Getting Started

[lharris1]

We learn from our mistakes, don’t we? Last year we tapped at the end of the first week in January and had our first canning on February 22nd. It may be a mistake but we started tapping Monday the 23rd of January. The weather was just too tempting. We put in 146 taps including 55 in two new locations. Sap was running good and we probably have about 170 gallons already. Ran out of “T’s” so no more new one’s until new supplies are received, but we have some more to put in that we tapped last year plus a few bucket taps. It looks like we should go over 200 taps total.

[lharris1]

We collected about 270 gallons and boiled off probably 240 gal. Hope to get another run on Friday.

[Tomahawk]

Brandon?

You here...?

Hello...?

Making any syrup yet?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Tomahawk,

Wish I were, but it is too early yet and the weather has been terrible for the past 5 weeks. Hope to wait 2 or 3 more weeks before tapping, but will wait and see if the weather allows any tapping. The longer I can hold out the better as it shortens the season and you get higher amount of sap in a shorter period of time.

[lharris1]

I just returned home from Grassy Meadows. We boiled off about 410 gallons Monday and canned Tuesday morning. We may get another run tomorrow, February 1st. It sure is nice operating with the new hood and pre-heater. Our feed sap normaly run between 150 and 170 Deg F. and it looks like our evaporation rate is up by around 5 gpm. We set up to collect the condensate and have a demand pump that feeds faucets on a sink. Having that hot water for washing filters and general cleaning sure is nice, since we do not have a water supply at the evaporator. We have been having to go to the house close by to for any cleanup.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[lharris1]

Kevin: My two partners live near our sugar operation but I live about 100 mi away. Our tapping is spread out some, with tubing feeding six 30 gal drums and one 100 gal tank. The sap sugar has checked out from 1.4 to 2.5 on the tanks using a refractometer. During the boil Monday I checked about five time during the day and the reading varied from 1.9 to 2.2. I have not checked the refractometer against the hydrometer but will the next time I get a chance.

So far so good. I was afraid we tapped too early and the weather man is talking about a change in the jet stream that could bring cold weather in February. Who know what will happen. Not the meteorologists :!:

[lharris1]

Wednesday, Wednesday night and Today we are getting a good run and will probably boil Friday. :D

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Was able to stop by and visit with Richard and Larry Harris and Claude Cadle at their sugarhouse today. They have a really nice setup and have put a lot of thought into it. Larry is an engineer with and has the brain of a scientist, so he is always coming up with new and great ideas. It is always fun to see other operations and look at their setups and bat ideas around. :D

It is amazing how many more people are making syrup around here now. There are probably at least 10 operations within an hour of my sugarhouse and all are 300 taps or less and 1 is about 1500 compared to 1 or 2 ten years ago.

[lharris1]

We enjoyed Brandon's visit and advice. I get excited about trying out ideas - but they are not always good. I should have been using advice from others on pre-heater design. The one I made is working well for us but we are close to having a vapor lock and we will need to modify it.

We boiled on Friday and Saturday and canned on Saturday. We boiled off about 450 gallons according to our water meter. We probably need to check to make sure we are using the water meter correctly because by syrup produced, assuming a 50/1 ratio, we boiled off about 375.

Looks like we may be down for cold weather for a week or two which is OK with us and good news for most producers that are waiting for normal tap time.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Sugarmaker]

Maple Hill,
Goat Milking????????? :lol:

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[Parker]

If you preheater is vaporlocking run a pipe from the high point in the coil back to the top of your head tank,, mine will blow and burp when it really gets going,,,

[lharris1]

Concerning vapor lock: I basically have two much slope in my preheater. The discharge may be about 15" higher than the inlet. Brandon suggested running the vent above the feed tank which we may do, but I eventually want to take re-sweat a couple of fitting and lower the discharg probably 8-10". We have not actually had vapor lock but I'm concerned we might with a low level in the feed tank.

By the way we added a nice little 415 gallon milk tank to the opreation Saturday. Thanks to Brandon for letting me know it was available at Brenneman's Mapel Syrup. Also picked up supplies so we can do a little more tapping.

[lharris1]

Sap is running slow on Wednesday but added 24 new taps and they are running good. Shoud have a good volume of sap by the cool down Friday night. Hope to boil on Friday and Saturday. :)

[lharris1]

We collected about 550 gal by Friday Morning and boiled it off Friday and Saturday. Canned just over 10 gal. Like Brandon says, the forcast is not good for sap runs this week. Temperature in Grassy Meadows was around -5 this morning. Hoping for the warm up to get it flowing again.

