started in the catskills

[royalmaple]

van-

Nice analogy. LOL

Hopefully you were able to catch your filtrate water.

[802maple]

Hey Van

I am assuming that you have a CDL machine. When you tipped the U cup over did you have to put the stainless cover on with a small screw driver or knife to get the u cup back in? If you did that is the right way as they usually come on the membrane from the factory the wrong way. I used to tech for CDL and lot of machines got put together wrong as they didn't come with directions and owner didn't know. They sometimes would work for quite a while before they would fail. Just wondering

[mountainvan]

No screw at all ffor the ucup or adaptor. From the bottom up- recirc. pump, stainless adaptor, ucup, and then membrane. The manual, and Nick, say the ucup side that is split goes down on the adaptor and the solid side goes to the membrane. 802, are you saying that's wrong? I have two new ucups coming down here from cdl now. Also my flow has dropped a lot in the past week. From 350 gals of sap/hr to 250, which it's supposed to do anyway. I cleaned out the membrane casing and the feed pump when I had it apart yesterday so maybe that will help. Any thoughts? Today I cleaned tanks, till it started to pour rain and sleet, and then emptied everything in the evaporator into 5gal buckets and pressure wash it inside and out. I'm going to start fresh with new sap, if I get any, and see if I can get back up to medium. My front pans, crossflow, still don't need niter removed because there's only enough to discolor the pans. That's after making 250gals of syrup. Not sure what gives with that. May your sap flow like old milwalkee through a college student.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

I don't know if this has anything to do with it or not, but I've seen more nitre baked on the pan boiling raw sap. And I've seen more nitre that flakes off easier boiling concentrate.

[802maple]

Unless you have a different system than what they used to have or I am misunderstanding you I believe it is wrong. The way that I am familar with is the solid side out, The U cup depending on what brand of machine it is can go 2 ways, The U cup is wider on one side than on the other side, When installed on the membrane your stainless adapter should not go on without the use of a screwdriver or putty knife or something to gently work it under the adapter. If it will slide right on that is the way they are for a Lapierre machine. I guess the simple way to say it is for the CDL the flair should be out toward the bottom of the membrane and the Lapierre it should be out toward the top of the membrane but the split goes toward the membrane either way.

Let me know if this doesn't make sense, I am hard enough to understand face to face, put our computers in the way and I can get really confusing


Jerry

[Russell Lampron]

Ryan that is one of the things that I noticed about boiling concentrate too. Raw sap has to sit in the pan and boil for a lot longer before it turns to syrup. With the concentrate it moves through the pan alot faster so the nitre doesn't have a chance to settle out and burn on to the pan.

Russ

[802maple]

After rereading your post and getting the advice of several lawyers. I do believe you have it right

[802maple]

I agree with both of you on the front pan and nitre situation, I have seen the pans go 500 gallons before we would have to switch them, but the flues that was a different story for some reason. We would get a tremendous amount of nitre with 20 plus concentrate back there.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

With that high of concentrate, I would guess most of the nitre is forming in the flue pan vs the syrup pan and settling on the sides where there is less boiling action.

[802maple]

There is alot more boiling action back there then there is in the front but it still sticks. 24 gallons of oil an hour makes sure it is boiling.

[mountainvan]

Cleaned tanks and buckets today and had mpm over to look at tubing. Got new ucups for the ro which I'll install tomorrow. Not much sap here today, just dribbling in.

[MaplePancakeMan]

twas a pretty sweet setup you had there MV i really liked it i got a good gist of how a tubing system is setup.. and the syrup was quite tasty. Tomorrow i'm going to the new woods and plotting and measuring and seeing just what and how much i'll need to get running for next year. I'm gonna map out a makeshift shift one with string and see where i can put my laterals and mainline so i can eyeball it and decide if that locations best. If i don't get good sap tomorrow its quitting time for me, it was a terrible season but atleast i got something not much but something

[mountainvan]

Thanks for the compliment. Taking today off. To cold for sap to flow here today and tomorrow is supposed to be colder, but next week looks good. Seems every year I go later into April. Maybe in a couple years I'll be sugaring in May.

[mountainvan]

I feel like a mountainman of old today. I'm going to town. Was going to go yesterday but my 16 yr old son was in sloth mode. Good thing too!! There was a fatal car crash 15 min. down the highway about the same time I was planning to go to town. Third crash on the road this week. First one some friends of ours had to be cut out of their truck. Thankfully they were back home the same night.

[tapper]

Is it just me or are there more idiots on the roads these days? I encounter impatient idoits everyday. I travel the speed limits maybe a shade over and there is always someone pushing or passing in no passing zones or worse. The other day my wife had her left signal on to cross the oncoming lane into our driveway. She looked in the mirror and someone was going so fast he had to pass her in an extremely dangerous no passing zone. Good thing she looked or he would have hit her. I could fill a small book with close calls like that in just the past 5 years. Why is everyone in such a hurry? Sorry just venting.

[MaplePancakeMan]

I blame it on Mcdonalds and all other things fast! if we didn't try and make things faster and faster we wouldn't have these problems. People don't realize just how fast they have to drive to make a significant difference in the amount it takes to get somewhere, going 15-20 over doesn't matter on short drives only long ones so they should just stop. I drive an SUV if i got that fast i'm likely to tip over its just not worth it.

On a side note- Saps flowing and clear so i'm hoping that its good enough for one more boil.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

I drive tractors and self-propelled choppers on the roads all spring/summer/fall and it is absolutely STUPID where some people will pass. it's like they see farm equipment, so they think it's the law to get by them instantly. I just don't get it! I can completey understand that it is nice to not be following farm equipment(because of speed), but I don't get why they can't wait until it's clear or there is a pull-off or something SAFER than a corner/hill/traffic coming/blind spots/ and the list goes on.

[mountainvan]

Not much happening here. Sold a bit of syrup yesterday, spent that on a new pair of boots. Replaced the ucups on my membranes today, added preservative to the ro, and cleaned the saphouse. Still to cold for sap till tomorrow or tuesday.

[mountainvan]

Spent today organizing my saphouse, mainly getting the different grades of syrup in bulk seperated. I've got as much extra dark as grade a right now. Good thing people are coming to the "dark side" of maple. Flushed all my flatter mainlines/long laterals today too. The lines were loaded with nasty stuff. Tomorrow I'll do my big bush. That means hiking up the mountain to hook the topmost mainline to the stream and then walking back down and around to flush as much as I can. Then back up to close the valve from the stream. Should be a nice 3-4 mile walk to break in my new boots. I have one bush that's too steep to mess with, I'll just put a filter on the end of that line. Hope I get more sap, if not I've started cleaning my tubing.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Van, thats some work out you're going to have tomorrow. I washed all my buckets this weekend after getting gross sap. I set them back out and the sap was crystal clear and pretty sweet i hope to to boil to steralize it all tomorrow and finish wednesday morning.
Good luck with that walk!

[mountainvan]

Got to the top of the mainline, got water flowing into it, but had to give up for today cause everything was still full of ice. Guess I'll try again tomorrow.

[mountainvan]

Just got in the house, had a busy day. Got my lines all flushed and then waited for the sap to start flowing. 40+ and not much sap so I reamed some of my holes, again. Did'nt go in any farther, just cleaned the sides. Got it going again in three bushes, 1000+ taps. I'll finish the rest tomorrow in the snow. Should be fun!! Sap is clear and tastes good. I will be suprised if it's not buddy so late into April.

[mountainvan]

Went out at early, 1 am, to check vac.pump sap was flowing. Went out 6am, tanks and buckets are full!! Ye-haw, I love it when a plan comes together!!

[MaplePancakeMan]

Awesome Van, all trees except 50 or so total have shut down for me, and i don't wanna ream anymore. i haven't finished any of the syrup yet but its pretty close i can't tell if its buddy or not, tastes good so far but i know everything can change in just a few degrees. Time will tell gonna finish it tonight.

[maple flats]

I finished off another 15 gal today, grade B, but it is still flowing pretty well. This is longer than I have ever gone before, now it I only had vac. I need to locate a bush I can tap at least 500 or better 1000+ taps and then add an RO and vac. These little mini sites just take too long to collect and aren't big enough to ever warrant vac. The next week looks like not cool enough to get it going again so once it stops this time that could be all she wrote, the fat lady might sing.

[tyrod2]

some sap but not enough to collect. maybe they'll bust lose wednesday. just been getting too cold at night, 14 and the mountains hold the cold, to have a good full day flow. thursday and friday at the latest for sap here.

Hi Mountainvan This is tyrod2 in Xenia Ohio I had a good year with my new evaporator waterloo small 2x6 . Sap run here was Feb 15 to March 14. I got 31 gal. syrup with 130 taps. It was nice meeting you and Thanks for your help and informaton on setting up my evaporator. I retired this year and I ran my suger camp by myself. I have to add to my sugarhouse. It is a little tight with my new evaporator. Sold all my syrup but 7 gal. left. Looking forward to next year already. Thanks again and I hoop you feel better soon. Your new friend tyrod2

[mountainvan]

Ronnie, Good to hear from you. I was wondering how your season went with the new rig. Glad it worked out for you. Did you get enough draft with that beauty of a chimney? I got a nice suprise today. 700 gals sap at 2.5% sugar. Ran through the ro and went "refreshing" tapholes. Did around 500 or so, only a few more to go. Boiled this evening, and suprise again, lightest syrup I've made all year. After making extra dark, and eating it, the light is just sweet. But I need a barrel or two for sugars and cream. Weather forcast looks more like march here than april, 20's at night and 40's daytime till the 21st. The fat lady went on slimfast up here.
MPM if you still got the bug and don't have any more sap come on up and help me. Got to go check the vacuum pump.

[tapper]

Van,
Just as your thread here your season seems to go on and on and on LOL. It is fun reading your posts! I read Other Side Of The Mountain when I was a kid and ever since have wanted to visit the Catskills. Keep those tap flowing!

[mountainvan]

Collected a bit over 1,000 gals sap today, 2% sugar. Refreshed another 200 taps today, would have done more but I had to boil. Ended up with about 20 gals of light amber tonight. Another day or two like this and I'll be set for sugar and cream for the year. My wife woke me with,"It's 36 outside right now". A nice way to start a sugaring day, with the sap already flowing. Yes tapper I've had a long season. I've made syrup every month this year so far. I got to get some sleep. More syrup to made tomorrow!!

[MaplePancakeMan]

Van, thats truely awesome! i believe taps will be pulled tomorrow and everything cleaned and i'll boil anything i find in the buckets, if anything. Maybe i'll get a chance to come out and visit you after the snowfall this weekend.

[mountainvan]

Collected 700 gals today and made 15 gals light amber. Got below freezing here last night so sap flowed well today. Finished refreshing my taps this afternoon. I left the steep bush for last. No snow at the bottom, 3" at the end of the tubing. Weather still looks good this week for more sap.

[Parker]

How many gallons have you made this year?

[mountainvan]

I'm up to 320,I think it's more cause a day or two I did'nt fill out my bottling log(DUH) still want another 100 or more. Debating if I should collect today. Snowing sleeting and road is slick. Get sap and take a chance of sliding off the road, or stay in and watch it snow?

