Tapped in Rowley

[sams64]

I put 15 buckets out last night and will try and get another 15-20 put out between today and tomorrow. Hopefully I will have enough sap to boil a small batch on Sunday. Weather looks like it should be at or near freezing for the next 10 days. Maybe we will get a good run after all this weird weather.

Anyone else tapping this far east? If so when did you put your taps in and how are they running?

Sam

[eustis22]

Tapped in Haverhill, Sam....that far enough east?

Boiled 30 gallons last night that was drawn since Sunday..I put my taps in around the 1st, and I've been averaging 25 gallons every three days or so..call it 50 gallons/week

[NH/Pete]

Tapped in Ipswich. I'm set up to collect twice a week.
Land owner is keeping an eye on the buckets on the off days. He called to say the buckets are overflowing. :)

[sams64]

Certainly far enough east. I collected 10-12 gallons last night and put out 5 more taps. I'll probably add 15-20 more taps tonight and get started on putting my block arch together. I got a new pan and can't wait to see how it does. I am figuring with an eight square foot pan and forced draft I could see close to 15 gallons an hour.

Hopefully I can get everything pulled together in time to do a boil Sunday afternoon.

Sam

[sams64]

Not much flowing this weekend for sap. There were plenty of milk jugs flying around the yard. Finally got a little run on Sunday afternoon.

Got stuck on a plumbing project in the house that took twice as long as is should have due to a mis labelled mixing valve (thanks Home Depot) so I did not got any more taps out. Hopefully temps will be high enough when I get home this evening to hang at least 5 or 10.

Sam

[eustis22]

Today and tomorrow should be good runs....Wednesday too

[sams64]

Decent little run yesterday. I probably averaged about 3/4 gallon per tap for 20 taps. It was still warm enough last night that I was able to hang 10 more taps as well. Hopefully I will get the last 10 taps in one day this week.

Now I just need to get my block arch put together and get ready to start boiling this weekend.

Sam

[sams64]

Down to a half gallon per tap yesterday. I ws worried about running out of storage before I had a chance to boil this weekend. From the weather reports it doesn't look like that shoudl be a problem. I had been worried about it being to warm and the season going by in a week or two. Now it looks we are headed the other way.

Sam

[sams64]

Another 1/2 gallon per tap day on Wednesday. I'm going to need to pick up one more 44 gallon barrell as its going to be a few days until I can boil and i am runnign out of dtorage. Weather is keeping pretty cold so I'm not worried about sap souring on me. If there is enough snow I will shovel upa bog pile around my barrels to keep them cool going forward.

Wife is headed out of town so I need to figure out how to watch 2 little girls and an evaporator. Maybe I will hang with the kids all day and boil all night. Who needs sleep.

Sam

[eustis22]

I had one tree that gave me about 5 gallons since sunday, everything else was in the 1-2 gallon range

I wonder how the snow is going to affect the run?

3 hours later, I can say I'm drawing even with the snow

[sams64]

Just bottled the syrup I boiled yesterday. Ended up with 6 pints, 5 half pints, and a 12oz bottle that my father handed me when I dropped off my kids yesterday. I guess that was the price of baby sitting.

Used between 50 and 60 gallons and ended up with some pretty nice light stuff. I need to restock on pallets or else I would be boiling again today as I have about 50 more gallons in the tank and probably 20 more on the trees.

Syrup ingot was very nice and light. I cannot to make some more and see if it keeps up.

Sam

[sams64]

Great flow again the last two days. I'm working late then headed home to empty buckets. Hopefully if things freeze up again this weekend we can get another week out of it. I'm not sure how long the trees will go, but I'm good for one more week. I cannot see boiling 4 weeks in a row. I'm only making syrup for personal use so I don't know how much I need to give away.

Next year I might getset up with a few more taps and more holding capacity so I can let the kids set up a little syrup stand. It would be nice to have a few bucks from my effort to teach them about commerce and get tooled up for fishing season.

Sam

[wcproctor]

Sam my first boil was 2/3/12 and still going(strong?) but still going.

[sams64]

Pulled about 30 gallons off the trees last night. I'm not sure what today will bring, but we will see. My guess is we will have at least one more good run Sunday through Tuesday after the next two cold night. After that we will see. The buds that I can see on my lower branches are not showing any signs of swelling so we might have a little while left still. I'm going to grab my binocs and look at teh tops and see of there is more swelling up where the tree gets more sun.

I'm going to load some pallets in teh back of my truck after work and get ready for a big boil (130+ gallons) tomorrow.

Sam

[sams64]

Not much here today. It was pretty cool and not real sunny so I'm hoping that when it warms up on Sunday it will be game on again.

Big boil tommorow and who knows after that.

Sam

[maple2]

huge run on thursday and friday here, in western ma. sugar came up from 1.6 to 2.0. making a nice medium

[sams64]

Couple inches of snow here last night. I'm going to stack some of it around the tanks and wait until tomorrow to boil.

Sam

[sams64]

Boiled off 100 or so gallons yesterday and had a about 20 gallons left in my barrell. After emptying buckets this morning I am back at about 50 gallons. I have some decent size sap cubes in each bucket to keep them cool. I am planning to do one last boil on Wednesday night and call it a season. I should have 4ish gallons by then and be in good shape to set up the family and friends through the year.

I need to start planning a 2'x6' arch for nect year as I want to do about 50 taps and there is no way I could keep up witht hat many taps at 10 gallons/hour. I am thinking of a 2' x 4' drop flue pan with a 2' x 2' syrup pan on a metal arch. I have acess to all the fabrication stuff I need to build it at work. I am sure teh welds won't be pretty, but I am sure it will be funtional.

Sam

[sams64]

All done here in Rowley. Sugar content was way low on Sundays boil so I'm not very motivate to boil down the last 60 in the tank. I need to get more organized and build a better arch for next year. Im planning on 50 taps and want to get set up for 20-25 gallons per hour of boiling. Hoping that a 2' x 6' with air under will do the trick.

Sam

[wcproctor]

We are all done here in Uxbridge yesterday had 75 gallons from the weekend and it all boiled out and the pans are clean today. Had a very good year ill have the final total at the end of the week.

[NH/Pete]

All done here in Rowley. Sugar content was way low on Sundays boil so I'm not very motivate to boil down the last 60 in the tank. I need to get more organized and build a better arch for next year. Im planning on 50 taps and want to get set up for 20-25 gallons per hour of boiling. Hoping that a 2' x 6' with air under will do the trick.

Sam
I'm using a 2x6 on a block arch. No blower. The best I could get was 11 gallons per hour. Fired every 5 minute with the whole pan boiling.
Not so sure you will see 20-25. What will you do for a pre heater?

[sams64]

Pete,

I was seeing 10 gallons per hour on my block arch with a 24" x 42" pan this year. From what I read around here you can expect about 1 gal/ per 100 in2/ hour with no forced draft. I am planning to wrap copper coil around the stack and add forced draft. I figure this should give me about 15% or more increased efficiency. The other thing that I am counting on to improve my boil rate is that my block arch this year had the fire box set up so that I lost heat at the front of the pan every time I fired. I have some design changes that I would like to incorporate that I think will alleviate this problem.

Sam

[wcproctor]

Sam I have a 2x6 drop flue w/blower and i got 20-25 gph. With out the blower 16