Northern Ohio

[christopherh]

Several 10 day forecasts are conflicting. Not sure if we'll get much above freezing soon. Any one tapping this weekend in Northern Ohio?

[tom jr.]

tapping starting monday if the weather holds true,:confused: going to wash tanks and evaporator on sunday and get the vac set back up.

[SAP EATER]

Tapping this weekend too no matter what,evap's clean and tanks too ready to make some syrup!!!

[jluckay]

thinking about tapping this weekend also. extended forcast looking good, but we all know how reliable that is.



80 taps
2x4 homemade flatpan evaporator

[WoodButcher]

welcome to the site luckay.

ya , im gonna hold off this weekend.
until we get at least 3-4 days in a row with above freezing and below 30 at night, ill hold off . it says sunday and monday but then back to cold.

then again , you know how these moron weather guys are . . .
look at those two "storm of the centuries" we had within the last month and it ended up being a 4" dusting . . . :lol:

[DRod2]

Woodbutcher is the smartest human being alive.........I wont be Tapping on this weekend! It will hurt to get started!

[WoodButcher]

good study to read . it was done by the university of vermont and they tapped trees at different times of the year . ... interesting results.
... but to each his own ... http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/tapping.pdf

[CrossBroMaple]

getting things ready this weekend. this deep snow in lake and geaga county is hinding my mobility in the woods. any thoughts on waiting till after this possible short warm up, like till next weekend?

[Monster Maples]

If you wait, you may miss a whole week of good sap flow. Pretty ideal temps where I am at, and I know a few people up your way that were out tapping yesterday. the following week looks to cool down again as of right now.

[WoodButcher]

im holding off until wednesday , as then well have at least 3-4 days in a row of solid above freezing temps and some rain to wash away the snow from the tree bases. if you cant tap by wednesday's sap rush , ide tap today ...

like monster said , your gonna miss a huge run of sugar from midweek on .

[Jeffery G.]

Started tapping today after getting the sap tanks washed and the sugar house cleaned. Hoping to have everything tapped by tuesday evening.

[johnallin]

Tapped one tree today as a test; as of 6:00 it had not run.

My plan is to tap this coming Saturday - although I think I'm going to miss a pretty good run midweek.

Hopefully everything will be thawed out by the weekend and we'll be off to the races.
Good luck to all..

[OneLegJohn]

Dad and my brother put 500 taps over last couple days. Nothing is really running out there.

[WoodButcher]

Dad and my brother put 500 taps over last couple days. Nothing is really running out there.


just as i thought! my buddy tapped today too ... he owes me 20$ from losing the bet !

get ready for the amazon river of sap runs on wed-friday though . ..:mrgreen:

[heus]

Tapped 264 buckets today. Most ran very well and I imagine that they are running as we speak. Hope to have full buckets tomorrow. Its 44 right now at 11:21 pm. Snow in the woods is a bear. 1 to 1 1/2 feet in most places.

[jluckay]

tapped all 80 on saturday, as of today 2/14 spotty, most trees still locked up. hope to have enough for a small boil by tonight.

[christopherh]

I think this Saturday is the day for me, I'm waiting out this warm up. Has anyone collected any sap yet?

[jluckay]

yah, a grand total of 4 gal! out of 80 buckets, lol were under way!

[woodburner]

We have tapped 400 and got about 240 gal of sap and began boiling yesterday. Sap in tank was 1.5 Brix all day. I am tapping only hard maples and this is the worst % I have ever seen. Checked the Hyrometer in water and it was correct. Hope it is a fluke. Anyone else checking?

[christopherh]

What a difference a few miles make. I'll post the % Saturday.

[heus]

Out of 264 buckets we collected only about 90-100 gallons of sap yesterday. Some buckets were half full some never ran a drop. Sugar content was also 1.5% from 257 sugars and 7 reds. Boiled enought to start sweetening my pans. Hope to be swamped with sap tomorrow through Friday.