[New Hope Mapleman]

So did I understand that you were running at 2200 taps?! Just curious. We waited until the end of February to start tapping and only started around the 26th because I could tell it was going to take forever this year (Lowest number installed per manhour ever). Wondered if your year was better from the earlier tapping or not. We haven't reamed anything, but are still getting decent flows (had one gallon per tap one day this week). We also used the extenders on any previosly installed taps.

Have fun watching the snow, thats what I'm doing.

[markcasper]

New hope mapleman, You are doing the right thing using the adaptors. In my area, I have heard of 2 reports of adjacent bushes being re-tapped. I have never re-tapped, but not too many years ago suffered from tapholes going dry. Not anymore. I 100% endorse the use of these as a good insurance policy. I can't believe that more producers don't use them??

[royalmaple]

I have been using the lapierre stubby and reducers and they are still running just as hard as when I first put them in. I don't see any need to ream the holes.

[markcasper]

Oh look......another one using some form of adaptor.

[mountainvan]

Well the trees answered my question this morning, sap was flowing so I went collecting. 800 as of now, but should get another couple hundred gal from my big bush with the vacuum. The only thing tapping early did for me was that I had syrup and did'nt have to buy any in Jan. and Feb.. Got to go boil!!

[mountainvan]

Ended up with 15 gals light/medium today. Just went up the road to check the vacuum, saps still flowing. What a nasty day. Snow and sleet this morning and pouring rain now. My wife thinks I'm nuts for sugaring today, I think she's right.

[MaplePancakeMan]

But aren't sugar-makers kinda like the mail men? we work in any weather. All i have to say is i am so happy i got everything cleaned and put away yesterday. it snowed in the morning about 1" sleeted about .5" then we've gotten over 2.5" of rain and supposed to get another 2" over night? Everything is flooding right now its crazy. The gardening chimes are ringing, time to start that season.

[mountainvan]

Went out this morning to check sap, still flowing. Drove up the road in 6" of slush to find some nice flooding and tanks almost full. Started the vacuum again and sap was coming in at a good rate. Luckily I have an extra tank up there that I filled to the top. I can't collect up there yet cause there's a 5' wide river between the tanks and the road, and the hill up to the tanks is a small stream. Checked my other bushes, only one tank floating in 4' of water. Still raining/snowing like yesterday, but the saps flowing!

[MaplePancakeMan]

i can imagine all the flooding, over night we got 4" of rain making the total just over 6.5" everythings completely washed out i have an electrified body of water infront of the house, the pond spewed into the electric service box and shocked the water, its not a highly electrified body but enough to kill a couple fish. still waiting for them to come shut the power off at the road til the water subsides. Best of luck to you Van be safe!

[danno]

Moderate rain here yesterday, followed by 14" of heavy snow today. It don't look like April. Just now turning over to sleet. Had to chainsaw my way out the driveway this morning (more syrup wood:)). Although the trees took a beating from the heavy snow, the lines are in good order. No broken or pulled lines - just some laterals to pull branches from and 2 or 3 spots where I had to pull the side ties back up to bring the main line up.

MPM - looks like we were darn close to the snow bulls eye - areas close to me with higher elevation did much better than 14".

[MaplePancakeMan]

awesome, they cut the power at the road so i've been wading in there with my pumps pumping water out, pumped over 15,000 gallons and its still not making a dent. waters up to my shoulders and i'm 6'3''

[mountainvan]

Collected a couple hundred gallons of sap today, I'll get the rest tomorrow. Spent most of the day keeping water out of the house and saphouse and retrieving stuff floating away, aka sap tanks. Here at the house,1,500 ft, we got around 6" of snow and lots of rain. Up the road was a foot of snow and on the mountain tops I'm sure there's more. Just means a better chance for cold nights and warm days, but not too warm, and more maple syrup!! Hope everyone made out ok with this storm.

[mountainvan]

Just got in from a long,but very good, day of sugaring. Started collecting at 8 and finished at 2, with a break for lunch of course, and got 1,200 gals of sap at 2% sugar. Boiled from 3-9 and made 25 gals of med. amber. Had customers/visitors from Ohio and California today. Guy from Ohio was suprised to find a tranplanted buckeye making syrup here. Vacuum is still sucking sap from the trees, close to three days straight now, so I'll have sap again tomorrow.

[mountainvan]

Still making syrup. Collected 450 gals sap and made 10 gals med amber. Got the vacuum pump still running up the road, it's been going for 3 days straight now. Sugars still 2% and syrup's still medium. No budding on the sugars up here. Hoping for one more cold night, maybe thursday then that looks to be it for this year. If it clears up there's enough snow to cool it down.

[mountainvan]

Got only 200 gals this morning, but made 8 gals of dark syrup. Sun came out when I was cleaning tanks so for the heck of it I checked the trees by the saphouse, sap was flowing again. Brought my releaser back up the road and started the pump, sap came in very well, but vacuum pump was sticking. So I changed the oil and got her going again.

[mountainvan]

28 degrees right now. Sap should flow good today.

[mountainvan]

Collected 500 gals today 2% sugar still. Made 10 gals dark. Sap is still flowing here so I'll be boiling tomorrow and it's, nope not going to jinx myself!! It amazes me that it's almost May and I'm still making syrup. As far as I know I'm the last holdout in this area.

[mountainvan]

Stick a fork in me I'm done. Collected 400 gals sap, down to 1.8%, ran it through the ro and boiled it down. Made another 8 gal dark. I'll have to wait for my "official syrup taster" to get home and give me the thumbs up or down on the flavor. I was skimming the gunk off of the flue pan so all I smell/taste is flue pan gunk. Trying to wash it down with a beer. Going to run water behind it tomorrow and get my family to help get buckets in the woods. Then comes the fun of washing the tubing, and this year it's pretty funky. Anybody want to learn how to wash tubing?

[mountainvan]

So no takers on the fun filled world of tubing washing eh? Boiled the sweet that I took off of the evaporator earlier this month and what was left in the pans. Darkest nastiest stuff I've ever made. Put it in a barrel to sell bulk. I did'nt dare taste it, I think I would have puked. I'm pretty sure the sweet from early April fermented some, never had my pans foam so much, and the smell... when I came back in the house my wife held her nose and said I need a shower. To think I'm actually going to get money for it is kinda sad, not for me but who ever ends up with it. Aunt Jermima or Vermont maid maybe?

[MaplePancakeMan]

well, i honestly would have come to help as i just like being outside, but its near the end of the semester and i've got 4 group projects. So that spells me being inside the library for this week including tomorrow while its nice and sunny outside. Its almost over thats all i keep saying! Planted my Zucchini's and Squashes today. Tomatoes whenever i can find time agian.
Good Luck with the tubing.

[mountainvan]

Did'nt get to the tubing today, but got all my buckets and most of my tanks back to the saphouse, cleaned, and dryed. I was a bit amazed at all the stuff I had out. Spread out through the valley it does'nt seem like much, but stacked together it is a lot. Going to tackle my big bush tomorrow, the tanks stay in the woods there. I was going to bring my video camera with me to make an audition for the show dirty jobs, cleaning up after the season is one of the dirtiest jobs I've had, but then I thought if it did get on all the gunk may give maple some bad press.

[markcasper]

Van, My thoughts exactly on your earlier post on the contents in your evaporator. I had the same thing. Really had to think whether the manure pit would be a better place to hang out!

Oh well, you take the good and the not so good, right?

Yes tubing washing is one of the worst jobs and one that I dread. I did not get nearly enogh tubing done today b/c the fuel pump went out on my pickup on my way home from work this morning. Instead of getting home at 5:30, it was 9 and didn't have it in me today. Best of luck!

[mountainvan]

I washed lots of tubing today, still not done with the big bush. Interestingly I washed as many taps today as I tapped in a day. I also came to the conclusion that whomever invented the t's with the cup for the spile to sit in never washed tubing, the dealers who say there great don't wash tubing, and I will never buy them again. I got way too many sour sap showers today. I even stood behind the cup and it would spray out of the cup, bounce off of another tree, and still get me.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

What kind of cups are you using, I never had that problem with the Leader cups and now I have started using Lapierre??

[mountainvan]

WVM, I have IPL, but at the pressure I had I doubt the manufacture matters, but I could be wrong. I was pumping downhill and the water was shooting 20ft+ from the spile.
I finally sat down and crunched my numbers today, after cleaning more tubing.... only 500 taps to go.
#taps- 1,800 average for season, did'nt ream reds in March so they were out in April, only 800 in Jan.
800 taps on vacuum, 1,000 gravity or buckets.
Total sap- 22,760 sap from vac.-14,200 other sap- 8,560
total syrup- 415 syrup from vac.- 259 other- 156
sap/tap vac.- 17.75 other- 8.46
syrup/tap vac.- .32 other- .15
hrs boiling- 132.75 syrup/hr- 3.13 syrup/day- 14.3 ( averages)
ro hours- 99.25 (concentrating sap)
first boil- 1/6/07 last boil 4/22/07 days with sap- 29
Roughly 5 cords of wood burned.
I am so happy I got the vacuum this year for my big bush. Without it I would have had a poor crop. From hearing syrup totals from other producers in my area, tapping in Jan and making 50 gals, was good for me, I guess. I did ream my taps twice this year which made a big difference in final totals. All in all it was an interesting season. I would say my determination to keep at it and not give up, I almost did when my ro blew the u-cup(and my wife will not let me forget that, or hours she spent in the saphouse this year), is why I had a good year. Also I did'nt have to go see the doctor every week, like last year, and only was in the hospital once so far this year. That definitely makes me happy. Plans for next year... more taps and more syrup. I'm already looking at where to hang more tubing in my different sugarbushes while cleaning tubing.
Thanks to the mapletraders for the site. I finally kept the journal my 8th grade english teacher assigned.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

And nearly everyone enjoys reading it, you're a fighter and an inspiration to all with your battle with cancer and the great never quit attitude!!!!!!

[Fred Henderson]

Van; You have done a remarkable job keeping us all so informed. Now we just need a new topic. May I suggest Ending in the Catskills.

[Flatfoot95]

Van.....I have never met you and I believe we are generations apart non the less you are truly an inspiration to us all. Not only by staying in the fight but for realizing lifes simple pleasures and enjoying them for what they are.

[mountainvan]

Thanks for the compliments guys. I figure another season or two of keeping good records and writng my sugaring experiences I'll have enough material for a book. Spent yesterday cleaning my evaporator and ro. Both were pretty dirty. Going to wash more tubing today.

[mountainvan]

Finally finished flushing my tubing, still have to rinse and dry. Started on wood for next year, chainsaw stopped working good. Changed gas, put in dry gas, and no go. So off to sheldon hill to have a pro look at it. Talked to a couple more guys around here, 50-70% crop.

[Pete33Vt]

Great work Van.
As far as a new ending,!!?? Thats the thing with sugaring, its never ending, just a few months of really bad sap runs before next spring.I know personally I'm going through withdrawls, went from working sugaring from Jan to April then BANG nothing. Almost getting bored. But theres always the wood pile to fill up. Was thinking go into business setting up tubing for other people. Become a Maple Tubing Tech. That way I'd really be in sugaring all year. Don't know have to think on it more.

