Ready in Amherst

[TR Hardwoods]

Put in our 150 taps today. Beautifull day along the Tomorrow River and the trees were starting to dribble, not much but just enough to get the blood pumping. 40+ degrees by midweek. New stainless flat pan is ready to go, had to retire the old the old tin pan to the storage shed. Hope all is going well with other Wisconsin sappers.

[TR Hardwoods]

Nothing running yet. Last two nights have been above freezing. 33.8degrees as I type at 7:00AM. 44 today and then mid to upper 20's tonight. Looks great for the next week.

[TR Hardwoods]

Collected 55 gals. yesterday, runs have been slow. Will boil the little that we have early this week. Neighborhood Black Bear is back. Went thru all the birdfeeders and knocked a few sap pails off of the taps! Last year he wreaked 15 sap bags so this year we decided to stay with all buckets.

[TR Hardwoods]

We have had a real good week. Temps have only gotten into the mid 30's but the sunshine has been plentifull and the sap has really been flowing. Boiling this morning, in fact as I speak. I have taken a picture thru our patio window of the setup, it is just a temporary type of operation for this year. Have plans to build a permanent operation as soon as the weather permits. Should have about 6-8 gallons of syrup made by the end of the weekend. Good luck to all the other cheeseheads!

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[Rob Harvey]

Thats a very shiny 75 yr. old tin pan you have there! Rob

[TR Hardwoods]

Your right Rob, brand new S.S. 2.5' x 8' flat pan was made this year. I need to update the profile as it is a couple years old. LOL!!!!

[TR Hardwoods]

Boy I figured out how to post some pics now it seems that I am a little out of control. Had just taken a walk to see how the sap was flowing and it is running real well. Brought the camera along and took a few more pics, these are of the taps in woodlot. Hope some find them enjoyable, isn't technology amazing! Looks like were having a real good start to the 2006 season.

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[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

TR,

What kind of evap rate are you getting with the pan?? Is you tank lined with firebrick or blanket?? I am always curious as I used flat pans for years. :D

[TR Hardwoods]

Without the "air injection"(notice the small bathroom exhaust fan in front of the door) we only will get around 15gal/hour; with the "air injection" unit on we can ramp up to near 20gal/hour. Stock tank is not insulated which means we can lay our wet wood on the tank to dry it out in between fires(this works good expcect after a half hour on the arch it typically starts on fire!). This is the last year cooking in the open like this. Next year the plan is to build a masonry arch under a roof, then we can place our pan on the arch and be somewhat out of the weather. We are also planning on using firebrick to insulate the new arch. We are also tossing the idea of running some small copper tubing around our smoke stack. Maybe 10 turns around the pipe and then let this preheated sap drip into the back of the pan. We also have next years firewood just about ready so going from wet spruce/pine/popple to dry red oak will be a huge difference. Our hope is to touch around 25gph next year, maybe even 30gph but I kind of doubt it!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

If you get it set up right and get good dry wood, you can easily do 30 gph or possibly even better. Build up the back of the arch and put the heat right against the pan as much as possible. The last year I boiled on a 3x7 flat pan, I ran a piece of 1/2 copper tubing right thru the middle of the fire and brought it out on the front of the pan. I had a coupling on the back so I could unhook it and flush it with water when I finished so nothing scorched in it. It worked fine and the sap came shooting out most of the time boiling hot. Never affected the syrup any and never slowed the boil any either. Very cheap and efficient preheater.

[TR Hardwoods]

WVM, That's encouraging to hear. 30+ gph would be terrific! When you say build up the back of the arch what do you mean?
On another note, just finished up a nice looking batch of syrup...around 8 gals. total. That was made on only 220 gal of sap which comes out at around around 27.5:1 for my ratio. I've never had that high of sugar, but this year is only our second year in this woodlot and it was hard to gauge anything on last years production as we only made around 6 gal total! If this keeps up we may do 40+ gal. this year, that would be just great!!!

[Rob Harvey]

He means build it like an arch. The front two or three feet are full depth and act as your fire box, the rest of the stock tank would be brought up so that the floor was within a few inches of the bottom of the pan. It can be accomplished with brick, sand and blocks. It works better that way as it forces the flames up against the bottom of the pan. Rob

[Russ]

TR, how far off Hwy 10 are you? I drive by every weekend on my way to our operation; looked for buckets and smoke as I passed Amherst, but never saw any.

[Parker]

I love the pics,,got to figure out how to post them,,,

Russ, we are around 4 miles east of Amherst. South of hwy 10. on Otto Road. You wouldn't be able to see much from the highway, maybe some steam/smoke if the weather was just right.

