last boil tonight...

[cjric]

Boiling the last 15 gallons today. Would've had 15 more, but I let it sit out too long in this unseasonably warm weather and it turned. This last boil will bring me to a total of 80 gallons boiled down to 125 oz of syrup. Poor ratio, but I only have Norway maples to use. Better than nothing though! This last batch is quite a bit darker than the rest.

Next step is to design and build a sugar shack from a repurposed horse shelter and move it into a 1 acre sugar bush w/ 50-75 trees. I'll be coming to this site throughout the summer looking for answers and ideas. Going big next year!

I'm pulling the taps tomorrow. Is there anything I need to do to the holes? I've heard some plug them w/ a small branch and cut it flush to the bark. Do that, or leave them alone?

[cjric]

just read the post in the other forum area pertaining to pulling the taps. Wonder if anyone will look at me weird when I hug the trees?

[firetech]

Strang looks ya, but a big thank you is always nice. We too pulled all our buckets and barrels today. I finished the last boil with about a 50gal Ro run, then boiled another 2 hrs to flush the sweet out of the pans. Some gas burner finish work and tubing washing to go. If you want to expand try finding some sugar maple road trees you'll get more sap than the Norways. We worked on 1200 taps and don't own a maple tree. good luck on your future plans.

[40to1]

Pull the taps and and let the holes dry out on their own. There's no need to plug them.
The tap holes will weep for a day or two. No worries.

[jblaker]

We had our last full boil last night. We had 170 gal of raw sap. Wet out to gather, 140 taps on buckets, many were yellow, many were empty, only collected 20 gals. We will finish whats in the evaporater on Sat and start the clean up process. Our first year running the operation, made some mistakes, learned alot and became even more addicted to "sappen".