[Fred Henderson]

There is some outfit in Canada that if you buy your tubing and fittings from them they will send a crew to put it all up, but they also charge for their time too.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

The MINOR family from Cambridge, VT area set-up tubing for people. As well as Glen Goodrich. I'm sure others do it too.

[mountainvan]

Personally I have a hard enough time taking care of my own tubing, and all the other stuff that goes with it. Rinsed tubing this morning and took inventory of bottles, spiles, tubing, etc. this afternoon. Now I'm of to buy a thousand dollars or more of bottles, tubing, spiles, etc., and then to the spring maple dinner.

[mountainvan]

Spent today using the vacuum to suck the water out of my lines in the big bush. Should finish with that bush tomorrow, then rinse and repeat on the other sugarbushes. Just saw that walleye season starts tomorrow, going fishing again next week!

[mountainvan]

Finished my big bush this weekend, my daughter has a better appreciation of how hard daddy works, she went up on the mountain to help. Going to tackle my steep bush today, once that ones done the rest are easy. I'm going to have to spend one day this week bottling syrup, my sales are up 60% from last may. Seems maple syrup keeps getting more popular every year. No forest tent caterpillars sighted so far this year in my woods, hope it stays that way!!

[super sappy]

Van- I had a guy stop at my syrup booth Yesterday from Kingston. He told me that he went to your openhouse last year and thought that your operation was top notch. (In case your ears were ringing thats why).I have never met you but when he started telling his tale I knew he was talking about you. I did sell him one of my maple birdhouses and a qt of syrup. I encouraged him to take the drive back to your place when he runs out.-SS

[mountainvan]

Wow, you sold a guy some syrup and then told him to visit me again. What happened to crushing the competition? I think the huge corporations could learn from you SS. Anyway thanks for the endorsment. Finished the steep bush today, so no more hiking up the mountain till fall, unless just for the heck of it. Only four more bushes to do, I should be all cleaned up by the end of the week.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

That's one thing about the sugaring industry that I've noticed so far...the competition isn't the same. Most of the time everybody kinda helps everybody in certain ways. There were a lot of people that helped me get started, and they offered to help.

[super sappy]

In my everyday job I pretty much get pissed off at everyone that I deal with or they get pissed at me. I think that sugaring is just about the most wholesome business that there is. For me its just a hobby, Ive tried Golf that was a waste of time had more fun trying to hit frogs with the club. And the lady at the golf coarse alwayse yelled at me. Everyone fights like cats and dogs around here over hunting that takes all of the fun out of it for me. But sugaring is all mine. I have not met a sugarmaker yet that I didnt like. And if one of my neighbors buys syrup from someone else,then so be it.At least I can assume that a hard working good sort of a person got some money. MV feeds his family with that syrup money thats why I told the guy to be sure to go back to get syrup from him.OH well.... have to go take syrup up to the fire dept for mothers day breakfast. I think that it is a great way to let the community know that you exist as well as support a good cause. SAPPY

[mountainvan]

Well I can't say I've never met a sugarer I didn't like. Met a guy last week, one of the first things he said was," anyone who makes maple syrup is retarded". Guess he never heard the expression first impressions last. I'll steer clear of him in the future. Rinsed another 3 miles of tubing today, only two more bushes to go, then I'm going fishing!

[Russell Lampron]

Super Sappy I have to agree with you. The sugarmakers I know are always willing to help other sugarmakers in a time of need. I even loaded my RO machine into my truck and hauled it to Maine to help a friend in need once.

Russ

[802maple]

I have a few reasons for trying to give advice, one being that when I got started I had to get alot of advice even though I am a 4th generation sugarmaker, because I was the first one using any kind of modern technology in the family. I guess it is my way of paying it forward. I think sugarmakers are the last of breed of people that are willing to help in anything in life not only sugaring, I'm willing to bet on that.

[royalmaple]

..............

[John Burton]

I always looked at it like this. if you get out of bed in the morning then there is somthing to be learned that day . and as far as passing it along you can learn something from anyone all that you have to do is be willing to listen to their ideas , too often most want to think they are smarter than someone else and just because they dont do it your way doesnt make it wrong...pass it along because you cant tell anyone once your gone

[mountainvan]

It's still 2007, but the 2008 sugaring season stated for me today. I tapped my test tree at 8 this morning, and by 2 the bucket had a 1/2 gal of sap, when the buckets 1/2 full I'll seriously start thinking about tapping. I did'nt check the sugar % being wiped from climbing the mountain to hang more tubing. I thanked the deer for breaking trails through the snow for me all day long.

[jemsklein]

mountainvan
wear are you located and what is the wheather like

[mountainvan]

I live in the catskill mountains of NY. Collected 1/2 bucket of sap, did'nt check % yet, got back from the mountain and found out we were out of fuel oil. It was 42 degrees here yesterday and 34 today.

[mountainvan]

Just checked sugar%, just shy of 3% on the little sap hydrometer. That is the highest it has ever been in December. I finished hanging tubing in my big sugarbush today, and only have the tall sap ladders to finish down the road.

[mountainvan]

The 2008 maple sugaring season started early again this year. My son and I put in over 500 taps today, did them in 5 hours on a very steep mountainside. That's 1.6 taps/minute, only stopped once for some doughnuts. I was safe at third many times today, anytime I slide down the mountain more than six feet I was safe. Longest slide was over twenty feet, that one had me a bit worried. A By 2:00 the sap was flowing into the tanks. Got the vacuum pump all hooked up this evening. It was only holding 10" so there must be a couple spiles off the t's on the flat, so I'm letting gravity do the work tonight. I should finish the flat and the other side of the road tomorrow morning, another 300-400 taps. Then I'll move down the valley to another sugarbush in the afternoon. We put all the taps in today with one 24 volt battery and one 19.2. Didn't need the spares we brought up. The sap tested just shy of 3% on the short hydrometer. Much better than last year. I was'nt sure if I wanted to tap early again, but the forecast is warm all week, cold the beginning of next week, and then warm again the end of the week. The short cold spell made up my mind. I'm not planning on boiling till tuesday night. Hopefuly by then I'll have a couple thousand gallons of sap to start things in the saphouse with a good amount of syrup the first boil.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Thats awesome Van i haven't put mine in yet but i'm really leaning toward it 3.5% sugar on the test tree i tapped which really makes me want to tap. i think im going to wait until after the rain storm..... time will tell i'm anxious to hear how the boiling comes out.

[mountainvan]

Short post, got to eat dinner then put the ro back together. RO tank is full of fresh sap ready to be turned into syrup. Vacuum pump is running well and the tanks should be full tomorrow morning. Got the big bush tapped out this morning, sap ladder is working great. A couple more things to do down the road then I'll tap those trees.

[Dave Y]

Mountainvan,
Good luck sounds like you have your ducks in a row. I will be interested in how things go.

[Valley View Sugarhouse]

How many taps do you have??/ I am consideringh the Jan tap next year??? I hope all goes well and you make a s*$t ton of syrup!!!!!

Andy

[eye8astonie]

We're in Whitney Point, NY and have just a little backyard operation. We tapped 26 trees Sunday afternoon, and had 40 gallons of sap by yesterday afternoon. They were still running like crazy last night. From the clarity I assume the sugar volume is low though.

We weren't going to start this early, but just got an offer on our house and looks like we're going to close in early March, so I figured I'd better get going if we're going to do any before we move! First 80 gallons are going in the carboy for a maple vanilla beer!

Hope everyone has a good season!
Duane

[mountainvan]

Had a good start to the boiling today. Ran 1,500 of sap through the ro, sweetened the pans and drew off about 10 gals of light amber. Didn't get to tapping any other trees, I had my hands full with the sap I had. I like to start out slow and make sure everything is working properly. One thing that was not was the rope to open the cover on the 24' smokestack. It wasn't attached. So I put a stepladder on the peak of the roof and climbed up. Sap is still flowing, thanks to the alamo, so I'll be boiling again tomorrow. Nice to be back making maple syrup.

[Dave Y]

Mountainvan.
sounds like you are off to a good start!

[TapME]

WOW. syrup in January that's great. Hope it stays for you.

[mountainvan]

Collected another 500 gals of sap today. RO'ed and boiled that down to 10 gals of syrup, a nice light medium amber. Flavor really came on today. Had some of the syrup I made yesterday on my corn flakes this morning, ver good, but todays!!. I always eat some, actually I go through gallons a year all by myself, before I sell it. Still have sap in tanks from today. Went up after boiling and the pump was off, ran out of gas, so I just left it off till tomorrow. I had sap flow from sunday afternoon till this afternoon. When I get the sap tomorrow I should end up with 3000 gals from 700 taps in three days. Boy do I love my vacuum pump! Went through 5 gals of gas for the motor. Gas is expensive, but for this application it's worth it. Weather looks good for sap flow till sunday, then back to winter. Hopefuly not like last year when it didn't really warm up again till march.

[mfchef54]

Mountainvan, Where abouts in the catskills? haven't tapped in a couple of years and it sounds like I'm behind already. Plan on starting on saturday. just a concrete block arch with some belted roasting pans.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

LOL

It's easy to see Van is already making syrup. Nearly everyone else wants it to stay cold.

Better to stay cold than get warm and by tommorrow evening, you will have already made 30%+ crop from the 700 taps in 3 days, not a bad start even if it gets cold.

[mountainvan]

I'm in Oliverea, western ulster county. I go to saugerties every saturday from june to november to the farmers market. I love the sour cream doughnuts at price chopper. come on up for a visit if you'd like.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Definitely go up for a visit, Van's operation is nice and it will make you appreciate his love for syruping when you take a look at how steep those mountains are!

Where about in saugerties are you? i live about 20 min over the bridge in Dutchess County.

Van, how cold has it been getting over there at night? My test tree stopped running it didn't get below freezing for the last 3 nights. Cold snap looks like a good prelude for me to tap

[mountainvan]

Had a laid back day today. Went to town this morning, ran tubing, and tapped more trees this afternoon. Had to do some thinking too. At times the vacuum in the woods was 0, even though et the pump it was 17. After some deductive thinking , and inspection of the releaser I figured the problem was, the releaser. I lubed the inside o-ring/rod, inside the white pipe on the top and it seems to be working good again. Manuals would be nice for such things. Temp. got down to 28 with the afternoon in the 40's. Weather looks nasty tomorrow, flood watch, high wind, and freezing rain tonight.

[mountainvan]

Collected 300 gals today, got it down to 5 gal med amber. It didn't get below 32 here last night, so when I went to the tanks nothing was coming in, same as last night with the vacuum on. Just to see what would happen I started up the vacuum, in a couple minutes I was getting sap. I love my vacuum pump. Trucks loaded with syrup for the market tomorrow. Still have to make sugars tonight. Syrup is filtering very easily this year. I've been using the same filters all week. I just take off the prefilters, spray the sand off, boil in permeate from the ro, and put back on the orlon. Still using the filter aid too.

[mountainvan]

Got another 300 gals today. Saps adding up, but believe it or not it was almost too warm this week. Went to another winter market today, sold most of the syrup I made this past week. That above anything else makes me happy I tapped. I also ate most of my Christmas pudding from Holland. Tomorrow is boiling and hanging out in the saphouse. Life is good. Amazing what difference of a couple years can make.