[johnallin]

Test tap put in Sunday is still dry over here....maybe tommorow.
Saturday is looking like a good day to be in the woods, and Sunday thru Thursday look like good sap run days. Time will tell.

[Monster Maples]

We have tapped 400 and got about 240 gal of sap and began boiling yesterday. Sap in tank was 1.5 Brix all day. I am tapping only hard maples and this is the worst % I have ever seen. Checked the Hyrometer in water and it was correct. Hope it is a fluke. Anyone else checking?

Yeah, my sugar content started decent around 2%. Today was 1.5%. I have boiled the last two nights, I just hope the % goes up. Vac lines were running real good today. The rest started to run around 1 pm. Calling for good temps up till Sunday at least here. Some rain coming too.

[buckeye gold]

Here in south central Ohio sap ran some Saturday and I got ~30gallon and ran better Sunday into the night, but quit Monday. From 60 taps I had ~75 gallons of sap Monday, today ~20, but trees were running good today. My sugar content has averaged 2.3%, up from last year for me.

[Doc]

Tapped Sunday due to no time during this week to do so. Fought the wind for a couple days with a bunch of empty (light) buckets. Finally yesterday most trees ran enough to weight down my buckets but temps here only got up to 34 and possibly a bit colder next to the lake. Looks like today may be a bit warmer after a night down to high twenties. Fingers crossed!!!

[woodburner]

Hay the sugar went up. From1.5 to 2.25 why I don't know but I will take it. Boiled 6 hours today. Finished off 8 gal. Not as light as first run last year, due to the low sugar on the first boil. Good luck, it looks like a busy couple days.

[Doc]

Finally!!! Getting enough sap to get my attention. Running still so will get up early and empty buckets. Most taps are putting out and only a few aren't. Have mostly Silvers but a significant number of Sugars. No reds. Will check the % sugar tomorrow.
Good deal Woodburner!!!

[christopherh]

Great Woodburner! I think you're the only one in my area thats boiling. I have to wait till Sat. due to work.

[Monster Maples]

Hay the sugar went up. From1.5 to 2.25 why I don't know but I will take it. Boiled 6 hours today. Finished off 8 gal. Not as light as first run last year, due to the low sugar on the first boil. Good luck, it looks like a busy couple days.

That is what happened to me as well. Sugar went up yesterday. Thankfully. Mine wasn't light either for what I believe is the same reasoning. Been boiling 3 nights in a row now, and have to fire up again tonight. It is running now, vac pump ran all night last night and still pulling sap in. Just went out and filled up with gas, checked the 200 in the leased woods, everything there I will have to get later this afternoon. Probably only 150 gallons there.

[tom jr.]

things are breaking loose in thompson. got the vac leaks fixed and what huge difference in the flow. got just over 400 gal this am with 12'' of vac fixed the leaks and now running at 22''

[woodburner]

Hi Tom, I am running at 16 on the vacuum with 17 the best I can get on my old milking pump. Boiled all day and finished off 10 gal. run slowed around 5:00 pm. I have one tank to finish tomorrow plus what runs tonight.

[WoodButcher]

tapped 3:30pm wednesday .

45 taps

thursday 3:30pm(24hr run) i collected 65 gallons. not too shabby for a first run.

heres a video of one tappin away.... feel free to use the sound to fall peacefully asleep :)

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z104/italianjeremy/Sugarin/2011%20sugar%20season/th_VID_20110216_143851.jpg (http://s192.photobucket.com/albums/z104/italianjeremy/Sugarin/2011%20sugar%20season/?action=view&current=VID_20110216_143851.mp4)

[tom jr.]

woodburner, I have an old bou matic fh4 that we milked cows with years ago.the trick with those things is to FLOOD them with oil if I got the system tighter it would run 25" all day.

