 40 gallons of water by bucket up to the shack from the house made me lazy... :lol:

It might break the freezing-mark tomorrow, and then I'll be in the cleaning-business... don't know, looking at the forecasts, when the sap will run again though.

I was down south near Pittsburgh today, and it was like another world... the grass was starting to green up, and it looked like the buds on the red maples were swelling. It was beautiful!

[Dan W]

PA mapler, Down here in Pgh, I haven't had sap for 2.5 weeks. The reds are popping out big time. With over a week of temps real high, I just gave up and started to put everything away. It was a pretty good year all in all-should have been a little better. The days that had great temps, the the wind wasn't good, but still got sap. Still, it was the best year for me. COME ON FEBRUARY!!!!

[Gary R]

I finally got to boil again tonight. I had to work late. I'm just finishing up 44 gal. I have another 60 in the bulk tank. The bucket sugar sap looks good and 2.5 with the ice out. I only have 80 gal. boiled in the pan. I think by tomorrow night I will be able to tell if this syrup is above C.

Everyone should be rested and bored. Time to find some fresh trees and get back to boiling:) The temps are going to be great the next few days.

Dan W, something like the chainsaw might work. The only problem is he is a big wig there. I need my wife to keep her job. Her paycheck helps support this money pit of a hobby.

Beth, I drove from Erie to Dubois today through the mountains. That was beautiful! Snow pack on the hills.

[Sugarmaker]

Dave, you have done real good @ 685 on 16 cord!
Theron, you've been pretty quiet but I know your setting on a pile of syrup.
Dennis,
The folks near me always tap late there woods must be cold?
I need to get out and try to see some folks boil if possible.
Spent last night visiting with Daryl. He made a lot of syrup on that Sportsman rig!
Tonight Cheryl and I spent some quality time in the sugar house making maple cream and canning some syrup for orders. The homemade cream machine had another set back: snapped off the ears on the small Love joy coupling!:( Haven't torn it apart to see what may have caused it to bind and break the coupling. Had to use the candy machine to finish the last of the cream.

Hope things are good in the sugarhood!

By the way the portion of our business that I refer to as CASDOT [Casbohm Dept Of Tapping] is waiting for some warmer weather to wash some tubing!

Regards,
Chris

[seedspreader]

Still tapped and waiting here. Run stopped since we've had the 15° weather, but it looks like it started to run again today... but I didn't get home until almost 9 tonight. Hopefully tomorrow!!!

[seedspreader]

Welcome to the trader feels like my first post to after being "away" for a week or so! We are in the neighbor hood! Hope your season is good. Not to late to tap. Looks like some maple season weather left.

Chris

Thanks for the welcome.

I've made over a gallon and anticipate another couple of gallons before I pull the taps.

[Dennis H.]

So Chris what you are saying is that you will have just one guy doing the cleaning, 4 guys watching out for his safety, 2 supervisors watching out for safety infractions and a truck full of guys keeping warm drinking coffee.:lol:

[PATheron]

Guys- Been pretty well froze up here for around a week. Ive been laying low going to bed early every night trying to rest back up. It thawed out yesterday enough for the boys and I to go find a pile of leaks so today should be go time again. Well hit the leaks again tonight but Im hoping to have a full tanker trailer again and Ill start the machines up and back to boiling tomarrow. Gonna try to break the 2000 gallon mark. Looking foreward to it being over. Theron

[PA mapler]

The sap here hasn't run for nine days now, and the coming days are looking worse and worse... mid 30's and snow flurries.

The sun is really warm though, and everywhere the sun hits the snow has melted. But any little patch of "shade" or the north hills are still covered. The men went snowmobiling Sunday and had a pretty good ride! Odd weather, but I've boiled well into April alot.

[Jim Brown]

Well we dodged a bullet day before yesterday,folks who live next door to our daughter caught the field on fire. They(fire dept) got it stopped about 20 yards from the woods and 350 taps and tubing!!


Jim

[Sugarmaker]

Dennis,
Yes its way to cold for CASDOT to be out there washing tubing:) Only hiring folks that may be "old, gray and in the way"! Must be able to lean on a maple for hours without moving. Some deer hunters may apply?
We got 6 inch of partly cloudy tonight in about 2 hours.
Jim Brown,
Melted plastic tubing would not be a good thing!
Wheres Gary R? Still boiling? Gary was part of the CASDOT set up crew this year.
Chris

[Dennis H.]

Might help out with those pesky tree rats though!

It would also help reseal the leaks if there are any!:D
Much cheaper than using barb fittings.

How did it get started any way?

I worry to death when I am making syrup and the wind picks up. Even with natural draft there are alot of sparks flying out the stack.
That would really suck if your trees and tubing get destroyed becaause of someone elses lack of common sense. Accidents do happen though.

Glad to hear that you faired well that.

[Brian Ryther]

. Looking foreward to it being over. Theron[/QUOTE]


I dont think you realy WANT IT any more? Two weeks to go. Pull it together man.