[andrew martin]

Van,

Have not been keeping up with your posts recently, glad to hear all is going well. I am looking forward to boiling tomorrow night, and possibly several days this week. Like you, we plow through syrup at our house, and we have been out of syrup for two months. We had ice cream for desert last night and my three year old wanted syrup on his vanilla ice cream. I told him we did not have any, and he told me (in a gentle way of course) that I needed to make some. I hope his wish comes true tomorrow night.

Looks like more snow is on the way for you guys.

Glad to hear you are doing well, Good luck.

AKM

[mfchef54]

pancake man, sent pm

[MaplePancakeMan]

looks like we have three storms lined up for us, today, thursday and saturday. then Cold for a week then i think its that time for me. Tapping time! I'm really excited especially after keeping up with Van's blog.


Congrats Van glad things are going well for you! What winter Markets do you go to?

[mountainvan]

Turned another 300 gals of sap into syrup today. Not sure how much I made, I left it in the filter tank to go watch football. Had a slow start this morning, the line from the ro to the back tank was full of water last night, full of ice this morning. Took a while with the torch to melt it. Had a nice visit from Mike and his son Jeremy this afternoon. Giants won, I was wrong Mike. Packers next week! Just got in from the sugarbush, saps still flowing! Temp is 33.7 and holding steady. Since this is the last flow for awhile I'm going to stay up till it gets below 32. Going to boil in a snowstorm tomorrow. I love watching the steam go up into the snow. I went to a winter market in New Paltz.

[Pete33Vt]

Great to hear all is well with you Van.Wish there was more time in a day I was just down in your area yesterday. Went to my parents house in Greencastle PA. Went straight down I-87, we stopped at the New Paltz service area on the way back, skipped by Ulster. How close are you to the thruway? Maybe someday I'll get a chance to swing by.
Good luck with the season.

[mfchef54]

yes van they did. go giants. thank you very mcuh for your time. my son was quite impressed with the old dairy pump. the trip has really excited him about this season. Makes me want to be ready early next year.

[jemsklein]

well you can never be to ready

[mountainvan]

I'm always ready, just not completely prepared. Collected another 400 gals this morning. Sap ran till past 11:00 last night. Stood out in the snow for awhile watching the sap come into the releaser. Only sounds were the hum of the engine and the releaser dumping. Feels kind of weird to be the only person out for miles around sometimes. Didn't boil it today, doctor visit, but will finish it off tomorrow. Plus put preserative in the ro, bring in the releaser, etc.. Then there's the other 2,000+ taps to inspect, tanks to clean, etc.. Round one has gone to me I think. I have the other vacuum pump in the saphouse Mike, your sons birthday coming up?

[mountainvan]

Finshed round one today. Drew off 12 gals today, along with the 4 from sunday, I bottles 16 gals. That brings the grand total of 36 gals made from 700 taps. I drained the sweet into buckets to keep till the next round. Cleaned out the evaporator, the saphouse tanks, and put the ro to sleep for awhile. Think I might take tomorrow off. Naa I'll go work on tubing.

[Grist Mill Maple]

hi, my son and i are new to the forum but have been reading the interesting conversations and questions. We are in the hudson valley area and are interesed in the local tapping talk.

[Sugarmaker]

Welcome Grist Mill Maple! I believe you came to the right place to jaw about maple. Its all here!

Van, I get tired just reading your posts!:) Good luck this season with maple and your health.

Regards,
Chris

[Grist Mill Maple]

Well thank you for the welcome. My son and I just realized that we know who MountainVan is, we visited him 2 years ago and he helped us out with some filter aid. That was the year we tapped in January and did very well.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Grist,
Welcome, where abouts in the hudson valley are you?

[mountainvan]

I remember who he is. Down by one of my favorite fishing holes. As for the filter aid, I still use it. For the entire week I never changed the cloth filter, just rinsed the prefilters and boiled in premeate from the ro. 1/4 cup aid to two gals syrup mixed and then poured on top of the filters. Any more, or less, then my filters clog too quickly. Chris, I should'nt make you tired. I try to inspire with my experiences! Maybe I'll turn all this writing into a book someday.

[New Hope Mapleman]

Just talked to one guy who put in some taps and had made 325+ gallons of all medium amber syrup. He might be off to a real great start. Said the sugar was 2.6 and normal was 2.0 for him. I'd be happy with 2.6!

[mountainvan]

Sap flowed a little today, mainly across the road on the south flowing mountainside. Northside didn't do anything. Sugar content went up to 2.5%, after this next coldspell it should gain some more. Not enough sap to mess with, I'll let freeze and get it next run.

[mountainvan]

Got my bush down the road all set to tap. Hooked the engine to the pump, the pump to the releaser, and plumbed the mainlines into it. Pulling 18" at the pump, 17 1/2" on the laterals off of the 3/4 mainline, and 16" off of the 1/2" mainline. Ran some more 5/16, added 15 taps. On the vacuum that should be another 5+ gallons of syrup. Every drop counts!!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

At the rate this weather is going, it may be a while before you tap any more trees. Sure is the most normal winter in about 4 years and if the last few weeks are any indication, it should be a good season. Sure is cold and a lot of snow. The most snow we have had is about 6" at one time, but it has snowed a lot of days with small or no accumulation.

[mfchef54]

well I did it. put out 40 buckets. started about 10 finished about 2. by the time we finished we could here the tap tap of the sap falling into the buckets. Wife and son helped. It was good to be outside.

[mountainvan]

Welcome to the 2008 sugaring season chef. I put in one tap this morning at the saphouse, no flow today. Weather for this week looks promising though. Ran some more mainline today, then went and got more tubing and bottles. Back inside, sold some syrup! Walked the bush down the road and found more maples. Figure if I spent the money for the vacuum set up, might as well get as many trees as possible there.

[mountainvan]

Ran more mainline and 5/16 yesterday. Added another 50 taps down the road. Laid up today with some bug. Once it warms up though I'll go up the road and check on sap flow.

[mountainvan]

Walked the bush we tapped already, sap was flowing a bit. Had the vac. pump going, found a couple leaks on the mountain. Fixed them and got 17" all the way up with 18" at the releaser. I'll have a hundred gals of ice, but it will keep the sap cold next week!

[mfchef54]

collected 20 gallons over past three days. slow to nothing.wind big factor I would guess. 3% sugar. Mountianvan what's your sugar at?

[mountainvan]

Tapped some more trees on the mountain today and ran more tubing down the road. Sap was trickling by 3:00, this weekend might start round two. Chef 3% is great. Havn't collected for awhile so not sure what the % is. I could live with 3%, more likely avg. of 2.5%.

[mountainvan]

Cleaned up the saphouse today and put the evaporator back together. I'm tapping my other bush with vacuum on it tomorrow, then starting on the smaller bushes and buckets sunday. So far today has been mainly sleet and not feezing rain.

[MaplePancakeMan]

I'm tapping tomorrow Van looks like awesome 8 days straight of sap weather. We had .7" of sleet then .3" of freezing rain followed by 1.14" of rain... crazy day temps were 30-33 all day

[mountainvan]

Tapped another 400 today. Big trees along the lane were not flowing much, but the trees on the hill were starting out nicely. Had enough off of the hill to start the vacuum and see if the 10' sapladder would work. I was doing my happy maple dance when I saw the first sap come into the releaser from the sapladder. Now for the bushes without vacuum and buckets.

[mountainvan]

Put in another 150 taps, tubing and some buckets. Walked the bush I tapped yesterday, sap was/is flowing well there. Found a couple leaks, now the system is nice and tight. Not too much sap from the other bushes today. Takes a while to warm up down by the creek and on the shady side of the mountain.

[mountainvan]

What a wild day I had here. 6:30 this morning on my way out to see if sap was flowing, bright flash across the creek. I thought no way was that lightning! As soon as the thought was done, ka-boom! Shook me and my house, and scared the bejeebers out of the cats. Went out and started up the pumps, 39 and light rain, a quick breakfast, then tapping in a thunderstorm. Not the brightest thing to do, but it was pretty cool. I've boiled during big storms, but never tapped in one, and in Feb. no less. Tapped two small tubing bushes, 50- 75 each, then tackled a hundred or more buckets. Then on to rinsing the ro and getting the overflow tanks cleaned. After all that went out and collected 600 gals of sap. It's really pouring in the tanks today. Round two has started with a flash and a bang! I'm really into it now.

[mountainvan]

Round two almost knocked me out. Up at 5 am yesterday, after getting to bed at 1 am, to check my vac pumps. Walked up to the pump, tanks, and releaser, releaser is full of sap. Dumping sap in little bits every couple seconds, tanks were almost full. Top mechanism of it had gone kaput. Luckily the dealer over in deleware county had one so I drove over there and got a new top for the releaser. Warrenty on the top is 5 years. Got the vac up and running by 9 am, and then started collecting sap. Collected 2,000 gals, enough to keep me busy for awhile. After boiling I went out to check the vacs, sap ran all night here. Backing into the saphouse driveway I clipped the fence with my truck. Luckily only took the issan lettering off the door. Left the v8 n. That's when I called it a night and left syrup to be bottled for today. Collected 800 gals today, all from the vacs, boiled it down and bottled 25 gals with more in the canner, filter tank, buckets, etc.. That's why there's a tomorrow. Have around 400 gals of sap to get tomorrow after a doctor visit.

[jemsklein]

mountainvan how many taps do you have

[mountainvan]

That's a good question. I have 1,200+ on vacuum, 300 on tubing, and then ?? I had help tapping sunday and I was busy answering her questions that I did'nt keep track of how many we tapped. I'll have to go through this week when it's cold and count them. I'm guessing 1,800 - 2,000. I still have to tap my biggest bush not on vacuum, and a couple more bushes with buckets.

[mountainvan]

Collected another 300 gals today after a doctor visit/ town run. Line from the ro to the back tank was left with water in it last night, yep I forget too many things, frozen solid today. I didn't feel like messing with it so I'm letting nature be my ro. I'll pump it into the back tank tomorrow, freeze some more then boil it sunday. Bottled 20 gals of syrup this evening for the market tomorrow. Made 40 gals this last run. Getting close to a hundred gals so far. Picked up 800 ft of 1/2 poly pipe today. It was cheaper than the 5/16 from ther maple dealers. I'm planning on adding more taps to my big bush. By the end of the week it should be 1,000 taps there. That will make me happy!

[mfchef54]

So glad I tapped "early" two gallons so far. boiled for 8 hours outside on wed. thanks to the person who suggested the leaf blower. working out the bugs but it is making things faster as long as wood is dry used ez up to keep the rain out. but steam just too much to see the pans so for a while i was doing it by feel. finished on stove inside. haven't checked taps since thursday after noon. things seemed to be slowing down in my neck of the woods. had to work whole weekend so hope to get back to boiling on sunday night.
van sorry about the truck.

[ziggy]

Tapped yesterday. Lines are tight. Vacuum is 22 in hg at the tap hole . All I need now is for more sap.