[heus]

Sugar content for us has risen to 2%

[Monster Maples]

Got a good run yesterday and the releaser was dumping good this morning. Looks like we are boiling again tonight. That is 5 nights in a row for us. Sugar is up now and went from a med amber to a light amber last night. The few hundred we have out not on vac were dripping ok at 10 am.

[woodburner]

We boiled all day, sap ran good until 5 . Made 9 gal with sap at 2% With no freezing for over 2days the trees are still thawing and the run extended longer than usual. Next week looks good, up and down all week and no dreaded real warm weather.

[heus]

We were able to boil off and bottle 8 gallons of nice light amber today. Total of 280 buckets now. Sugar content dropped back down to 1.9% however. The few reds that I tapped are under 1% sugar content.

[jluckay]

nothing but crap, tapped last sat, only got around 20 gal all week. bought a new hydro this year killed the boil at 65, had syrup tested. hydro right on, re-boiled tryin to hit 67. screwed up in hit 68.9. lol. hoping for some more sap next week.

[christopherh]

I'm in the game, tapped 300 today. Brrrrr!! that wind was cold! Plenty of sapcicles out there!

[Monster Maples]

Lines have been froze up for 2 days now. Tomorrow is not going to be any better either. Wednesday they are saying 38. We will see. They only callesd for 1 to 2 inches of snow too!! We have a foot on the ground now, and still coming down.

[woodburner]

If you have sap and syrup in your pans you may want to put a light or heater in the firebox tonight. I had ice in the flue pan last night and it is going to be colder tonight. Just a thought , these pans don't come cheap.

[Doc]

Woodburner...thanks for the heads up. I never thought of that and that could be bad. About a foot of snow here and suppose to get down to 6 degrees.

[Monster Maples]

I don't know what to think about the weather now. 5 to 9 inches scheduled for Friday evening. Hoping for a run tomorrow.

[woodburner]

Beginning to look alot like last year. Low sugar to start and cold till March 1. Hope it don't end the same.

[WoodButcher]

ya maybe get some dribbles tomorrow . thats about it . clean out the pan i guess.

made a gallon and a half last night , medium amber . . . weird first batch , but very very tasty . had the taste of a light fancy with the look of a medium .

[heus]

We actually had some buckets running this afternonn and collected about 50 gallons. Hope to have a great run tomorrow.

[Monster Maples]

supposed to be 40 here tomorrow!! 34 at 9 am, so they say. I have only heard of one producer here bottling light amber. Mine is not a light, and not a medium. It is a shade in between. Very good tasting stuff I might add. We did make a light amber one night we boiled. But it went right back to a medium. After I got the lines thawed today, walking around in the snow I got thirsty. Cracked the valve at the bottom of my sap ladder and was amazed at how sweet it tasted. The sweetest of the year by far. Everything was froze pretty good today. Finally at 2:30 the sun came out and things thawed in a hurry.

[WoodButcher]

didnt check today , but who knows . .

[christopherh]

Reds were running better than the Sugars yesterday. I'm tapping 60% Sugars and 40% Reds. Some of the Reds I've tested were 1.7 to 2.0. I'll collect tonight.

[jluckay]

started dripping yesterday around 5:00pm . hope to have enough to collect today!

80 taps on reds.

[heus]

What a letdown. Supposed to get up to 41 today and never got past 37 at our place. Minimal sap dripping. Snowstorm tonight and tomorrow.

[johnallin]

Heus, No kidding what a let down.

We tapped Saturday and it was running pretty good until it got cold. Then pretty much zero all week and thought today was the day; well just came in and nothing but ice in some with most empty. Did notice that some are wet above the tap - something I've not seen before. Hope I didn't slpit trees..but why would it be wet above the hole. Can't figure that out at all.

Boy this is beginning to look like last year. And now their calling for more snow and cold. Yikes!

