Northern Wisconsin

[Race]

We are going to begin tapping Sat. March 4 in Oneida county. Hope to set at least 500 this weekend then will tap throughout the week . Heavy snow pack will keep things slow for another week but weather looks good.
Good luck to all in the region and hopefully things will flow better than last year.

Race in Rhinelander , Wisconsin

[Race]

Set 565 taps today in beautiful 35F weather and over knee deep snow. Some were beginning to drip but do not expect much for another week or more . Will place another 200 or more taps tomorrow then see where things go.
Best wishes to all.

Race in Rhinelander , Wisconsin

[Race]

A small sap run is taking place today in Oneida county as well as some sap yesterday . Approx. 80% of my 708 taps are flowing . Next few days look good for getting things started but still plenty of time.

Good luck-------Race in Rhinelander

[jtcinv]

Race- thanks for the report. I'm heading up to Oconto County (100 mi East of you) to put in taps on Saturday. Good luck with your operation.

Jeff

[Russ]

Three of us put in 1500 taps today. Snow not deep enough to bother with snowshoes, but was 3" deeper than my knee high boots. We were slowed somewhat by the tap reducers (7/16" down to 5/16"), but made up some time with the easier drilling of the smaller holes.

About half the holes were dripping before the tap went in, but no major run. 1200 more tomorrow on pipeline, then the bags/buckets next weekend.

Our uncle has his 500+ bags in. Not enough in them from yesterday's run to get excited about.

It was great to be out in the woods.

[Race]

Made a few gallons of light-medium amber yesterday , clean with little niter . Trees will flow today then looks like a cold spell for a week or so with heavy snow tonight.

Race in Rhinelander------- 708+ taps on buckets , all for fun.

[jtcinv]

I put out 22 taps on Saturday in northern Oconto county. Got 33 litres of sap, making 750ml of syrup. It was darker than usual "first run" stuff. Not thinking much will be flowing this week due to cold weather. Does this suggest that the "first run" was a while ago? How is the syrup looking from everyone else?

Jeff

[Race]

Hi Jeff,
I have not found truth in that the first run is the lightest . I have had years where I made no light syrup and others where the lightest was made mid season . I do think that it tends to be best right after a very cold snap ,whenever in the season that occurs . We will see after this weeks very cold temps . I am going to boil 300 gallons tomorrow then wait and see.

Good luck, Race

[Russ]

Race, your trees are early risers compared to ours, but we're in a cold low area south of Spirit Falls. We got the 1200 taps in on Sunday, so we're at 2700 now. One of my brothers will be doing a section of 300 taps tomorrow and making repairs on the lines that we flagged. The plan is still to put out the bags and buckets this weekend; a good number of those trees get the metal tap to hold the container, plus a drop line from a second tap. Since we can collect these on a daily basis, we cut down on the number of bags to buy, plus we're assured that we won't be collecting a bunch of 1/4 to 1/2 full bags. Doubt it will run this week, but could get interesting into next week; maybe have our first firing next Thursday?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Russ,

How did the changes to the custom evaporator go in the off season. Give us an idea of what you did and what you are expecting from it this year?? :D

[Russ]

My brothers did a test boil with our fabricator late last year. We are making a few changes based on the testing and last year's performance. We added a better induction fan unit to the stack and will likely redesign how the forced air is introduced into the firebox (more capacity). We have moved the finishing pans to the back of the arch and moved the middle and back flue pans forward, over the more intense part of the flames. We're less concerned with actually finishing on the evaporator, as we have always blended and done the final finishing on our SS flat pan. We have also plumbed a preheater coil in our condensate vat, so the raw sap will get warmed a bit before going into the piggyback.

Probably won't know the impact of all of these changes until we get a big run, which from the looks of the extended Accuweather forecast for Ogema, WI, will not be in the near future.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Russ,

Keep us posted and post a few pics of the monster if you get a chance! :D

[Race]

Hi Russ,
As you probably know it is pretty slow up here now too. Things could get very interesting in about a week. All of my trees have been running so are ready when the temps increase .
The syrup to date has been clean and light to medium amber.

Good luck-------Race in Rhinelander , 700 + buckets

Back from another weekend in the woods. Put out 1200 more taps w/bags yesterday... works goes fast when you have 7 people and 3 drills running. Went back today to do maintainance and assembly on the evaporator. Some bags we hung yesterday had a gallon of sap, some were flapping in the breeze. Despite the additional snow last week, there had been enough thawing and freezing to support our weight (I run around 290, so that was a good crust), so no snowshoes were required.

Before we left today, we fired up the generator and started the new induction fan (basically a heavy-duty industrial fan unit in-line with the stack at the point it penetrates the roof). It actually wanted to pull some trash paper that we had tossed in the fire box. We are really counting on that and our forced air unit to pull/push flames all the way back to the stack.

Cold temps throughout the week will likely prevent us from any firing until maybe next weekend. People that put out their bags last weekend were dealing with solid frozen ice this weekend. We saw other people tapping and hanging bags yesterday and today.