[mountainvan]

Ran the sap I got friday through the ro this morning, lines thawed out yesterday, and boiled it down for 10 gals of light. Had another great day at the market yesterday. Taking it easy tomorrow.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Hope you're maple trees faired better than some of mine did in the wind we had today. Walked back in the woods and saw large branches down. Had a gust on my meter at the farm register in at 79.8 mph. Seemed isolated, but enough to cause stress to the tree. That was some squall that moved through around 430

[maple flats]

I was out putting up mainline yesterday and was quite comfortable and at 12:30 I decided to scout out where my next mainline was going, just accross the road, I only got about 300' into my survey and it hit. The wind and snow came almost instantly. I thought it just a gust because it was so sudden, so I turned my back to the wind to wait it out. Within a minute it was a complete white out. After a couple of minutes I decided to return to where I had been wire tying mainline up, get my tie wires and tool, and return to the truck. I had to walk straight into the wind. The wind was blowing so hard I could not open my eyes to see where I was walking and had to turn and back into the wind seeing where i had been. When this wind hit I was about 500' from my truck and it took me 20 minutes to get to the truck. I normally drive from there to my home, about 4 miles away in about 7 minutes, this time it took 25 minutes, and many times I had to hope the road was there between the utility poles and an occassional tree. About an hour later it was clear again, but returned several times. I spent the rest of the day making drops up in and tending the fire.

[mfchef54]

we had the same gust over on this side of the river. Buckets all over the place.Two old pines came down on the other side of the road from where we were tapping. up to 88 taps. taps froze right quick once the wind started. Maples all still standing, no damage

[mountainvan]

Walked my two biggest bushes today. No damage from the wind the other day other than some lids blown off of buckets. Found another nice patch of maples up the hill on my 400 bush, soon to be more!

[MaplePancakeMan]

I think the maples are all flocking to you van, they hear how nice you treat them, shiny clean taps and beautifully colored tubing. What more could a maple want?

[super sappy]

VAN - Are you using the ribbed sanitary taps?

[mountainvan]

Not sure what you mean ss. I have 5/16 ipl taps. MPM, yep all my maples love me.

[mountainvan]

Added more taps today. Getting around the mountain was tough with the ice on top of the snow. Tapped the trees as I got to them, by 4:00 the smaller trees were starting to flow. I should finish that little project tomorrow, then possibly tap the rest of my trees sunday or monday.

[MaplePancakeMan]

i'd bet it was rough van, especially with the winds howling too. I got my filter press ship shape and running like a charm. it was amazing, hoping for a good run this weekend and beginning of next week.

[mountainvan]

Finished adding taps down the road and up the mountain. I could have kept going but ran out of everything. Plus my battery went dead. The further I got up the mountain the more maples there were. Now I know where to expand for 2009. It was a bit frustrating that on state land there are a lot of big maples, but it's forever wild and I can't even look at them. Well, I could see them.Sap was just dripping out of the mainlines today, it really wants to let loose. Looks like sunday night/monday will be a big run here.

[ziggy]

Mountainvan I am not looking to send this thread in a different direction, but here goes. If you want to tap those big maples on state land you need to contact your local Maple Producers association soon. There is a possibility of us getting the rights to tap on state land. The NYSMPA is looking for producers who want to tap on state land. The state goverment is currently not willing to say yes, but is willing to listen. We also have a state senator who is asking how we can increase the number of taps in NYS. So now is the time and this may be our one chance. So please contact your local maple producers association.

[mountainvan]

Started the vacuum at 11:00 last night, gased them up at 5 am, not much sap in the tanks then. Went back to bed for awhile, then back to the tanks at 9. Big bush tanks were full, down the road had 400 gals. Collected and walked tubing till. Started boiling at 5:30 finished at 9:30 with 20+ gals of nice medium. Then went and got more sap, it's still flowing. Have to stay up till it freezes. Should end up with 2,000+ gals from todays run, and I still hav'nt got all my taps in. If this keeps up this could be a great year.

[MaplePancakeMan]

van thats awesome, i'm finishing my tapping tomorrow should put another 150-200 out. I haven't checked my buckets yet since early this morning but they were running very well. Cracked freezing around 8pm.


Waking up in a few hours to go clean the pans, pour the sweet back in and collect all of the nice sap

Where do you get you're glass bottles just, looking for a price reference.

[mountainvan]

Picked up another 900 gals today. Ended up bottling 20 gals medium with the canner still almost full. Filtered this runs syrup on one flat orlon and five prefilters, plus one cup filter aid. Nothing went wrong this run either! All the pumps, the ro, etc. worked great. Tomorrow I'm going to drain and clean evaporator to keep the grade up.

[mountainvan]

Tapped several hundred more trees today. By 1 the sap was starting to flow in my west/south facing bushes. Went and turned on the vacuum down the road, when I turned it off at 6:00 there was about 300 gals of sap. Surprised me, it was 12 degrees last night but the sap still flowed. I still have a hundred + taps left on tubing for tomorrow, then some more buckets. I'm already looking at more trees in this bush for next. I plan on putting vacuum there next year so the wheels were turning.

[mountainvan]

I felt like Gomer Pyle this afternoon. Suprise suprise, 14 degrees at 7 am and sap started flowing at 12:00 when it was up to 40 in the sun. Finished tapping the steep bush today. I think the mountain was trying to get me to leave. There was a liitle snow with the ground frozen solid and slick. I did a couple of belly flops, but luckily I bounce.

[troes30]

where are u located mountainvan?

[RUSTYBUCKET]

Been awhile since last post but we're still at it here. 50+ taps in, one run so far with a disappointing yield. 160 gallons sap with 2.5 gallons syrup. Sugar content little less than 2%. Checking evaporator for leaks.

[mountainvan]

Picked up a couple hundred gals of sap this evening. Going to be making syrup again tomorrow! I'm in the Oliverea valley of the Catskills.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Van surprisingly enough, i actually was colder than you the last two nights.

2.3 on saturday night and 6.8 on sunday night sap took a real long time to thaw out. It barely ran and what was in the buckets were frozen solid. This is where i wish i had tubing.

I pulled everything off the evaporator and cleaned up again, filtered the sweetened sap, hoping to improve grade, if thats possible i've only made fancy/extremely light thus far. I think my total is 13.5 gallons right now.

I'm really bummed with the weather, stay safe on that ice don't want you getting hurt the trees need you.

[mountainvan]

Made another 8 gallons today. Bottled that up in glass and what was left in the canner in quarts. Brings me up to 120 gals bottled so far this year. Waited for the evaporator to cool off, then drained the pans and cleaned all the gunk out with hot water and some elbow grease.. Poured the sweet from the flue pan though a flat filter back into the pan. I still have to clean the niter off the front pan. Drained all the various lines and put the ro membranes to sleep for a couple days. Snowing hard right now and then cold till next sunday. Monday is the day for sap so far this season.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Seems as if the rain snow line is literally just north of me about 5 minutes north. Looks like you will get a decent dumping of snow out of this one.

[mountainvan]

Dug out my tanks in the woods and made a nice path to each one. Packed down the snow to the buckets, now I'm ready for round four! We got about a foot of snow in the valley, more on the mountain. I started up yesterday to walk tubing, the snow got over my knees, no snowshoes, thought better of it and went back down. Figured no use wearing myself out when I'll be plenty tired next wednesday. What do they say in PA,"big sap, big sap, big sap, no whammys"! Hopefully that's next week here.Took my wife out to dinner for our 20th wedding anniversary. It was either tonight or wednesday in the saphouse. She chose tonight, go figure.

[mfchef54]

congrats Van. slow restart for us. tomorrow should bring in some more. collected 16 gallons today. do you really think wed. is the day. lol

[maple flats]

Congrats mountanvan, how many years is this? My bride and i are at 40+ and counting.

[mountainvan]

Tapped some trees on buckets today. Sap was flowing by 1:00 so I started up my pump down the road. Small trees are thawed, big ones will run tomorrow! Planning on tapping more with buckets tomorrow, I'll have to put a 30 gal container on a sled to collect till more snow melts and I can get my truck in, but stuff like that makes sugaring fun! Maple flats, 20 years married this week. You got me beat.

[maple flats]

I've just been at it twice as long. Believe me, it does get much better as time goes on.

[mountainvan]

Saps flowing again for the start round 4! Finished hanging my buckets today, another 100+ taps, and added some trees to my vacuum up the road. Walked the tubing in my vac. bush down the road, found a couple chews but nothing too bad. Cleaned all the tanks around the saphouse and then went and got a couple hundred gals of sap to start filling them up. Sugar % is up to 2.7%, that makes me very happy. Rinsed the preservative out of the ro membranes. I'm pretty sure I'm ready for a whole lot of sap this week.

[mountainvan]

Went out to gas up the pumps till the wee early morning, I'll be back out at 2:00 am. Came back with two tanks of sap, everything is flowing hard now. RO tank is full, so if I get more tonight it will go in the overflow tanks. Stars are absolutely amazing tonight. I turned off my headlamp, stared up at the stars and listened to the vacuum humming along and the releaser giving its whoosh into the tank. Tonight, life is good!

[MaplePancakeMan]

thats awesome van!

[Riverdale]

Finally time for boil #1 here in Del. Co. today. Had around 150 gal. of sap last night around 9, but an empty evaporator...not worth firing up. At least 350 gal. this morning, grandfather will fire the rig this morning I'm sure....he just got back from Florida on Sunday and is itching to get to work. Spent awhile last evening putting floats together etc. for him in the sap house, all he needs to do is light a match! Hope everyone has a good boil, still seemed to be running strong this morning, man I wish I had a vaccum though!

[mountainvan]

Started collecting at 6 this morning, just came in after a busy day.Collected 1,800 gals by 10:00 and figured that was enough for today. RO'ed and boiled it down to 40 gals medium amber. I'm starting to make a dent in all the 5 gal containers in the saphouse. Most of the nonvacuum taps stopped flowing by noon, the bush down the road didn't want to give anymore sap by 5:00 even with the vacuum, and the big bush is still going strong. So it's back out at 2am to check the pump, and give the motor some juice. I was a bit worried at 6:00 when the big bush didn't have much sap, tapped there in Jan., but when I went back at 9:00 the tanks were full. Guess it just took a while for those big trees facing north to thaw out. So the good news is that the trees I tapped in Jan are flowing as well as the trees I tapped yesterday. Time for dinner.

[mountainvan]

Collected another 900 gals this morning, 600 from the trees I tapped in January. Got to love the vacuum pump! Turned on the other pump at 10:00 just to see what would happen. Went back to the saphouse for a bit, back down the road and the sap was flowing there again. Guess those trees just wanted the night off. There's about 400 gals in the tanks from today, which makes for over 3,000 gals of sap for this run. Not a bad start for round 4. Finished another 20 gals of medium today. Had a neighbor get some sap off of the ro to sent to Cornell for product testing. Her idea is to make a healthy mass produced beverage from maple sap. Time to take my wife out for our anniversary.

[mountainvan]

Got a head start on tomorrow, collected 700 gals this evening. Sap was flowing very well here today. Walked tubing, cleaned tanks, sold syrup, and tapped some more trees. The trees just keep calling me,"Van, I'm so close. Why haven't you tapped me?" Think I may be getting sap happy! Brought a vacuum gauge up to the top of my biggest bush without vacuum. 300 taps on a very steep hill, last tree is 1/2 mile up the mountain. Vacuum, 0. Sap was flowing better later in the day, so I'll try again.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Van,

I would think the mainline would need to be close to full to get a vaccum read.

