Tapping in Coatesville, IN

[DougM]

We tapped last Friday, Jan. 27. That's about our normal time. 97 taps in, and collected 130 gallons on Friday without getting all of them, probably another 20 gallons or so on the trees. We'll probably add another 20 or so if the weather is good.

The weather does look pretty good for the next week, if the forecasters are anywhere near right.

[Dave Y]

Doug,
Glad to see you waited till the normal tapping time in your area. Everyone else is going nuts. I will tap in two weeks. Good luck on your season

Hey Dave, we just had some of your syrup on ice cream a couple of weeks ago, great stuff.

How are the repairs on the old rig coming? I have to say, it sure is nice having pans that you can actually tell when they are clean. :)

I hope you have a great season,
Doug

[JohnM]

Hi Doug!

Good to see your are ready for another season.

Did you make it to the IMSA meeting in December? We were on vacation.

Give me an update on your next run.

Thanks!

[DougM]

John,

we didn't go, either.

We are speaking to the Avon Optimists tonight about sugaring, that should be fun, although we've only spoken to elementary-age kids before. :)

They said we would have 15-20 minutes, I said that's barely enough time to explain the evaporator, let alone the rest of the process, so they are getting the Reader's Digest version.

Michael didn't collect last night, and I don't know if he'll have time tonight, so all the bags may be full when I get there tomorrow.

Here's hoping you get some great runs,
Doug

[Dave Y]

Doug,
I tried sending you an e-mail with some Pics but they were returned as undeliverable. I put a new skin on the fire box and built a grate system out of 2" pipe, drilled holes in them an ran them crossways. Did a test boil and had the flue pan boiling in 20 mins. No new pans yet. i picked up a set of30"x8'last spring. but the flue pan leaks too much. I am hoping to get a 30"x7' flue pan for next season. until then I will use what I have.

[DougM]

Dave, try sending to dmark@bsals.com. I've changed jobs and you probably have my old address. We would love to see your pictures.

We collected 80 gal yesterday, and boiled off about 50 of that plus the 130 we collected Saturday, so we should have syrup this Saturday if the weather cooperates.

[DougM]

Well, we have a bunch of bags of frozen sap, and it looks to stay that way at least thru the weekend, so today was a day for doing other things besides boiling.

We finished making about 40 bag holders, and replaced some we had put out that didn't have handles with those. You don't miss the handle until you use a few with one, then go to one without. But now they all have them. Then we scouted out some new trees "just in case" we ever decide we have too much spare time. :)

We also tapped 21 more trees to bring us to 118 taps out. They were running, but we won't be able to collect until it warms up a bit for a couple of days. That's the drawback to the bags.

So, I guess we wait, like a lot of the rest of you, it sounds like.

[JohnM]

Doug.

Thanks for the hospitality at our open house last Saturday. Great to meet again and talk about Maple. Nice to see to see it a little warmer. 8)

[DougM]

Pulling the taps this weekend.

We have a little to finish, but should hit 29 gallons, right at average for 118 taps. A little below last year, but we burned two batches, so we probably would have at least equaled that.

[Dave Y]

Doug,
looks like you had a good season, Mine is just under way. I have made around 18 gal so far. 15gal light, went to med last night. hope to make at least 80 gal before it is all said and done.
Take care

[DougM]

With the warmup we got 220 gallons of sap yesterday. My partner only had time to boil off around 40 gallons so that leaves us with about 220 gallons of storage available. I think he's going to collect & boil some tonight so tomorrow may be a busy day.

Hopefully the warm weather later this week won't make the buds pop & we can get back on track. We've only made about 1/3 of what we were expecting for the year.

[DougM]

After collecting 220 gallons on Monday & boiling off around 50 we got over 290 on Tuesday. Since we can only store 460 that left us scrambling to boil enough off to even be able to collect. We started around 8, and I was finally able to do a partial collection around 11:30...I think I got 85 gallons. Then we pulled everything out of the barn we could find to put sap in: a couple of barrels & some tubs. I went back out around 1:30 and got another 135. After we made room for that we went back out around 5 and got another 135. We still never made it all the way through hit all the taps.

We boiled until midnight when we ran out of gas, and made about 11 gallons of a nice medium. Since we had made 14 gallons between tapping on February 2 and yesterday, we were pretty happy. Now we're just waiting on the gas man & hoping we can keep the sap cool.

[sweetwoodmaple]

Hey, I'm finding myself in the same situation with not enough sap storage and the sap getting ahead of me.

Good problem to have!

[DougM]

Last night the neighbor was over & my partner mentioned that we are out of storage. We have six taps on her property so she's always interested in how things are going. She asked if we needed another tank, and said she has a poly tank that has only had water in it. We can have it free and it's "about 6' tall and 3' diameter".

That will take some work to clean, but will sure add to our storage. We still have sap on the trees with no place to put it.

[the old guy]

We're About 1 1/2 Hrs South Of You (near Jasper) And We Ran Out Of Storage On Almost Every Run (we Have About 750 Gallons Storage). We Tapped About 200 Trees Starting On The 27th Of Jan. We Totaled Nearly 4000 Gallons Of Sap And Made About 65 Gallons Of Mostly Light To Medium Syrup. We Had To Quit! I Think The Sap Ran For Another Week Or So But We Ran Out Of Wood, Propane, Syrup Containers (we Finished By Putting Some Syrup In Fruit Jars) And We Burned A Hole In Our Evaporator Pan By Fireing So Much; AND, WE STILL HAD OVER 300 GALLONS OF SAP TO DUMP FROM THE BUCKETS. Our Production Increased Over Threefold This Year! So I Am Not Surprized To Hear You "scrambling" This Year. I Think I Am Gong To Get A Uv Light And Fabricate A "cooling Room" To Store Sap In For Next Year. Good Sugarin' Guys!! GREAT YEAR, EVERYONE AROUND HEAR TELLS THE SAME STORY.

The Old Guy

[DougM]

We got out about 110 taps yesterday afternoon. Fortunately the wind died down & the bags didn't blow around too much. They were running like crazy while we were tapping.

It froze over night, so hopefully we'll get another good run over the next day or so.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Doug,

Glad to see you back and making syrup again this year. Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes!