New to the site

[Dfrenzy]

Hello everyone my Name is Dave and I'm from Northeast Ohio. My son and I decided to try our hand at maple syrup this past winter. We had a blast trying and even turned out a few gallons of syrup. Within 45 minutes after tapping our first tree we tipped the bucket and filled a couple cups with sap and made a toast to what we call ourselves now (The Sapsuckers). We tapped 12 trees all sugarmaples and only 1 bucket each. Our trees were all very large. On day two I was scrambling to buy a holding tank. Within our first week we had 150 gallons plus. We were not good planners and had no plan as too how to boil this sap. So we divised a way and went with it. We had 5 4 gallon crocks trying to boil on a makeshift outdoor burner. After two days we made a gallon of syrup. We finally found a pan on craiglist that was in our budget and were able to boil much faster and divised a barrel burner. We ended the year with collecting over 350 gallons of sap and probably half went to waste due to warm weather and not being sure if it were spoiled. We learned a lot and plan to purchase some real equipment and step up our production for next season. But the best part was spending quality time together and learning as a team. My son at 6 years old never once coped out on me. He was there for almost the hole process. Were looking forward to learning more here on the site and making some new friends along he way. If you took the time to read this I thank you. The name Dfrenzy comes from my boats name as I run a Fishing Charter on Lake Erie.
Dfrenzy

[damaille]

Welcome! I too did this my first time this year with my 8 year old daughter and we both absolutely loved it. This was time well spent together and knowledge we both learned and had fun with that we will always remember. we are hooked and are definatley going bigger next year. The other part that is so appealing is getting back to nature and away from the electronic world we live in now.....as I type this on the computer! this is an excellent site with alot of kind people eager to share their knowledge and stories as well. have fun.

[Haynes Forest Products]

There is no better teacher than making it up as you go and succeeding. Sounds like how I started out. You will look back at your first year as you go forward with many fond memories so enjoy and welcome.......................Plus don't believe everything we do and say;)

[Sugarmaker]

Dave,
Welcome to this great site. Hope you make many great memories with your son.
Chris

[5050racing]

Dave my first year also and unreal time doing it.Next year if you can I plow a lot of snow on the farm behind the barn on the north side just by chance and when I started collecting I cut a hole in the pile for my barrels and tarped it and no lie a week an half ago the sap been done since 4/2 but there was still snow under the tarp.Next year I will make a mountain of snow out there it worked great!I kept track everyday of sap collected and total was 155 gal. and made almost 4 or so gals syrup,all sugar maples 12 of them.

[Dfrenzy]

5050 Funny you say that I had thought about burrying my tank in snow as well but just never did it. I to plow snow and also remove alot of snow on a few properties. I kept my tank on the north east side of my house as its always shaded no matter what time of day it is. I wasn't sure if my sap was spoiled or not but my last batch had a burnt taste to it. Next year I will have an evaporator pan and go a little larger. I'm excited about next season already.
Dave

[highlandcattle]

Oh, this is what it's all about! Good for you! Have a great time. Our kids are all grown and the grandkids aren't really interested, so we depend on a couple of good friends who stop by and give us a hand. Getting things tweaked this year, so next season, pretty much just run the evaporator. Enjoy them while they are that age, time goes by so quickly...

[Gary R]

Dfrenzy, welcome to the trader! There is lots that can be learned here. If you are interested there is a seminar at a dealer in NE Ohio next Saturday. See the link below. It will be geared for the bigger producers, but there all likely to give advice if you ask. Who knows, you might be up to a few hundred taps next year:)

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?t=13106

[Dfrenzy]

Gary R thanks for the invite but I have been signed up for a week or so already. I bought a few supplies from them and was put on there mailing list. As soon as I opened the mail out I called to say I would be there. I can't wait maybee i'll meet you there.

[homerdog]

First year for me too. I've got three big sugar maples out in my front yard and have been procrastinating for years about tapping them, I finally did this year and it's been loads of fun. I first started boiling the sap on a turkey boiler and quickly realized it's going to take a lot of propane so I found this site and then found some pictures of a concrete block evaporator. I had some old blocks way back out in my backyard and cobbled one together. Managed to get it to boil off about 2 gallons per hour. So far I've canned about a gallon and a half with most of that already disappearing to my sons houses.
I had to take some time off to attend a wedding in Florida so I bought a bunch of one gallon plastic jugs and froze the sap I had remaining. Boiled off about half of what I had left on Easter Sunday and had the whole family out in the back yard most of the day watching sap boil, splitting wood, playing catch and just having all kinds of fun.
I'm already making plans for next year with a new and improved concrete block evaporator and more trees tapped, of course having Snow's Sugarbush about 5 miles from work is going to make things way to easy to keep it going. :)

[maple flats]

In the future don't worry too much about spoiled sap,unless it gets rank. Old sap will have less sugar, because the micro-organisims feed on the sugar, but it still makes syrup, just DARKER. It will not make bad syrup.
Welcome to the Trader. I started with my kids back in the 70's and 80's just boiling down 6-9 taps worth every 3-4 years. Then in 2003, after retiring, I got twitchy and needed more things to do. So I started making syrup. My first year I made 10.5 gal and have increased my tap count every year until I had 710 taps this year and made 205 gal. Beware, it will get you, escape while you still have a chance, if you grow and make more next year you will have no chance of escaping the addiction and it will consume you until death do you part. BUT it is fun!!! Next year I will have between 1200-1400 taps, all but 160 on vacuum.

[seclark]

Dave,welcome to the trader,it's a great site and wish I had found it the first year I made syrup.I started on a 3 burner propane camp stove outside in the wind and elements but had a blast.:lol:But every year I improved my setup by trial and error and as I said if I found this site sooner I would have done things better and sooner,there are so many great Ideas here for the backyarder.Have fun with you great little helper and don't worry if you get hooked,because you already are as are all the rest of us.

[Josh Nickles]

Hi. I've been making syrup for a few years at a small scale. Jim Schumacher referred me to this site. I too wish I would have found this site, and Jim, sooner.
Josh Nickles