[mountainvan]

Made another 30 gals today from 1,400 gals of sap. Had the tanks at my bush up the road empty at 1:00 pm, went to gas up the pump at 6:00 and the tanks were full. I knew the sap was flowing well, but 600 gals of sap from 800 taps in 5 hours, that suprised me. Especially since these are the trees I tapped in January. I walked that bush today and found a line disconnected by a falling limb. Guess that made the sap gods happy. So I collected that 600 gals plus another 300 tonight. RO is just finishing rinsing so I may run that sap through tonight. I still have to go check the pumps one more time, then bed! Hope everyone else is getting lots of sap today.

[mountainvan]

Up at 6:00 to start collecting, ended up putiing 1,800 gals through the ro. Boiled most of the concentrate and finished 40 gals of medium amber. I'm really starting to put the bulk up for canning in the summer and fall. Saps still flowing here, at least for another hour or two before it freezes up again. Went to check the pumps an hour, and the tanks were almost full again. That's another 1,000 gals for tomorrow.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Van thats awesome. the saps really been flowing well here too, from 200 taps at the one bush i collected over 1000 gallons in 4 days, not too shabby i just bottled up 14 gallons today of really light medium amber

[Riverdale]

We're up to 26 gallons (all medium) on the year so far, looks like good weather for the next week too, except for tomorrow. Just added another 145 taps so we're around 550...I think we're done drilling holes for this year. We've already made almost half of what we did last year.....I hope this keeps up!

[mountainvan]

Good to hear the guys close to me are doing well, and guys far away. The weather report here is saying good sap weather for the next week or two. No really hot or bitterly cold days. I had a fun day yesterday. Went to go collect down the road, came back with 400 gals, but there was a nice big tree across the road. Luckily not one of the maples. So me being a boy scout, I got the saw and went and cut it up. That killed an hour and, but if there was a fire at the house down the road it would have burnt to the ground before the fire company got to it. Went to start up the ro, checked the line coming in, frozen. Hot water and the torch took care of that. Went up the road to get another 400 gals, came back and had people waiting for a tour. Another hour, but nice syrup sales. Start to get the evaporator ready, line from the back tank to the rig, froze solid. Get that thawed and lunch, some more people stop by. All said and done I started boiling at 6:00 pm and finished at 10:30 with another 20 gals of medium in bulk. Today I have to go to tsc and get more vacuum oil and a flat garden wagon. A driveway to one of my bushes is gone after saturdays flood. So i'm going to put a 50 gal container on a wagon to collect the sap. Pull the wagon to the gully and my pump should reach.

[RUSTYBUCKET]

Bottled up 8 gallons of medium last night. Total for the year is about 10 gallons.

[mountainvan]

Started getting ready for the NYSMP maple weekend, 29-30 march. Called all of what's going on. Just for the heck of it I invited New York state senator Clinton. I have one radio interview scheduled so far about the maple weekend and maple sugaring. My wife is hosting a maple party this weekend for friends and coworkers. I should get some beer out of it. Spent the rest of the day cleaning tanks and the saphouse. Sap ran a little today, but only a couple hundred gallons. Rusty, how many taps you have out?

[mountainvan]

Collected 450 gals today, 2% sugar. Drew off 8 gals this afternoon, creeping towards 300 gals for the year so far. Sap was running a little today, probably the same amount of sap as I got today. Snowed all day here but didn't stick till this evening. Walked my big bush this afternoon, had one lateral down. Couldn't figure out why, no down limbs or deer tracks. I'm thinking bigfoot. My wife seems to be inviting the whole town over on saturday. Weather is leaning towards lots of sap so I'll be boiling all day.

[mountainvan]

Didn't get any sap today, there was sap in the tanks but I decided today would be better spent cleaning. Drained and cleaned the evaporator, forth time this year. Made dark yesterday and should go up to med. or light tomorrow. Got all the tanks cleaned and the saphouse spotless. Got to look good for the visitors this weekend. Bottled what was left in the canner. Tossed a couple cords in the woodshed too. Sap started flowing at 11 and is still going. Have to go check the pumps and see if I need to bring any back. Tanks up the road about 1/2 full, tanks down the road full! Checked buckets across the road, 1/2 full. Should have 1000+ gals to go through tomorrow.

[RUSTYBUCKET]

mountainvan,

Being a backyard hobby outfit, I'm only running 50 taps right now. Collected another 150 gallons yesterday. Total so far is 12 gallons, not counting yesterdays boil which needs to be bottled. Shooting for 20-25 gallons. I see maple weekend is coming on. If not busy, might surprise you with a visit but I hope to be boiling myself.

Russ

[MaplePancakeMan]

50 taps and 150 gallons, nice turn out on those taps. My trees are running well today but i expect them to shut down with the high temps and lows forecasted to stay above freezing.

Processed 575 gallons on wednesday 17 hrs straight of boiling pulled a delightful 14 gallons off the evaporator though, heating and bottling that right now.

[troes30]

just gettin goin here in the Lowville area. sap ran well this afternoon, but took awhile to thaw the lines. we have about 2000 gallons probably. might boil monday. with the RO thats only like 650 of concentrate...so we have enough sap to fill the pans. supposed to be warm yet tomorrow so we should get good sap now that we're thawed out. no one has boiled up here yet...most are just starting to tap. we're a little ahead of the game for once this year.

[mountainvan]

Collected 1,200 gals at 2% this morning. Just finished in the saphouse boiling down the concentrate off of the ro. Bottled 21 gallons, from extra dark to almost light. Still have to rinse the tanks and check the pumps. Sap was flowing very strong at 12:00, but by 5:00 it slowed. Maybe the trees know it's going to snow. Time to get back to work.

[troes30]

trees ran great yesterday afternoon but it didnt freeze last nite so they didnt do alot today. i gathered up about 1500 gallons...tested 3.5 but we had alot of ice in the tanks. supposed to be cooler here now for a couple days, so we have time to get the odds and ends buttoned up.

[mountainvan]

Collected 1,800 gals today. Started at midnight getting a load from the bush up the road so the tanks didn't overflow. Got up at 6:00 to get started collecting the rest. Gravity has pretty well shut down but the vacuum is still sucking the sap out of the trees. Ended up with making 34 gals of light amber today. Only thing that went wrong today is that I almost got my truck stuck in the mud. It's the wrong time of the year to drive across a wet field with a tank full of sap. Good thing I have four wheel drive.

[mountainvan]

Collected another 1,000 gals today, pretty much all from the vacuum bushes. Ran it through the ro to 6% and boiled 260 gals concentrate to 20 gals medium amber. Fell asleep last night at 9:00, guess I was tuckered out. Went out at 3:00am to check the pumps. It's tough getting out the door at that time, but when the sap flows I goes.

[mountainvan]

I actually got to civilization this afternoon. To the big city of Kingston, NY. Had to get birthday presents for my daughter and gas for my vacuum pumps. Yes my daughter came first. Spent the morning cleaning tanks and the front pans of the evaporator. The syrup pan had a 1/2" of light sugar sand covering the bottom of the whole pan. I've never had as much sugar sand in the pan even after over 100 gals between cleanings. Started up the vacuum pumps at 1:00 and turned them of at 7:00 after I got back. Probably 400-500 gals in the tanks. Not a big run but worth the gas to run the pumps. Spent $80 on gas today, half for the truck and half for the pumps. Figure that's not bad for $4,000 worth of syrup. Spent some time this morning looking at sapflow numbers. Last flow I got 1.69 gals / tap on my big bush, same as I got in January, 2.0 for my big nonvacuum bush, and 3 for my other vacuum bush. Seems I don't need to ream quite yet.

[mountainvan]

Just got back in for a little bit, got to go get some sap after dinner. Spent most of the day reaming the taps I did in January. Since I have the figures of gals of sap/tap of every run this year, thought I'd do it and get some concrete evidence that reaming works, at least for me. Looks to be another big run this week, saps flowing very well now. I should get over 400gals finished syrup by the end of this run.

[mountainvan]

Collected 900 gals this evening, just from the vacuum bushes, everything else I'll get tomorrow morning. Running it through the ro tonight so it won't have to work as hard tomorrow. 34 degrees and snowing right now, but the saps still flowing good.

[Riverdale]

Update from Delaware County....sap is flowing strong! Up to 54 gal. on the year on 400 taps, the 150 we added 2 weeks ago hasnt thawed out yet! Made 10 gal. of real nice light over the weekend after last weeks cold spell. Only one batch off last night, found 200 gal. of sap this morning for my grandfather to start with before I get home from work. Sales are great too!

[mountainvan]

Ulster County did good today. Collected 2,200 gals of sap from this run so far. Vacuum pumps are still pulling the sap in and the buckets are dripping so slowly. Started collecting at 8:00 and by 12 I had 1,000 gals in the tanks plus 300 gals of concentrate in the back tank from last nights collection. Boiled from 2:00 to 10:30, went and got some sap while my wife watched the evaportor this evening. Ended up filling a 38 gal drum with medium amber. Right now all I need is sleep.

[mountainvan]

Had another busy day yesterday. After filling the gas tanks on the motors for the vacuum at midnight I finially got to sleep. It was supposed to go below freezing , it stayed at 36 all night, so I had a lot more sap than I thought I would. When I went up to my big bush one of the covers had blown off a tank and from the road it looked like there was a little pond in the field. Tanks were full, actually overflowing! Pumped out 200 gals and started the pump up again, it had ran out of gas, sap was shooting in making the releaser shake. Got another 400 gals from there in the morning and another 600 gals from the other taps, mainly my other vacuum bush. Went back to the big bush and got another 300 gals for a total of 1,500 gals. Had to clean out the front pan again yesterday, it had 1/2" of butterscotch pudding sugarsand. Put the syrup from the front pan in a big pot, got it to boiling and filtered it thinking I would put it back in the front pan. Checked the sugar content, 70%. So I made 5 gals of syrup without knowing it. Here's the lucky part of my day. Started the fire in the evaporator, heard an unfamilier sound, looked in, and the front pan was bare. Pulled the plugs between the pans and just missed a little disaster. Once again my not leaving the evaporator till everything is boiling well and sap is flowing in paid off. Ended up making 15 gals last night. I still have some concentrate in my back tank from yesterday so it's out to boil.

[mountainvan]

Finished with the sap from yesterday. Made 18 gals of dark amber. I got 30 gallon jugs back from a customer this week, they took 10 filled, yesterdays and todays syrup filled them back up with a little left over for some quarts. Drained and cleaned the flue pan again this afternoon. That should get me back up to medium. Tomorrow I'm taking off! Going to town and take my daughter out for her birthday. Perfect timing for some cold weather.

[mountainvan]

Spent most of today cleaning tanks and fixing tubing. Sap flowed some in the southwest facing bushes. Turned on the vac down the road for the afternoon. Just got back from turning it off and looks to have 200 gals in the tank. Tossed more wood in the woodshed from the auxillary pile. Going to finish reaming tomorrow in the big bush.

[mountainvan]

Saps flowing in the Catskills again. Everything but my north facing bush is pumping out the sap right now. Just came in from refreshing the tapholes down at my 2nd vac. bush. Sap was flowing ok, but going in another 1/2" was like turning on the sap spigot. Gave every hole and spile a fresh rinse with alcohol. I sat and watched the sap come into the releaser for a good 10 minutes, instant gratification! Sent syrup out by the snail mail and delivered to one of my commercial customers. Tomorrows back to making more syrup! Life is good.