[woodburner]

I have seen a lot of weird things happen over the years but today takes the cake. I had a lateral running up stream and could not find a leak. Followed the line and flow to the end. No leaks flow going the wrong way. I stood and watch and thought and noticed the last tree is a very poor shape single tap maple. I was going to cut it but never got to it. When I tapped it I hit dead wood so I moved around to the other side and tapped what looked like a good hole. There was sap coming from the dry hole, then I noticed sap coming from an old hole. the mainline was frozen shut down stream and the trees on the south slope were running and going only where the sap could go. I was filling the dead maple. When I pulled the tap it let go about a gallon of sap. Never a dull moment.

[heus]

Supposed to be 47 on Monday but cold again after that.

[christopherh]

I don't think we broke 31 yesterday. Hopefully the next few days will shape up. Looks like some sun in the forecast for mid week. I think the way this wind is blowing right now my buckets are all horizontal!

[Monster Maples]

Had a little run yesterday afternoon on vac. With what came in and what was left in the tank we fired up for about 2 hours and made a little under 3 gallons. I will take it, even though not a lot. After this last bout with the weather the only thing to do today and tomorrow will be plow out to the sugar shack. Tomorrow they say a high of 32. Sounds like a good day to do some cleaning at the shack. Would like to get both pans cleaned up, filter the sweet in the pans and put back in and get ready for next week. Sunday to Friday looks to be a real good stretch of ideal weather. Hope it holds true. Planning on starting the vac at 10am Sunday, looks like it will run until 10 pm Monday night. Hoping both tanks are full by Monday at noon.

[christopherh]

They're calling for 43 degrees on Sunday. Do we believe them? :rolleyes:

[WoodButcher]

38/48/45 for sun-tues ... ill boil tues night !

[Monster Maples]

The whole week looks good in my neck of the woods. Should we believe them? That may be a stretch. But if they have one whole week a year to be right, I hope it is this week coming up. For me they have Sun 43/43, Mon 55/27, Tue 43/24, Wed 35/23, Thurs 44/30, Fri 45. So with that in mind I am hopeful for the best. Should be real good sap flow with those temps.

[dale march]

Going to tap. Tomorrow its time. 500 to600 buckets. Roadside:

[christopherh]

Dale, do you tap at a specific date/week every year?

[Bradley]

I live in North East Ohio and I'm new to the maple syruping thing. It's been just below freezing the last couple of days, but today (2/27) it's supposed to be well above freezing. Is it alright to tap as long as it's above freezing? If I tap, and don't get any flow right away is it alright if it just sits tapped for a few days waiting for it to start?

[Jeffery G.]

Bradley, Get tapping, times a wasting. Sap will be running today and looks like a good week coming up. We have been tapped for two weeks now.

[Monster Maples]

Well, 35 here now. Time to head to the woods and get things fired up. Hoping for a good run today, and the week for that matter. Here's hoping for lotsa sap and high sugar all over the great state of Ohio!!!! It's gonna be a busy week ahead, I can't wait

[ganesa_9]

mostly because I'm new to this and read lots of conflicting information on when to tap, but it looks like things are starting to flow now. Since this is my first year I'm taking it slow and only have 8 trees tapped. If this works out well I'll do 20 next year. Was going nuts waiting for the sap to run. Was worried the holes might heal before things got going.

[christopherh]

Getting a good run now! Tapped a few more today so the kids could hang some buckets.

[woodburner]

Fired up at 3: 30 and boiled til 7. Sap at season high of 2.5 looks like a nice run. Vacuum dumping 5gal every 7min. taps are still not wide open. Snow pack keeping us cooler than the forcast. it is now only 37 degrees. Hope everyone is getting some syrup made. Should be and interesting night temp wise.

[Sugarmaker]

Save some sap for us guys across the state line in PA. Maybe I will be able to see your steam from our sugar house. That's a little bit of a stretch but we can see the power plant steam at Perry when its running!
Have a great season!
Chris

[OneLegJohn]

Fired up at 3: 30 and boiled til 7. Sap at season high of 2.5 looks like a nice run. Vacuum dumping 5gal every 7min. taps are still not wide open. Snow pack keeping us cooler than the forcast. it is now only 37 degrees. Hope everyone is getting some syrup made. Should be and interesting night temp wise.