[TR Hardwoods]

I forgot to log in so the last past was mine. Parker, I followed the WM posting guidelines which entailed uploading your pics to a different host. I used photobucket.com, and then copy the img address and put it into your post. It's fairly easy.

[TR Hardwoods]

Went out and collected yesterday, ended up with around 100 gallons, between sunday and mondays run we have brought in 190 gallons. These are really good runs for our operation and it seems like they are doing it on marginal weather. It really hasn't warmed up all that much although we have had much sun. Yesterday afternoon the wind was blowing like crazy and there was a skim of ice starting to form on the mud puddles but the trees were still dripping like mad. I was hoping not to have to boil until the weekend but if this keeps up I'm going to have to do some evening boils just to have room for all the sap :lol: .

[TR Hardwoods]

Another 130 gals. of sap tonight, whew, now it's starting to feel like maple season. Will plan on boiling starting Fri. and it looks like I will have to boil straight thru the weekend to get everything empty by late sunday. So far this is shaping up to be my best season yet!

[TR Hardwoods]

I had the biggest run to date, 140 gals., yesterday. It was funny because I told my wife that I was just going to check the taps as it only got up to around 37 degrees and was very overcast. I didn't think that there was any chance the trees would have a substantial run. Well 2.5 hrs. later I finally made it home!

[TR Hardwoods]

I'm boiling as we speak. I have 550 gals. of sap in storage and am only able to cook off around 15-20gph, :o . Lets see, tomorrow's forecast is for upper 30's, then 19 at night and 40 on sunday. Sides on the stock tank are glowing red tonight! It's going to be a long weekend!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Don't complain, a lot of guys would love to have your problem! :wink:

[TR Hardwoods]

I hear ya Brandon, it's a rough life....collect sap, boil sap, check the trader, etc.......

[TR Hardwoods]

Still boiling in the tomorrow river valley! Started at 3:00pm on Friday and havn't stopped since. I have burned up 1/2 cord of wood and went thru around 600 gals. of sap since friday, yep thats right only 15gph! A real evaporator sure would be nice! Yesterdays run finally let up a little bit, only collected 70 gals., but this morning temps. are at 25degrees and the sun is shinning so I'm sure with the 40 degree temps today we are going to get pounded with another round of sap. I'm interested to see how much syrup comes off with this batch as sugar has been heavy up to now. I will out of town all this next week so things should be real intersting when I get back 8O!

[TR Hardwoods]

We havn't had any runs in about a week in Central, WI. The weather warmed up and here we sit. Overall, it has been a very good year though. We have made about 31 gallons of syrup ranging from very light to very dark. Our normal production is usually around 30 gals. so all in all its been good. We still have our taps in, no signs of buds yet and who knows we may just get a little more. Temps this AM are back to 29 and 50 is forecasted for the high. This weekend the temps are also suppose to freeze at night so I'm all ready for one last boil!

[TR Hardwoods]

Collected 100 gals. of sap last night. I started boiling last night as I hate to keep this stuff sitting around with all the warm weather. It looks like we will be getting some good sapping weather through this weekend and then by tuesday of next week it looks like the real warm weather will be back. We are hoping to get a couple hundred more gallons of sap this weekend and maybe, just maybe we will be pushing up near that 40gal. of syrup mark! That would be very cool!

[TR Hardwoods]

The weather is supposed to be 19 tonight and 25 tomorrow night. Then real warm weather next week. Hoping for another 5 gals. of syrup, we'll see what happens!

[TR Hardwoods]

I finished the last boil of the season today. Weather has now crept up to 70degrees and I had a hard time concentrating on cooking syrup today. Finished up the 6gal. batch today and I couldn't believe that this was lighter in color than the last batch we cooked. Flavor was also very good and this was a relief as I was sort of worried with all the warm weather and potential of buddy sap. I'll try to pull all the taps and buckets late in the week and then get the remaining items wrapped up by the end of the coming weeked. All in all this was a great season, best ever in the Tomorrow River Valley. Syrup total was 37gals. and the season lasted about 4 weeks. Thanks to all on this forum as it is a very informational and friendly place to visit!

[Russ]

I drove up north Friday afternoon and took a turn on Otto Road around 4:30 PM. I didn't have much hope of finding your place based on the info you left, but I thought I might see bags, buckets, or steam from the road. Oh well, maybe next year I can get actual directions. Nice scenery in your area.

[TR Hardwoods]

Sounds good Russ, let me know when your in the area.