[mountainvan]

Collected 500 gals today, lost some to an valve left open. Ran it through the ro and boiled it down to 8 gals. Didn't check the grade but it had a nice strong maple smell, so I'm guessing extra dark.

[mountainvan]

Went to bed last night temp was 36, at 2 am it was 33, and when I got up at 6 it was snowing! I let the pumps run out of gas last night, could'nt get myself out the door at 2 am to refuel them. Ended up not mattering with the snow anyway. When I went out at 6:00 to start collecting the sap wasn't running. By 9:00 it was going pretty good. Ended up collecting 1,300 gals of 2% sap. Ran it through the ro to 6.5%, ended up with 350 gals concentrate. Love my ro. I do think I'll need new membranes next year. My 250/hr is doing 180/hr, at least it's still working. Started drawing off extra dark at 2:00, canned 6 gals in quarts, ended with medium at 8:00. The drum that's so close to full will probably end up dark amber. I went over 400 gals made for the year so far. So this is my best production year in 15 years of making maple syrup, and to think I started with 4 taps and a electric fryer! Saps still flowing, got to go get it!

[Riverdale]

Congrats, mountainvan, on your new high production mark!

Had a good run yesterday, took off 11 gals., all medium. Started the day looking like it was headed to dark, but the final draw was a very light medium once the fresh sap was through the system. Hopefully there will be a decent run today, tomorrow and Saturday look pretty iffy with no sun and snow.
Up to 85 gal. on the year now. Can't wait to break the century mark!

[mountainvan]

Collected 1,000 gals so far today, ro'ed up to 7%. I have to go out to my big bush after dinner to get more. When I was collecting early I got to my biggest gravity bush to find only 100 gals in the tank. Climbed up the mountain and found tubing laying on the ground and one section of mainline disconnected. My best guess is deer were in a big hurry yesterday and plowed right through. After lunch I went up the mountain and finished refreshing the taps at my big bush. I was planning on boiling tomorrow but we're supposed to get almost a foot of snow tomorrow and cold saturday so I may save it for the maple weekend.

[mountainvan]

Went and got another 900 gals and it's still flowing hard. Looks like I'll have enough to boil tomorrow and for the weekend.

[mountainvan]

No snow. Rain 34 all night, sap flowed all night. I've never had so much sap. Back tank is full of concentrate so I switched the pipes for the ro outlets and am filling the permeate tank with concentrate. Saps still flowing!! Got to go get more sap!!

[MaplePancakeMan]

Thats crazy Van and good on both accounts. Lots of sap = lots of syrup and no snow = much more people for maple weekend!!! Awesome!

[mountainvan]

Man am I wiped. Just got in from the saphouse, only boiled 5 hrs, but the rest of the day was rough. Collected another 1,600 gals today and there's still 1,000+++ gals in the woods. Had to take my son to the doctor today, almost an hour there and an hour back plus an hour at the doctors. That took most of the afternoon, but that's what dads are for. Finished one barrel and got another half full tonight, still medium to almost light.

[mountainvan]

Had a good day here in Oliverea, Ny. Collected 500 gals this morning, took a sap shower in the process. Started cleaning the flues with the brush and it came off of the pipe getting stuck. I had to climb in the firebox to pull it out. Now I wet and covered in ashes. I decided to try running the 6% concentrate back through the ro and see what happened. It was strange having the concentrate flow higher than the permeate, but it got up to 12% in the back tank that feeds the evaporator. I ran another 700 gals of sap through the ro to 6%, so it probably rounded down to 9% going in all day. Ended up making 25+ gals of dark amber today. I had about 40 visitors to the saphouse for the openhouse. Best thing is they all bought lots of syrup. Tomorrow looks to be more laid back. All the sap from this last run is syrup, ro'ed, or going through the ro tomorrow. I collected over 4,000 gals of sap in 3 days. A couple more runs like this and I will be all set for year.

[mountainvan]

Just finished up a little while ago from a very busy day. I had to take off the front pan again and clean it, sugarsand is thick this year. The syrup is filtering very easily though, I only changed the prefilters the last three days, actually scooped out the sand and sprayed them with hot and put them back on the orlon. I ran 63 gallons of syrup through the same orlon filter. Made another 20 gals today, dark amber to extra dark. Lost count of people coming in the saphouse today at 200, we had a parking lot on the lawn and lots of cars on the side of the road. We sold lots of syrup!!. Luckily a friend came to help for the day and my wife and daughter were out most of the day. If it had been just me by 12:00 I would have gone and hid in the woods, it was nuts! Most people had heard about the NY maple weekend on NPR. I was one of the closests maple producers fron NYC, so we had a lot of city folk. Tomorrows cleaning tanks and the evaporator in the morning and then collecting sap in the afternoon.

[troes30]

i'm glad maple weekend is over...we had to save our sap all week too make sure we had boiling all day. went pretty well actually. we made around 180 gallon of high medium. has anyone heard bulk prices? it froze hard last nite again but is supposed to be good weather all week. this should be the big week. i'll check back in but we should do 1000 gallons this week. how has the sugar for everyone been? our is at least 2/3 of a point higher than usual. of course fuel oil is 50% higher...but the better sugar helps. gonna be 55 tuesday then drop back so we'll be flooded.

[220 maple]

troes30

I recently sold three barrels bulk. I recieve 2.35 DA and 2.25 B, I was paid a extra 5 cent a pound because I delivered. The purchaser is a syrupmaker with a very good market for his syrup. He told me he has already left a standing order for 1000 gallons more with a broker in Pa. The broker in Pa. quoted him the following prices. 2.50 fancy 2.40 med. 2.30 dark 2.20 B, he did not tell me what C price was I'm hoping 2.00 to 2.10.

Mark 220 Maple

[mountainvan]

Collected 800 gals today, mainly from my buckets and gravity tubing. I got 300 from my vacuum bush down the road without the vacuum on. If I had had a chance to go down and turn it on it would have been 500-600. My big bush stayed frozen being north facing. Finished refreshing all my taps this morning, except the ones I tapped in march, so I should get some good sap volume this week. It was snowing hard for awhile this morning then turned to pouring rain. Made for a soggy day. I boiled this evening and made 13 gals of extra dark. Time to go gas the pumps for the night.

[mountainvan]

I feel like the leader of the A-team Hannibal Smith today. I love it when a plan comes together! Collected 2000 gals of 2% sap this morning. Ran it through the RO to 6.5% and boiled it to 32 gals of medium amber. If I had not refreshed the taps I would have had much less sap that would have made grade c. If I had not tapped early it would'nt matter, but I like tapping early. Draining and cleaning the evaporator got the grade up from extra dark yesterday to medium today. Pumps are still running and will be till tomorrow morning early.Everything worked like it is supposed to, including me! I'm going out now to collect some sap so they don't overflow before tomorrow.

[troes30]

thanks for the info. those prices seem low but it depends on the buyer i guess. i sold some of last years syrup in february for 2.60...that was a high medium. but it will depend on the market. we're just gettin rollin here. boiled tonite...made probably another 100 gallon. cant quite make light yet. should be a big week according to the weatherman. we'll see...

[mountainvan]

Took it a little easy today. Collected 1,000 gals, took all day with bring releasers back to the saphouse, rinsing out tanks once they were empty, and gernerally just puttsing around. Saps still going through the ro, looks to have 100 gals left. I went out at 5:00 am to turn the pumps of, it was 31, and turned them back on at 11:00. Just turned them off a little bit ago. It does'nt look like I'll have to collect until tomorrow afternoon after some more sap has come into the tanks. On a side note I went to our local gas station to get some gas for the pumps. He doesn't sell gas anymore. He said it cost $37,000 to fill up his tanks, COD, and that he ended up making a 2%, $740, profit off of the gas. He didn't think it was worth his time to do it. I guess the indepedent small town gas stations are becoming a thing of the past.

[dhibbeln]

Dang,
There is a real scary impplication in that. Rural area's with no gas...yikes.
There are almost no chain's around us, except for a convience store chain called stewarts...

[mountainvan]

Started boiling early today, had steam out the cupola by 7:30. Usually I collect and then boil, today was a nice change of pace. I really enjoy watching the steam go up the mountain on clear cold mornings. Finished another barrel of medium and did a couple 5 galllon pails of dark today. Took the front pans off and cleaned them till the bottoms were nice and shiney again. Cleaned all the tanks around the saphouse and then went and got 1,000 gals of sap this evening. The sap is still flowing strong right now, close to freezing but not there yet. I'll get back into the routine tomorrow because I only got my vacuum bushes not the buckets and gravity tubing. Had a guy who said he was with NYS ag+ markets check out my operation and buy a quart to check for lead. He said he had been here before, but I had a hard remembering him.

[mountainvan]

Ended up with1,200 gals of sap, still 2% sugar. Finished 25 gals of extra dark this afternoon. Went out this evening and collected 1,000 gals for tomorrow.

[mountainvan]

Collected 1,300 gals between last night and today. Got through all of it but 200 gals today. I definitly need new membranes for my ro, permeate is at 1.5gal/hr and concentrate at .8gal/hr at 5% sugar. Sap was1.5% so that's almost triple. For most of the day I had 2" in the back tank, that's 27 gals with the concentrate coming in steady, so I fired nomally but kept an eye on it. At one point the tank was dry and the only thing feeding the evaporator was the ro feed, no room for error with that. I increased the flow to the back tank and slowed down on the boil till it got up to 1" in the back tank. Less room for error but it worked well. Ended up making 18 gals of extra dark. Gravity flow has shut down as well as the vacuum bush down the road. It was drizzling in the releaser but with the sun on the tanks it would have spoiled very quickly, so I shut it off. The vac. up the road is was still flowing well at 3:00 when I went and got more sap, so now it's time to go check the pump and see if it's still flowing.

[troes30]

looks like this year is gonna be short...again. well at least its good for the price. we boiled last nite for 2 hours...made 86 gallons. gotta love that new RO. its been running a high medium still. sap totals are down but sugar content is up...maybe it'll work out. supposed to be 55 and sunny tomorrow with a light freeze tonite...should mean good things.

[mountainvan]

Collected 600 gals last night, ran it through the ro this morning and boiled it down this afternoon. Made 12 gals of grade b, still no hint of buddiness. My big bush was flowing today so I'll have some to boil tomorrow too.

[troes30]

yah this year is suckin bad. no freeze in sight on the ten day forecast. ive got 35% of my sap i had last year. and last year wasn't that great. my sugar is still higher than it was all of last year though. hows everyone else doin?

[MaplePancakeMan]

I'm at 300% more production from the same amount of taps as last year. I started early feb and ended about a week and a half ago, flowed fast and hard.