How are you getting sap? I think my lines must be frozen. We only saw about 150 gallons today. However, we have 6-8 inches of snow on the ground, yet. Maybe the rain will help us....

[CrossBroMaple]

finally got some buckets hung yesterday. all running strong! hope to make some syrup tonight!

[woodburner]

Just finished boiling, finished off and canned 14gal. Sap at 2.25 and ran overnight and all day. Vacuum at a strong 17 which is great for my pump, must have got most of the leaks. Boiled about 500gal with about 400 left to start tomorrow. Surprised to see the sap run as much today with temps just above freezing all afternoon. Watch the ice tomorrow it should be really slick.

[Monster Maples]

Best run so far!!! Sunday night during the thunderstorms the sap was pouring in so fast we could hardly keep up. Started back at it this morning and by afternoon all tanks were full. Headed back in the morning after some much needed sleep. All lines were froze at around 4. Boiled off what we had for the day. Be ready to go again in the morning.

[tom jr.]

well, the tubing bush still has not broke loose yet:(,yesterdays run totaled 650 gal of 1.5% on 544 vac taps. the buckets on the neighbors ran real good ;)400 gal of 2% on 200 buckets. sounds like a good run coming for this weekend and decent weather for next week also. also ordered a new vac gauge yesterday i think mine is fibbing a little bit!

[christopherh]

Bucket lids did there job, only dumped a few buckets after 2 inches of rain. 2% in the tank. Great run yesterday!

[christopherh]

Boiled down nearly 300 gallons last night in 7 hours. Had one boil over right off the bat. ? Not really sure why that happened. My stack temp was 1500 to 1700 with the forced air. Everything went well the rest of the night.

[tom jr.]

got my new vac gauge yesterday so today I put it on the releaser and 24'' vac!
I guess the other gauge is still good, must have done a good job with the leak patrol!

[WoodButcher]

yuck , this weather is crappy .... sitting in a mud puddle watching the boil. i raise my beer to those boiling in lake geauga or ashtabula counties and having to deal with this rain and muck ;)

thank goodness for wireless internet though ! :lol:

[tom jr.]

nice run today, got 1200 gal. from the tubing and sugar came up to 2%:) sap is still running down their.
neighbor should be coming up with a load of sap any time now from the bucket bush.

[christopherh]

Busy wet muddy weekend! I was glad to see a blanket of snow Sunday morning. Boiled down 300 gallons at 2.1% Saturday. Bottled 6 Gallons yesterday.

[WoodButcher]

ive made 5 gallons so far , and all of it right from the start is medium and dark amber . its weird though ... it kinda has the candy sweet taste of light extra fancy , just dark in color .

the only thing im doing different this year is leaving the sweet in the pan overnight after boiling (since i usually boil 50 gallons at a time on weekdays) and then fire it up the next day and add fresh sap to start making a gradient and draw some syrup off by the end of the 2nd night .

last year i made some nice real light amber from the same trees , but i drew off every night i boiled and finished on the turkey fryer . .. im avoiding that now and it works nice since i save on propane.

anyways , ive heard of several people around here getting a medium amber off the bat... anyone else?
im thinking its the rain .
im gonna post this to the main non-regional forum too and see what people are getting from all over.

[Monster Maples]

Same here!! And from what I have heard it is the same all around here. Mine has been coming off the evaporator as not quite a medium and not quite a light. A shade in between. It is very good tasting stuff though if you like the lighter flavored. I am more of a darker syrup lover so to speak. Tonight we were drawing off a medium. We have a full tank and going to gather in the morning, should be quite a bit of sap tomorrow to boil off. I wasn't really expecting that great of a run today. I will take it though.

