Tapped

[Greg Freeze]

25 taps in tonight and hopefully the rest of the 50 in the next few days. 20 miles N of Ft. Wayne

[Greg Freeze]

Finished the rest of my taps last night. Had a nice little run Wed afternoon, through the night, and slowed yesterday. I tapped half a dozen trees Wed night that had full jugs by Thu morning. I've got all my 50 taps in and 30 gals. in the tank. Looks like today will be full jugs when I get home. Planning on cooking what I have tommorow.

[Greg Freeze]

Collected 70 gallons last week. Cooked 60 gallons Saturday yielding 6 qts. Looks like a good run coming this week.

[ahowes]

Hi Greg-
Where's Garrett? Good luck...

[Greg Freeze]

20 miles North of Ft. Wayne. Opposite corner of the state from you (NE) lol.

[ahowes]

Might as well be in another state, there's so much distance north to south. Hope you do well. It hasn't been the best of years here (but then, I only have two others to compare it to.)

[Greg Freeze]

Yes that's true lol. I hear the trees are starting to bud down there.

[Greg Freeze]

So far I've made one pint short of 3 gallons of syrup after cooking 50 gallons Sat. We just haven't had favorable conditions for a good run. Yesterday I had full jugs on the sugar maples, but only 1/4 to 1/3 jugs on the silvers. That was for 2 days though. Today there were a few full jugs, but mostly halfs and very little to nothing on the silvers. The big thing with the trees, though, is the sugars are on fenceline hill and the silvers are in a swamp. I have one box elder tapped and it gives me 2 to 3 gallons almost every time. Right now, I have about 45 gallons to boil from the last 3 days.

Greg

[Indiana-Jones]

So far I've made one pint short of 3 gallons of syrup after cooking 50 gallons Sat. We just haven't had favorable conditions for a good run. Yesterday I had full jugs on the sugar maples, but only 1/4 to 1/3 jugs on the silvers. That was for 2 days though. Today there were a few full jugs, but mostly halfs and very little to nothing on the silvers. The big thing with the trees, though, is the sugars are on fenceline hill and the silvers are in a swamp. I have one box elder tapped and it gives me 2 to 3 gallons almost every time. Right now, I have about 45 gallons to boil from the last 3 days.

Greg

Greg, have you ever measured the sugar in the box elder? I have some box elder down in a creek bottom that I could tap someday. I need to go and check them out tonight.

I'm thinking that we are just about done. I collected some nice sap in the last two days, enough for one last boil Saturday. Last years season ended closer to April than February.

[Greg Freeze]

I haven't measured it...don't have a sap hydrometer yet. I've read about some guys exclusively tapping them, so I would assume they have decent sugar content. Where at on the Wabash are you? I think we have several weeks left up where I am at. Really, we haven't even had a good run yet up here.

Greg

[Indiana-Jones]

I'm real close to where the Wabash starts to be the state line. We have had three runs but none too big. Winter just about missed us this year. The ground never froze much. I shoveled snow once, about 2 inches.

I bought one of these off of Amazon for about $40.00. http://www.amazon.com/0-10-ATC-BRIX-REFRACTOMETER-Coolant/dp/B000K312Q8

I'm going to make a test tonight if I can get some sap, I will advise.



Just saw a Robin here in Terre Haute, at my job location.

[Greg Freeze]

I remember looking at pics of your cooker earlier this year before I built mine. How's yours working out for you? What kind of gph are you getting out of it? Where did you get your pans? Thanks for the info on the refract and let me know what you come up with on the box elder. Thanks!

Greg

[Indiana-Jones]

Greg, We are getting 25-30 gph pretty easy. We have not had enough sap to get long runs to make a good average.

I got the pans from some people up by you. Sunrise Metal Shop, Topeka Indiana. I'm happy so far. I think that if I was there when the pans were made I would have done a couple of things different. I started by ordering a 24X60 one piece hobby pan. Then, I asked to have them made as a set. 24X24 syrup and 24X36, 5 inch drop flue. I was worried that I could burn some syrup in the front and ruin the whole thing. Then I added two dividers to the syrup pan, to make four channels.

I tapped a box elder and it showed 1.5 % sugar and it was running fast. I tested some sugar maples today, they were just a bit under 2.25 and that is what I have been getting all season. It got to 70 degrees here today and most of the sap that I collected was on the edge. I threw a lot out.

A couple of important things that I have learned this season.
Air over fire is a wonderful thing, it has to come close to adding 50% to your efficiency.
Use a defoamer, a few drops in a few places at each time you fire. Not only can you see a difference, you can hear one too.

[Greg Freeze]

Thanks for the info. I might have to check sunrise out.

Greg

[Greg Freeze]

Finished another batch of syrup today...made just under 7 qts. It's really been hit and miss this year for sap. Really only about 35 out of the 50 taps have produced much sap. My silver maples in the swamp have been very poor producers so far this year.No sap run today, so I'll check the weather forecast for this week and hope for the best.

[Greg Freeze]

After a dry spell, I got a little over 30 gallons of sap tonight. The swamp trees finally put half jugs while the sugars were overflowing. Temps were in the 20's last night and 62 today. Looks like this weekend may be it from the weather forecast.

[Greg Freeze]

I finished up last night. The season is done here in the North East. I had a bitter sweet ending lol. I boiled down the sap I collected Saturday and Sunday last night. When I had it to almost finish on the stove I tasted it and had to throw the 2 gallons of syrup away...it was bitter. I'm still not sure what caused it. I did have a couple trees putting out yellow sap, but I threw that away. The rest I collected was clear. Oh well, fun year year here. We collected every drop of sap all season and made 5 1/4 gallons.

[Dutch Ridge]

Greg, I'm just a little south of you in the Cedar Creek Valley (Huntertown). This is my second year as well, however I purchased an evaporator from Sunrise. Would like to network with guys in the area to see whats going on.

36 taps, yielded 15 gallons

[PerryW]

.it was bitter. I'm still not sure what caused it. It's called bud run. sap can still be nice and clear, but the syrup is bitter.

[Greg Freeze]

Thanks Perry! Yeah, I finally read enough posts to figure that was the problem. I DO NOT like Bud Run lol. A whole lot of time wasted. Oh well!

Greg