Taps are in!!

[andrew martin]

We tapped this past Saturday here in Central Kentucky. We have about 90 taps on buckets. The weather here has been up and down all winter, but it looks as if we will get four good sap days this week. We made a homemade hearth out of concrete blocks and borrowed a 2x4 evaporator pan from some friends. It drafts well and boils syrup wonderfully. We made 2 gallons of syrup yesterday and will make about the same again tomorrow. We are hoping for some fairly consistent weather the next ten days, and at least a few days of sun, for it is very muddy here. Happy sapping.

Andrew Martin
Wilmore, KY

[Sugarmaker]

Great news! if Kentucky is making syrup Pennsylvania cant be far behind. Where are you located compared to Bowling Green? How is the sugar content? Are you tapping hard or soft maples?

[cheesegenie]

That is good, still dead winter here, usually tap in mid March. But
there was a few days last week, tempting.Do you have fire bricks
inside the blocks. Will blocks burn out?

[andrew martin]

We are located 12 miles south of Lexington, which is 80 miles south of Cincinnati, OH. We are tapping sugar maples (hard Maple) on a friend's farm. His farm has a great assortment of mature trees within easy walking distances around the field perimeters, so we can pretty much drive to all our buckets. I do not know the sugar content precisely, but we made two gallons of syrup from ~70 gallons of sap, so my guess is that we fairly decent sugar content.

As for the firebrick, no. I allowed myself a budget of $200.00 this year, and after buying taps, and buckets and a small sap storage tank, my budget was used up quite quickly. We rent our apartment, so maybe next year when we buy house, I might want firebrick in a more permanent location. The blocks have not cracked yet, so that is good news.

Andrew

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Andrew,

You can probably get 2 or 3 years out of the concrete blocks. Some may not last that long, but some will last a lot longer. I used them for years and they do a great job. If you can fill the sides with sand or dirt, it will help hold in a lot more heat and make your arch more efficient! :D

[cheesegenie]

Thanks Brandon, that is the answer I was looking for.I have an old
Grimm front, and I don't think I can get it built in time.My son suggested
I use cement blocks, but I was afraid they would not last.I have lots of
blocks,and fire bricks around here are very expensive.I never thought
of the sand, good idea. Would four runs of blocks be high enough?

[Teuchtar]

I also have used cement blocks, but mine didn't last the first season without cracking. Then my "arch" fell apart. Temperature probably depends on how you fire etc. Plus, the properties of those bricks are all over the place.
Another trick you might want to try, is to use that 1/2 " cement backer board available at Home Depot. For only $10 you get a big sheet. It will crack too, but it has fiberglass reinforcement strands, so doesn't fall apart. Use that as a liner "firebrick" to protect your cinderblock. That way your structure stays intact.
My cracked backer board stayed in place for nearly 10 years. Looked awful, but it works. (like Buckleys cough mixture)

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Cheesegenie,

4 courses would be plenty high. This would allow you to put a grating system about 8 or 10 inches off the ground and still give you 20 to 24 inches of space for firing.

As far the the cement board Teuchtar mentioned in the previous post, that sounds like a great idea and for $ 20, you could do both sides without any problem!

Great :idea: :D

[cheesegenie]

Thanks guys.Sometimes it helps if somebody else confims an idea.The
sugar shack is about a mile from the house,in a soft maple bush
mostly swamp and floods out early.Also ,I give permission to the
snowmobile club to travel across my property creating a lot of
good and bad visitors, ATVs trail bikes etc.I just can't see spending
a few thousand on an evaporator and having it wrecked.Although
my wife told me last fall to buy a new one.I think she was sick of
hearing me complain about what I have. Monday morning it was
-5F today it is +5F and raining.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Might have to build you a shack you can lock up tight and or upgrade yours to that before you buy an evaporator. :D

I built doors on the inside of my building that close and latch behind the windows so you can't see inside. :D

[Packerfan]

This is great stuff! Now, how does one build an "arch" inside a cinder block set-up?

-Dan

[maple flats]

The way I have seen it done would just be the blocks laid up dry, with an old expanded metal grate system ( The stuff that looks like it is all diamond shaped cutouts, actually made by punching a bunch of slits in the metal and then pulling to stretch and open up the slits) The one I saw was about 3/8" steel plate expanded, can't do it without a very expensive machine. The expanded metal rested on some concrete bricks inside the block walls and was supported in several places in the middle but don't remember how. A heavy sheet of steel was used to slide or tip over to load wood and the outlet end was reduced with a block wall up all but maybe 2-3" from the pan bottom. The pan should be your top for good heat transfer. Good luck, this is where it all starts. Hope this helps. Has been maybe 20 years since I saw it, might be off a little, My wife says I can't remember yesterday, or i think that's what she said.

[Packerfan]

Thanks flats!
-Dan

[super sappy]

The Mother Earth News website has some articles and designs for cinder block arches. -under water in Easton

[andrew martin]

Thanks for the tips on the concrete block arch construction. We built ours only two blocks high, and this is pefect, though you have to get down low to load the wood. It drafts very well and we get a good boil.

We are going to get four boils this week. Crazy weather down here, rain one day, snow the next and sixty degrees today. Next week promises to be great sugaring weather, hope to get four boils again next week if the forecast is accurate. Happy sapping.

Andrew