[mountainvan]

Collected 400 gals of sap this morning, almost all from my bush up the road with the vacuum. Didn't get to boil till late this afternoon. I had to go to the accountant for the tax stuff. Unfortunatly he's 40 miles away on the other side of the county. On the way there I passed a saphouse boiling so I stopped in and visited for awhile. Started boiling at 3:30 and was out the door by 6:00 with another 8 gals of b in the canner. Tonight might get cold enough to get the sap going again tomorrow. If not the weather looks like it might get cold again this weekend. I read on someone elses post in Vermont that they were going to hold off cleaning tubing to see what happens. Sounds like a good idea. No buddiness yet and I havn't made any really nasty stuff to sent up to Bascoms for Mrs Butterworth to mix with her evil corn syrup! MPM that's great you got 300% more, you must have been out sweet talking your trees.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Yes Sir, i took a few of the good producers out on a date and introduced them so they can make baby maples.


Nevertheless, last year i had poor timing for tapping then it was really cold and i only really got one good run of 500 gallons then it spiked warm and it was over for me. This year i consistently was taking 300+ gallons a day for almost 2 weeks straight. So this year was probably a more normal year, i guess i'll find out next year when i hit the third year on the same amount of taps

[mountainvan]

Went out this morning to see if there might be a bit of sap flowing. I had a low of 34 here last night so I didn't think I would see a drop of sap today. Went up to the bush up the road, sap was dribbling out of the mainline. Came back home washed out the releaser, went back up and put the vacuum system back together, started up the pump and voila there was sap. I'm running both my pumps at 20 inches of vacuum which is the highest I've run them this year. The sap up the road is cloudy, and the sap down the road is also cloudy but is attracting all kinds of cool bugs. That tank sets out in a field so it gets a bit warmer. So I aint done yet!! Went up the mountain and dug out a spring for a water source to clean my tubing. It's a lot easier getting water down the mountain than up. Guess I'll go watch the sap come into the releaser and get a suntan.

[mountainvan]

Collected 300 gals this evening. Not much sap but more than 0!! Every little bit counts when you're trying to make a living off of maple. I turned the pump off down the road but kept it going up the road. Sap is still flowing off of the mountain and should be all night. I turned the vacuum down to 18" from 20-22". The pump was hotter than normal but I don't think anywhere close to being too hot.

[mountainvan]

Well it got down to 32 here last night, frost on the windsheilds. I'll see if that was enough to get the trees flowing again. If it does I'm planning to clean tanks in the woods while the first nasty bit goes on the ground, only time will tell.

[mountainvan]

Not too much going on here today. My big bush up the road is flowing, with the help of the vacuum, and my main bucket bush. I held off boiling today till I had more sap. Figured as warm as it is, 50's, I'll be making b or c. Either way I have lots of light amber to blend any dark stuff with to it table grade. The weather is supposed to get cold again next week so I'm waiting and seeing if I can get some more sap. Six years ago I went to California late March, when I left it was 70, when I got back a week latter it was snowing and the sap started flowing again. You never know!

[mountainvan]

Ran 500 gals through the ro and into the evaporator. Ended up making 12 gallons of grade b. That gets me over 600 gals of syrup made for the year, and I am not done yet. I hope! My kids taste tested the syrup I made today and both gave the thumbs up. Weatherman is still calling for cold weather next week, so I'm holding on. Tomorrow is cleaning tanks and the evaporator, and delivering syrup. Tonight I'm taking my wife out to dinner to celebrate our good sugaring this year.

[Riverdale]

All done up here in Delhi. Last Saturday was our last boil, took off some real strong B, great flavor. Tallied up 130 gal. for the season, mostly medium. It was a solid year for us, made twice as much as 07'. Lines are all cleaned, picked up....just have to finish up cleaning the evaporator this weekend and we'll be set for the year. Mountainvan, I know you've mentioned in the past that you get supplies from Tom K. up here, are you planning to come up for his customer appreciation days next weekend?

[mountainvan]

Yes I'm going to Toms, unless I'm still boiling! That's great that you're all cleaned. It usually takes me two weeks to get all my stuff clean. Weather still looks good for sapflow next week. Hopefully the trees will cooperate. Today I'm goimg to be full of bleach and vinagar cleaning anything that doesn't move.

[Fred Henderson]

We are all cleaned up and put away. Totalled out at 75 gallons. If it runs again it will have to do it with out me. Its time to get on with the construction of the new pole barn.

[super sappy]

Fred- How long was your season? If you want to practice putting up a pole barn you can come down here to work all the kinks out of your program before you start yours.-lol Do you still have snow ? We wrapped up about a week or so ago. Still havent washed my tubing but have built 1/2 of a kitchen in the shop in the last week. The weird thing is how well syrup is selling here at home. About every time I am in the middle of a glue up I hear a car horn and that stupid goat starts blatting and its off to the sugarhouse to sell syrup.The people that just left are here on business from France and Belgum. They cleaned me out of 1/2 pints. only had 8 so they took some pints too. -ss

[Fred Henderson]

We tapped the 4&5 of March and had one small run. Then we waited 2 weeks or better. Then a few more small runs and then a gusher. After the big run the weather never co-operated. I would say we went for about 5 weeks. I don't sell any commerical so I don't go until the last dog or (goat) is hung. The surprising thing is that I only used 4 1/2 face cords of wood. At that rate I got enough wood cut for 4 years. We still got snow and I probably pulled the buckets too soon but I don't like making grade "B".
I am not building this pole barn I am hiring a contractor to do it. I built a small machine shed last year and by the time I got to the roof I had to get 2 friends to help me put the metal on. I realized then that my building days were over.I still build cabinets and small things in the shop.

[mountainvan]

Most guys around here are done for the season. Tonight is supposed to get down to 32 and then the 20's at night and 40's daytime till thursday. Red maples have budded, at least here by the saphouse, but the sugars don't look like they've started to open yet. Doing an acid wash on the ro membranes right now, first time I've done it. I'll see if it helps get the flow back up when I get more sap on monday!

[mountainvan]

Got the ro acid washed, rinsed, soap wash, and rinse. Temp right now is 34 here right now, supposed to go down to 25 tonight. Sapflow tomorrow?

[mountainvan]

Well I'm done. Last boil was the 10th of April. I've been cleaning tubing for the last week and still have one more sugarbush to do. Tomorrow I'm bringing in the buckets and tanks to clean and put away until next year. Ended up with 606 gallons of syrup made for the year from 30,000+ gals of sap collected. After adding up my taps I figured I had 1,900 this season. Less than I thought, but my syrup production was where I wanted it to be. Gravity gave me .24 gals of syrup/tap and vacuum .36 gals of syrup/tap. I went today and got a truckload of bottles for the syrup and more tubing, spiles, etc. to add more taps for next year. Next year 700-800 gallons of syrup!

[mountainvan]

Brought the big tanks and vacuum pumps back to the saphouse this morning. My wife and kids helped get all the buckets back this aternoon. What normally takes me all afternoon took an hour with their help. Some of the buckets were full of sap from last week, those trees didn't get the memo that sugaring season was over, and man was it nasty! My neighbors could smell that we were cleaning up. I tried to get them to stay home tomorrow and help clean all the buckets and tanks, no luck.

[mountainvan]

Washed the tubing in my big gravity bush today. Man that mountain is steep! Luckily the spring at the top of the bush was still flowing, so I had water without having to put gas pumps in line to get water to the top. It's awefully dry here now. There's a forest fire about 45 minutes from here. I've been very careful to move leaves away from the pumps and to hold onto my propane touch till it cools down. Tomorrow is washing buckets and tanks. I got a new pressure washer yesterday to help it go a bit faster.

[mountainvan]

Got all my buckets washed yesterday. Did the tanks around the saphouse again too. Today I tackle the saphouse and small tanks. I'm trying to get into the slow and steady mode of work rather than the got to get it all done now mode of sugaring season. That's why I'm on the computer now instead of working! Oh well, time to get off my butt and get to work.

[mountainvan]

Everything around the saphouse is cleaned, put away, and ready for next year. Today I start draining all the tubing, cleaning water has soaked long enough to dissolve any crud that got stuck in the tubing this year. I have to roll up a mile of mainline today on the private road. Yesterday evening I went out fishing for stripers on the Hudson. Not a bite, but nice to be out on the water.

[mountainvan]

Got the tubing in from down the road, now I just have to find somewhere to hang it. Started draining lines, I want to be all done next week so I can go out for walleye. Today I'm going to winterize all my pumps till next year.

[mountainvan]

I actually took yesterday off, kind of. I met up with some of the land owners whose trees I tap and gave them their syrup for the year. Talked to them about adding more taps for next year, one bought more land, no problem. Talked to another neighbor up the road about tapping his trees next year, he's very interested. Also I found a big sugarbush across the creek from my house, I just need to find out who owns that land. I think it's someone whos land I already have permission to tap. This is the time of year to find the new bushes easily, with the maples leafing out light green and the other trees bare. I need to bottle syrup this week, 1/2 gals are gone, pints are low, etc., but I just filled up the bulk and hate to open them already. That and I just got the saphouse clean last week. I still have a lot off tubing to drain, guess I'll put on the rainsuit and take a walk in the woods.

[mountainvan]

Got another 600 taps drained, dried, and plugged for next year. While I was up on the mountain I went left of where the trees I've tapped are, quite a few more nice sugar maples. Just as steep as a mountain can get and still walk up. Rolled a rock down by accident, that thing was moving down the mountain! I've been counting taps as I've drained them, think I have more than I thought. Another day or three and I should be done cleaning up.

[mountainvan]

Got more taps drained and plugged today. Only one more sugarbush to do then I'm done for 2008. Found more trees at both of my vacuum bushes today. Seems there's always that one corner of a property that I hardly ever get to. Before I can start hanging more tubing for more taps next year I have to get to tractor supply for mainline, wire and wire tighteners.

[Homestead Maple]

Mountainvan,
What's the cost of tubing 3/4", 1", at Tractor Supply?

[mountainvan]

Taking it easy this weekend, going fishing tomorrow, then back in the woods tuesday. 3/4 is $64 for 400ft 1" is the same for 300ft. Looked at how many looks, over 26,000, wow.

[MaplePancakeMan]

I saw that 26,000 views... crazy. I've been out that way that last couple weeks for work i was noticing a lot of sugars along 23 and 32 just over the border in green county. I just missed a 20 acre piece of land in Athens for 39,000 figured it would be a good investment at the very least the land was approx 35% maples

[mountainvan]

Done, done, and done!! Tubing is all cleaned, drained, and capped for next year. I got done just in time. The black flies are thick in the woods and starting to bite. All of my trees are leafing out very nicely and no sign of caterpillars. It's already starting to look good for next year!

[mountainvan]

Started season #2 friday and yesterday. Opening the bulk I put up a month or two, or three or four, ago and bottling in retail containers. I was hoping to get to June without opening any bulk, but my shelves were getting empty and my commercial clients are using more so far this year.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Hoping to get to June, you should be hoping you didn't make it until May. LOL. Sounds like you are getting more demand all the time, must be a high quality product and a great job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mountainvan]

I could not wait until 2009 to start the new season. I tapped my test tree this afternoon and the sap was flowing strong. I'll check the sugar content tomorrow and see how much dripped in the bucket. If the % is good and flows good I'll put myself into high gear for another early start. If this weather pattern continues into January, a couple cold days then some warm, I'll be ready to start making some syrup!!

[MaplePancakeMan]

like clock work, Van starts again!

Merry Christmas indeed!


I thought about popping our front yard tree but i had to hold off! I'll have to come out and visit ya during the season!