Southern Wisconsin

[Packerfan]

Well.............................March madness has begun. Small conference tournaments underway. That means south facing trees get tapped today. Nice sunny day, with a nip in the air. Cut some wood, run some tube,tweek my block evap. Maybe even set a few beaver traps. I like March.

GO BADGERS! On to the Final Four!

[maplematt]

Yeah...temps look good this coming week by me. We've got our taps in and ready for some sap!

[Packerfan]

Should run well Tue.................

[Monroecheeseman]

I tapped twenty large trees on the northside of our 10 acre woods. Only one tree was dripping. Nothing on Monday, but got 10 gallons Tuesday. Weather looks like it will be hit and miss the next couple days, but I should have enough for at least small boil this weekend. Small piles of snow still around, but today i noticed a lot of water puddles by the trees.

[Packerfan]

I was looking for MORE SUN yesterday! Oh well, got snow last night. Too much in back valley STILL.

[Dane Tapper]

I have 28 taps but only about 1/2 doz trees producing so far. Got 5 gal sap yesterday during the snowfall. Have a friend in Lodi who has collected 32 gal this week. His trees always seem to be earlier than mine. He has more southern exposure while I have more northern exposure. He collected 20 gal last week. I think he only has 30 taps.

[Packerfan]

tapping my north facing trees this weekend. Could hit 50 next week.

[maplematt]

I hope everyone finds time to tap their trees tomorrow if they haven't already. We got 15 gallons from 37 taps yesterday, and another 23 gallons today. The weather is gonna be perfect this week!

They're calling for 40 and sunny tomorrow by us!

[Packerfan]

Good news Matt. Are your trees south facing? Or in the sun? I am heading out right now to tap my west and north facing trees. They start a bit later. Should go well into the 40's today. The Beagle and I are going to look for sheds.
Big Runs next week.

[ComputerSteve]

MapleMatt is my son. This year we have a lot of new trees and placed most of our taps on the south side of the trees. Most are in wooded areas and not in the open. Like Matt said we got 15 gallons two days ago and 20+ gallons yesterday. In the past we have boiled on the kitchen stove. This year Matt has access to a propane powered tilt brazier that has about 60,000 BTU capability. That really makes quick work of boiling down the sap. We're boiling to near syrup, then freezing the batches to finish off all at once. So far so good.

[Packerfan]

Went back into my valley yesterday. Put in 40 taps. Every tree was running! I still have alot of snow back there.

[ComputerSteve]

WOW! This year we went to 37 taps from 10 last year. We got another 43 gallons of sap that we boiled down today. This is WAAYYY more sap that we had last year. It's a good thing my son has access to a high output tilt brazier because we could never boil it all down using the kitchen stove. Not sure if we'll have access next year, so we may be building/buying an evaporator over the summer. At this rate I may have to join Maple-Aholics Anonymus to deal with the addiction :lol:

[maplematt]

So, temps in the upper 50's to the lower 60's forecasted this week by us...

What do you guys think this will do to the season? How long do warm temps have to stick around to make the trees bud? Will this possibly cut the season short? Its supposed to go back down to the 40's after a few warm days.

[Packerfan]

So far,so good. Too many warm nights(above freezing) will cut it short. Need it to freeze at night. Get it while you can. Left Spring Green today at 6:00 pm and it was still runnin.
I have had warm nights, with rain, where it runs straight thru. BIG day WED! Cooked last 2 days.

[Monroecheeseman]

I boiled down about 200 gallons of sap to about 5 gallons of syrup Saturday. The sap sugar content was mostly 2.5, but the last stuff i gathered on Saturday was around 2. Took 12 hours to get it cooked down, a little longer than i hoped. With fresh sap and a hot fire I could evaporate a little less than 15 gallons an hour. March 18-19th was the best day for sap this year I got over 2 gallons per tree (45 gallons). Saturday they were down to a little over gallon (25 gallons) per tree.

[MapleMounder]

Monroecheeseman,

We are south of you a little ways southeast of Freeport, sounds like your trees are a day or so behind ours. We finished 5 gallons today and bottled, then if these storms ever stop we are going to go dump bags and hope for one more small run mid week, then we are going to clean up and call it a year.

[Packerfan]

Looks like perfect weather starting Sun./Mon..............Hope it runs a bit before Sat. night, so I can boil a bit. Lookin' for an extended run next week.

[Monroecheeseman]

11338 For having so much snow, it was the best day yet. Still haven't hit a gallon per tap per day, but did get half gallon a tap!

[WI Sugarpop]

Good deal, but I'm glad we didn't get any by us.

[Monroecheeseman]

It continues to run. I got 95 gallons today on 51 taps. I've got a couple real large trees with two taps in them, both buckets were running over. Looks like it might be good for a couple days.

11363

[Troy D]

It really ran for me the last two days. Hardly a drip, basically running out the taps. Dad is in panic mode as we evaporate 4-5 gallons an hour and have "around" 100 gallons the last couple days.

[jmitch]

We've collected more in the last three days than we have in three weeks
35 gallons monday. 55 gallons Tuesday and 75 gallons yesterday on 50 taps. Going to fire up the evaporator tomorrow morning for a marathon boil.

[jmayerl]

Welcome to Wisconsin sugaring boys. We are not llike out east where they get a season for 6 to 8 weeks. Since the first day I started making syrup, 80% of our crop is always been made in a four day period. These are the days that tje RO really pays off

[littleTapper]

Ah, there's a southern WI thread. Hi everyone!

Definitely a good day yesterday. Had one tree overflow a 4 gallon bucket. Going to be a busy weekend of boiling.

[jmitch]

Collected about 37 gallons last night on 50 taps. Have 200 gallons to evaporate going to settle in for a long boil over the next three days

[Panheadguy]

Reporting from Ozaukee co. Last Wed. got 250 gal sap from 70 taps. Got 500 gal to boil tomorrow. Not much this week since Wed.. Silvers are budding so pulled those taps. Sap sugar has been in the mid 2% to 3% but starting to drop so we are about done. Got 10 gal of syrup week before last.

[Monroecheeseman]

Another big run today 115 gallons from 50 taps. With the forecast for the 50's again Tuesday, doesn't it have to wind down soon?

[egatzow]

This is our first year. We tapped 15 trees. We've gotten 40 gallons in the last 24 hours. Our bigger producing trees seem to have been running since 4 PM on Sunday! We weren't expecting this which warmer temperatures. We don't have anymore storage space!