[WoodButcher]

made 3.5 gallons of light amber over the weekend . strange how the light was after the medium amber .
and i boil within 2 days of having collected sap and never go below 1" in pan .


heres a link of someone offering free sap if anyone wants it . hes in auburn .
http://cleveland.craigslist.org/zip/2262315450.html




.

[WoodButcher]

correction :

funny story . i put all my syrup in pint and quart mason jars i got from wallyworld this year. the ball jars have silver lids instead of gold... kinda neat.

anyways , a family member got me some fancy maple leaf shaped 100 mls and maple leaf half pints so i can put them in the light to see the different 'vintages' along the season . ...

look at the pic below on the difference between the fancy glass and the mason jars! same batch from last night .

now i know the mason jar being round and more light needs to pass through it since its thicker, but sheesh.. these ball jars had me all worried i was producing dark amber in the middle of the season . which would be fine as i think its tastier.... but i was thinking i was keeping the sweet in too long or whatnot .
this gets me thinking.. when the pros have to grade their syrup... i wonder what glass they use (dimensions etc) .

just wanted to share with you guys in case someone else has a brainfart and forgets on container thickness when trying to grade :rolleyes:

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z104/italianjeremy/Sugarin/2011%20sugar%20season/IMG_20110317_092202Large-1.jpg

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z104/italianjeremy/Sugarin/2011%20sugar%20season/IMG_20110317_092302Large.jpg

[christopherh]

Most of my reds were dry today. Gathered 110 gallons from the sugars. Sap ranged from 1.2% to 2%. We'll see what the rest of the week brings. I noticed the the trees near the creek bottom and swampy areas ran the best. The high ground sugars didn't run well either.

[tom jr.]

Just wondering how meny are still going. I ran out of wood on the 19th and am not cutting anymore! road side trees look like they are budded in alot of places. made 150 gallons off of 750 taps and 11 cord of wood. 1.5% sugar sucks to boil all season long. anyway looking to add another 500 taps for next year and 30 cord of wood:lol:!!!

[WoodButcher]

im still truckin. made 12.5 gallons off of 50 taps so far. came out great . tonight might be my last boil though . ill collect today and determine the taste of the sap and dryness of the taps.

[christopherh]

Tom, I'm still in, I believe my Reds are done though. It'll be interesting to see what I'll get from the cold spell coming up. I'm burning hemlock slabwood edging (10$ a bundle) mixed with hickory/oak and ash. I averaged 2 ish in the tank except the last run at 1.5. If it drops below that , I'll use it as pan cleaner. I'm at 39 Gallons on 308 Taps.

[jluckay]

last night was the end of our season ! we ended up around 15 gal off 80 taps.

[johnallin]

Still plugging away over here. Last night I boiled off 60 gallons, most of which was collected Sunday and some yesterday, before it had a chance to spoil. Hoping we get something out of the weather Saturday-Sunday.

Now for the numbers: (not too good per tap)
So far we're at 18.3 gal from 135 taps with another 2 or so still in the pan- just need the sap now to push it through - not nearly as good as some of you guys. Hope to finish up with 22-25 gallons at the end.

My math tells me that I'm almost identical to christopherh at 18/135 compared to his 39/308; but way behind the 150/750 that tom jr. is seeing. His numbers would put me at 27 gallons, and woodbutcher is off the charts at 12.5/50. That would be 33.75 gallons. Are you guys running vacuum, that's a huge difference.

[heus]

109 gallons so far from 331 buckets. Its been a great year. Had to tap into my home heating wood as we ran out of sugar wood at around 50 gallons (that was my goal). Hope to get some more sap this week. Finally starting to make dark amber.

[WoodButcher]

today is it for me . collected about 20 good gallons on the 50 taps . half of them dried out and in need of a break until next year . i pulled all of them . several had a buddy taste .

next year ill have all my wood ready to go . i get free wood from all over, but look over the soft woods since i only use the wood i get to heat the home.. not anymore! need to not skip over all those poplar piles like i did last year .