[lharris1]

My buddies collected nearly 200 gal yesterday and hope for at least as much today. Wind is blowing, which may not be good. Should get some Saturday as well. I plan to be at the sugarhouse Saturday morning early and boil hard all day.

[lharris1]

We collected just over 600 gallons and got it boiled off. We emptied out our evaporator because of some dark syrup we had made. We also had re-sanitized much of our tanks and lines. I helped. We made some much lighter syrup, probably still a medium but it sure looks and tastes good. Looking forward to the next run.

[lharris1]

Collected and boiled off something over 300 gallons and canned about 6 Gallon. It looks like there will not be much sap running unless the weather man is wrong. Several days coming up look marginal.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[lharris1]

Kevin, Our sugar content on the feed has been running 1.9 to 2.2. One time we had a problem with bacteria and saw it go to about 1.6 over night. We boiled and boiled before getting pulloff and syrup was Grade B. We cleaned up and re-sanitized everything and are getting much lighter syrup - some of the best we have made since start up last year.

We have been tapped just over 5 weeks and we still seem to be getting good runs. I have no idea when it will end. No sign of budding yet. We have had a lot of cold weather which, I hope will keep us going. Per weather forecast it looks a little cold for getting runs. Hope for about 5 degrees warmer than forecast over the next week.

[Maple Hill Sugarhouse]

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[lharris1]

Our season last year went from the middle of February through March 21. We could have a couple of more weeks since there is a forecast of cold for most of the next week. It will be interesting to see if we continue to get runs beyond 6 weeks. I whould say we are at least 3/4 way through the season.

[lharris1]

We dumped some sap that was cloudy and kept about 75 that had run over the last few days. Shoud be getting runs each day now through Wednesday so we should have a lot to boil off. The forecast is for a few days of warm after that. Hope we don't get budding.

[VA maple guy]

Wow!! :o I wish i had that cloudy sap you dumped. That's the stuff grade B comes from, My favorite. Thanks for the numbers on the 2x6. :D
Gerry

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Larry,

How much have you made so far??

[lharris1]

We have canned about 41 gallons. The first 25 were Medium Amber. Then we got into the cloudy sap and made about 11 Grade B. The last five was pretty light but probably still Medium. We are getting some run today by not sure how much because I have't been able to reach Richard.

[lharris1]

We boiled off about 350 gal on Tuesday and canned 4.4 gal with some held back for next canning. Sap should be running very good today. This could be it for the season with warm temperatures forecasted through next Wednesday, then only marginally getting down to freezing.

[lharris1]

We finished boiling off 700+ gallons over two days Thursday & Friday. Not too productive as the sap was running around 1.6 most of the time. We boiled out what was left in the evaporator and got a total of about 11.5 gallons of syrup. The last was dark but tasted very good. We tried to boil as quickly as possible because it was trunning cloudy.

The forecast is very warm for the next three days and then still not very cold. It is probably the end of the season.

[katmike]

Looks like MUCH colder weather coming about 5 days away (Accuweather says 22 for Beckley on the 17th). Think you can hang on for another run?

We'll have a similar situation here... very warm and then COLD again. I might hold out and see what develops.

[lharris1]

It is 72F in our area today but supposed to be in the low 20's Tuesday night and there are several good looking temperature cycles coming up. We have been tapped in most of our bush since Jan 22. That's 7 weeks, so our taps could dry up. We will keep our fingers crossed. If we start up again we will have to do a lot of sanitizing.

[220 maple]

Larry,
Just curious, I met someone from the western part of West Virginia at the Potomac Highlands maple festival near Keyser WV several years ago that was producing syrup or was going to start producing. Was it you or one of your partners?

Mark 220 maple

[lharris1]

I'm sure it was none of us. I didn't know they had a maple festival but would like to go there. When is it?

[220 maple]

Larry,
It is usually held the 3rd weekend in March. There are 3 camps open to the public that weekend. The one draw back is if they are open we are still in operation also which makes it tuff to attend. I didn't make it myself, I did make it to the Highland Maple Festival which is held in Highland County Virginia. Highland's festival is a Two weekend affair in March and there are 5 large Sugar Camps open. If you ever get a chance to attend one, I would suggest the one in Highland County. It's located 40 miles North of I-64 at Covington Va.
Mark 220 maple