time to tap!!!

[appleman]

we have 500 + taps in. 1000 more to go. Seems southern maine is right
on schedule. last week it did run,I know one southern maine sugarmaker
that made 45 gallons of syrup last week.I think we should be tapped and ready. :D :D :D

[gmcooper]

We started tapping yesterday. I finished new tubing and son Eric tapped about 160. Only 800 to go. He said a few were dripping. Had enough wind damage from the weekend. no big problems but plenty of limbs down. Should finish tapping over the weekend.

[gmcooper]

Tapped a bunch today but no idea how many. A neighbor and Eric helped and we all headed different directions. Problem is none of us got to finish the section we were on. Snowing pretty good late in the afternoon. Not ideal conditions but need to get them done at this point.

[Revi]

We are holding off until the weather gets warmer. We still have all our lines down for logging, and we put up 600 more feet of main line. It should be interesting when it starts flowing! Maybe next weekend!

[john l]

we are almost done tapping down here we have 3000 taps and have about 200 left hope for some warm weather soon but the weather man didn t sound very promising for the next week i thinkthe trees could use the cold for a spell
happy tappin

[appleman]

Looks like this sunday maybe the day. weatherman says it may hit 40F
on Sunday , as long as that darn wind will stop. Today some of the metal
spiles that were sheltered from the wind even got wet today in the sun.
and it was only 22 degrees, they truly want to run. :D :D :D

[Revi]

I think Saturday and Sunday are the days to tap too. We got our mainline in and are waiting until this weekend to run blue tube and tap. The loggers still want to cut some popple, but they had better be done by this weekend! We still have a lot to do, but we'll get the old sugar factory going sometime soon! We should have around 70 new taps on line and a new evaporator going soon!

[appleman]

Mr. cupo "wcsh 6" says it may reach 42F on Sunday, if thats true and no more wind things should get rolling pretty good! Have more taps out this year than ever,. Every day it doesn't run we go out and put out more taps.
Somebody please make me stop, gone from 1500 last year to 1800 so far this year.you always seam to say thats it, then you look up the hill
and there is always some more nice sugars and you just can't stop tapping!! :wink: :wink: :wink:

[markcasper]

my wife says that i get tap crazy. Is it any wonder that i am never ready? I'm always making improvements and stringing line to that "other" tree that i should have got last year-heck, I'll be out 3 weeks from now after making gallons of syrup putting up more tubing and tapping. Mark

[Revi]

Tapped a bunch of buckets yesterday. They were all running nicely. It's still not that warm, but that's ok. We should have enough to boil by this weekend anyway. Maybe sooner!

[gmcooper]

We are finally done tapping. did last 3 today for channel 13. They did do short story on news tonight. Sap was barely running. The sunny sides had a drip about every 5 sec and the shady side about a min apart. Not very impresive. May be next 2 days will get better.

[Revi]

The sap wasn't spectacular on Mon. or Tues, but I'm expecting today there may be a bit of a run. We hope to have enough to start our new evaporator up this weekend. So far we have maybe 25 gallons. We'll see... We need at least 100 gallons to make boiling worth it. The first boil we're just sweetening the pan. It'll eat up the first 30 gallons just filling the evaporator. Should be interesting!

[harbormaple]

we tapped last sat. approx 115 buckets and we collected last night.
got almost 100 gals. not too bad i guess. but we had a lot of buckets with only a cup or to in them. others were 1/2 to 3/4 full. good to see it drip though.

[WF MASON]

A friend here in Porter has 225 taps, made his first four gallons yesterday, said there was plenty of sugar in the sap.

[royalmaple]

I had tested some sap collected and in one collection tank I had a reading of 4!!! I checked it three times I think.

Rest were solid 2 and one was close to 3.

Haven't boiled any yet still waiting for some more, and last minute to do's.

[gmcooper]

Just asking if anyone else heard this.

A producer in Skowhegan area made some syrup recently that was very dark and had very off flavor. No idea if it is true or not no name was given but they were not new sugarmakers.

Maybe this is just one of the annual rumurs that float around when everyone is waiting to get going?

[WF MASON]

Mark, I've seen and tasted syrup from two different people over here , both were right off the evaporator , both were graded light, and tasted fine to me.
The person your speaking of in Skowhegan might live right by the pulp mill up there, there's nothen' like the smell of boiled cabbage to flavor your syrup.

[harbormaple]

we boiled for the first time sat. got a little over 4 gals. about 12 hrs.
it worked pretty good for the first time. the pre heater did not work (too cold coming in ) . other than that it all worked pretty good.
the syrup was a lot darker than last year. but the flavor was real good.
hopeing to get more sap for this weekend. it ran decent yeatreday.

[Revi]

We're in Skowhegan, and we haven't even poured off yet. We're just sweetening the pans. We need a run this week in order to make some syrup. It seems like it's starting off slow. We'll see what happens. It got cold last night, so maybe it'll run some today.