[PATheron]

Dont count me out yet Brian. We just thawed back out yesterday and weve got the vac back up and were boiling today. Well make syrup till it wont stay in the pans. Shaping up to be a lot of syrup. Ive never seen sap run like this year either. Must be all the conditions are just right. How much longet we got? Two weeks? Im out of vacation after today. This season is making me go the distance. Theron

[Gary R]

Do you all remember this one?

Bigsap alert!!!! Bigsap alert!!!!!- testing,, testing,, 123- weve got a time and date check of dec 4 0540 hours, less than 2 months to operation tap in. You genetically defective, moose huntin, snowmachinin, bucket dumpin, tree borin, best we can come up with for sugarmakers in this country need to start getting ready. No more talk of hunting season!! No more of this spending time with the families over the holiday season bull crap!! This is serious!! Ive already tested trees down here and this isnt even sugaring country and theyre at 2 % in the fall. This is the big one!! If it has maple bark it needs to have a hole in it!! If you can buy a pump buy it!! If you cant have someone out there sucking on the spile!! Whatever!!! Just try to act like your taking this stuff serious for once!!! Im not kidding about the sugar either, i wouldnt kid about maple,, its too serious!!!! Thee( if i dont hit 2500 gallons this year im pouring it all on the ground!!)roon
__________________
Theeeeeron

Last I heard he was only at 2000. Theron better get it together or it will be a costly season:lol:

Jim, if the pump was running you could get syrup right at the releaser. The tubing wouldn't melt with liquid in it, right?:D Glad the fire did not get you.

I am still boiling. I got home late again. 55 gal. boiled last night. left almost 100 in the tank. I'm not sure of the smell of this syrup. I may shut the vacuum off soon and just run my buckets through the weekend.

[PATheron]

You guys have a point. I was talking a lot of smack and I always get burnt out about this time. Youve got to admit I do have a good line of bullcrap though before season to get you guys all pumped up. Theron

[Sugarmaker]

Theron,
We very much look forward to your bull crap:)
That monster must boil like crazy!!!
Gary R,
What are you making? What is the gallon count? And what are you burning? Isn't Laura getting tired of hauling wood for you:)
Regards,
Chris

[Gary R]

That's it, I pulled the plug, on the vacuum anyway. I now know what commercial syrup is:o Dan W, you explained it well. Dirty wet socks. How can you guys make that crap!:) It wasn't bad when boiling. Today I smelled the stuff and said that's it. I am finishing it on the turkey fryer. Should be about 3 gal. Could be bear bait. I checked my buckets and got 31 gal. from 31 taps the last two days. Not bad since the high has been mid 30's. The sap looks great. I will know soon if it will make anything for the table. The sugar house and pan smelt terrible. I decided to do an acid wash on the pan. Rinsed hood, preheater and tanks. Everything is nice and shiny. I should be boiling for a couple hours every day until Monday. Then I have to clean up again and boil some birch. This is only my fourth year, first on vacuum. I am used to my trees just quitting. High vacuum and check valves I could be getting sap for some time to come. Some of the reds on vacuum do have big buds. My sugars on buckets, you can't even begin to see a bud.

I did see someone else in Erie still in the game. Old French rd., near Rte. 97. Someone has a couple of 5 gal. buckets on the ground with tubing coming from a big sugar. Didn't see a sugar shack though.

[PA mapler]

Marginal weather up here. It hasn't gotten warm enough for the sap to really get rolling, just barely mid-30's for a few hours during the days, so I have only 150 gallons of sap in the tank from three days of "runs". But on the plus-side, the sap is clear as a bell just like early-season sap, and my evaporator is scrubbed and shiny and ready to go. Hoping to boil today!

[ELM_DALE_MAPLE]

Beth we got a great run yesterday but sugar is bad @ 1.2% so I don't know what to think.

[PA mapler]

Elm Dale (that you, Kyle?), just checked my sap and it's at 2.2%, which is as good as it gets for my poor trees. It's still snowing out, but it's actually warm enough that the sap is starting to drizzle in a little. I'm going to boil later today, use up what I have in the tank, and hope for the Big Run tomorrow. That will pretty much finish up my firewood.

[Sugarmaker]

Recalling the "Casbohm bad syrup" story. [several years ago in a land far, far away] I was done, rig was cleaned up and the weather was just like this. Next sap flow was going to be just like the first run after winter. So I went and hung 100+ buckets on new trees. Ran great, and sap was very clear. I tasted the sap it tasted a little flat! That was the indicator. During boiling the smell of a sea side fish house was extream and the flavor of the syrup would curl your toes. But the grade was very light! We made 12 gallons of that c**p!
I got the hint that mother nature knows when we should be done. The taste was not buddy, sugarmaples had no buds, it was grade C with metabolic flavor.
Good luck to those still making syrup.
Chris

[jasonl6]

Marginal weather up here. It hasn't gotten warm enough for the sap to really get rolling, just barely mid-30's for a few hours during the days, so I have only 150 gallons of sap in the tank from three days of "runs". But on the plus-side, the sap is clear as a bell just like early-season sap, and my evaporator is scrubbed and shiny and ready to go. Hoping to boil today!