My oldest son Nick (12) went up north with me. At various points on the way home, we saw a raccoon, a bald eagle, two deer, a grouse, and a pheasant. It sure was fun sharing the weekend at the cabin with him; he doesn't like all the work (unless it involves the ATV), but he said it was a good weekend.

Hope everyone has a good week.

[Russ]

Forgot to log in... that last one was from me.

[Russ]

Well, it was good to be back at work today to recover from the weekend. Spent 29.5 hours on Saturday and Sunday working and finished of 104 gallons of syrup, more or less. Didn't quite catch up with the trees as we left camp last night with 800 gallons of sap still in the ground tank, with more out in the woods. Slow run today and only a crew of three working in the woods... Uncle Jim collecting bags we didn't get yesterday, Dad cutting/splitting wood for firing tomorrow, and brother Ryan augmenting the forced air on the beast.

We had the evaporator up to 300 gallons per hour at one point on Saturday, but failed to get a boil on the back pans (which are the finishing pans that we moved from the front). So we drew off the back pans and finished batches on the flat pan system. Lighter color than normal.

Decent stack temp and condensate flow on the evaporator, but had a build up of coals. Made two changes today... added a forced air unit to the front of the fire box, ducted off to the side to not interfere with firing, and filled in some of the gap between the arch and bottom of the back pans to force the heat right under them. 18' might just be pushing the limits of arch length. The crew will be testing it tomorrow.

Still have knee deep snow that sometimes supports you, sometimes not. I'm going back Wednesday night; if weather slows down the sap flow, we may start bottling.

[jtcinv]

Here's my data:

Have 22 taps in, boiling with a backyard rig with firebrick holding two steam table pans. I use the "temp water boils at plus 7 degreees method" to finish. It is a little variable in terms of result, but at these small quantities, I'm not sure I want to get into the Hydrometer (yet...).

SATURDAY
Boiled 9.75 hours, 115 litres of sap, making 4.95 litres of sap. I think the sap was sweeter than normal due to tossing the frozen sap chunks from both the collection and storage buckets. It's my no maintenance RO device....

SUNDAY
Boilded 6.25 hours, 87 litres of sap, making 4.0 litres of sap.


Evidently, Maple fever is a highly communicable disease. I knew it probably wasn't curable, but am feeling guilty that my folks have now caught the bug. I can see the maple madness in their eyes. I saw the same look in the mirror 3 short years ago. They'll probably do a mid-week boil as they're retired and I can only boil on the weekend.

I'm hoping to squeeze one more weekend out of the season, but have already made 50% more than last year and should be very happy if that's all I get. Hope the tree buds are sleeping and miss the warm temperatures that are forecast.

Hope everyone got out to enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend.

Jeff

[Russ]

We're close to having 300 gallons in the cans. An unfiltered sample compared against last year's filtered syrup shows a huge difference in color... much lighter than what we sold last year. Last few days have been bad, with wind, rain, and not quite freezing temps at night. however, despite the rain, there is still snow in the woods and the trees show no signs of budding. A good 21' night tonight and 40s tomorrow should reset them.

Evaporator is working better with the addition of a second firebox forced air fan. We're still finishing on the flat pan. Lost about 20 bags to a voracious coon; given that we expect several good runs, we replaced them. Long term Accuweather forecast looks good through middle of next week; we hope to get 5-6 good collection/cooking days to set a new production record.

[Race]

Had largest flow of year so far on 4-4-06 , expect the same today. Sap looks good and hopefully the grade will improve from the dark amber and B of last week . To date have finished 104 gallons of mostly med. to light amber with some darker and B from last week. 560 gallons of sap to boil , not including todays run. No frogs yet.


Good luck to everyone ,
Race in Rhinelander
700 buckets

[Russ]

Left the woods Sunday with mixed feelings. I knew the season was over (the frogs were even serenading me as I walked along the logging road to my truck) for me as I couldn't take off on Monday, but we had a good year with more ups than downs. My brothers finished the small quantity of sap collected on Monday and cooked off what was in the evaporator using our flat pan.

We tweaked the evaporator some more throughout the season and felt good about our capability to cook off sap as fast as we were bringing it in. It still can be improved some more for next season. We turned out a much lighter grade of syrup, and it looks as though prices will be good for the 100+ gallons above what we normally retail that we will likely sell bulk. No major injuries or mechanical failures. Disappointing sap production from our Price county woods; we don't know why. Will put more slope trees on mini-networks with containers that can be collected right along the 4-wheeler trail. Getting a bulldozer to come in this spring to clear stumps around the sugar shack and push some trails into new tapping areas.

Now the bottling and selling starts... still working on final retail prices as we tally up the bills for the season.

[Race]

Last flow was Sunday. April 9 . All taps pulled and buckets cleaned . Season totals were 164 gallons finished plus gave 300 gallons of sap to a neighbor . About 60% was light to medium amber , 40% dark amber with some B. Sap to syrup was 32 to 1, calculated as a season average.
700 buckets on about 600 sugars and 100 reds.

I hope that everyone enjoyed their season.

Race in Rhinelander , Wisconsin.