Same here in Shinglehouse. It's running and my vac is doing great 130gallons on 106 taps yesterday. but the buckets are just lazily dripping away. I have around 400 in the head tank I'm gonna try and boil tonight. I cleaned and scrubbed the pans down last night so should make some nice light syrup again.

Jason

[jasonl6]

Beth we got a great run yesterday but sugar is bad @ 1.2% so I don't know what to think.

I had 2.2 yesterday on my buckets and 1.8 on my vac.

Jason

[PA mapler]

Elm Dale, maybe check that sap percent again? Seems kinda low with what Jason and I are getting.

Sap is stating to run into the tank pretty fast, will fire up about 7pm after class and boil until I run out sap, out of firewood, or the line to to the 'shack freezes up. Or I fall asleep... :lol:

Need to get more half-gallon jugs... everyone wants half-gallons this year!

[Sugarmaker]

Beth,
I have sold a case of gallons that I thought no one would buy . Go figure! Glad your still making syrup!
Chris

[PA mapler]

I boiled until about 1am last night, and started seeing slush in the line from the tank... time to shut down! Didn't draw any syrup off yet since I started brand-new, but did bottle up ten gallons from two weeks ago. I found eight more half-gallons jugs in a tote I thought was empty, so I'm good to go. I'll fire up again today once the temps get up to thaw the lines.

Looks like a good week coming up, but I'm low on firewood. If I get ambitious I might rob the neighbors stash, but it's big house-wood that would need hauled over and split down... don't know if I have it in me... too many other spring projects coming up anyway.

[Gary R]

I just collected 28 gal. of my 31 taps. Not to bad for my little woods trees. Boiling it in now. I got to say these 1 or 2 hours a night boils are pretty nice:) Tomorrow will probably be my last day for maple. I finally got Laura to help today. We cut, split, stacked over a cord of evaporator wood while waiting for the sap to drip. I love that quality time together. I also built my tubing washer. It is all hooked up. Tomorrow I'll turn on the air and water. It should clean well with everything close to the house. I plan on putting my Birch taps in on Tuesday. I want to miss Mondays hot temperatures. Once I get this sweet down to syrup, I'll post some stats. Looks like a big year even with mostly 1% sap on vacuum.

Dave Y, you still boiling?

[jasonl6]

Just got done boiling. Sap ran great today. Collected around 240gal from 12/3 my trees. Boiled that plus what was in the tanks and ended up around 10gal today. Bottles up 3 gallons from my mid week boil. Still making Grade A stuff. Most of my woods still have a few inches of snow in them.

Jason

[ELM_DALE_MAPLE]

Same thing today. One bush is 1.4% and the other about 0.9% on the hydro. I just assume its right. We are just finishing boiling what we got and we are done. Its been a heck of a year!

[Dave Y]

Gary,
I am still boiling. lots of sap the last two days. Expect to be going thur next weekend. I am still making good syrup. as a matter of fact I hit light for a while yesterday. Getting ready to fire up the rig!

[PA mapler]

Ran great here yesterday too, still crystal clear at 2.2% and it seems strange to draw off "so much" syrup. I'm usually 1.8%. It's all still dark amber, but has an awesome taste.

Should reach 50 gallons today, my second-best year!

[Sugarmaker]

Wow! Great year for everyone! Thanks for all the updates!
Sales were good over the weekend.
I need to bring some wood in the house. I hate hearing the propane kick on!
Regards,
Chris

[PATheron]

How far are we going to go you guys? When is it going to quit? last year I shut down first of April and were still going pretty good. Maybe this will be a record for us. Theron

[Dave Y]

Theron, No record here, I have boiled to April 15 & April 21. Whats the matter, you young pups getting tired?

[Dennis H.]

I wish I was still going. The trees just said they had enough a few weeks ago!:(

[PATheron]

Were going to go Dave till I cant put it through the machines. Im just saying Im curious to see how far into April were going to make syrup. Im usually done April first but I usually tap super early too. Im not going to lie though we are getting tired. A lot of effort to make so much syrup. My garage looks like a syrup warehouse. Theron

[PA mapler]

Still going here... yesterday we used my husband's dump trailer and brought up a big pile of house-wood to the 'shack. Still good, clear sap with high sugar. I'm at about 55 gallons as of last night.

[Gary R]

I quit yesterday. I can't believe that I was able to go to April 3rd. We cleaned the tubing and buckets yesterday. I still have the sweet to finish. I looks to be the lightest I've made all year. I'm not sure about the taste though. All my tap holes were still running also. I put in 23 Birch taps. They were running good.

[Low budget maple]

Great week end here !!! Got my mom and dad in the sugar house on sat to see my little set up run. They made syrup years ago and the first thing out of their mouths was --- I remember that smell !!
Made 2 gal sat and 6 yesterday. Tonite will be my last boil for the season as my feul is depleated. Had lots of ups and downs during production but my toy worked well !! 36 gal so far. A personal record. I know. It not much to you big boys but grinning here.