2013 Season WEST VIRGINIA MAPLER

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Yes, I am still alive even though I haven't been on here for months. Put in 250 taps on 02/06 and 140 on 02/07 and put in 10 on 02/14 and 200 on 02/15. Tap count is down about 40 due to the severe storms we had June 29th. Never seen sap start this fast. Thru yesterday, I collected 1535 gallons and still had about 50 in the woods. Too cold now and looks cold next week with some sap. Only had one day it got above 44 and most of the days it has been a few degrees above freezing but sap has ran. All light syrup so far. Not sure when I will get back on here but try to keep update. 7 degrees tonight and 10 tomorrow night.

[heus]

Brandon its nice to hear you are still around and making syrup. You were one of the active guys on here when I first joined in 2009. I think I even started a thread asking where you and some other guys had been.

[tuckermtn]

good to see you still at it Brandon- best of luck for a continued good season.

[mountainvan]

hope you have a good year.

[TapME]

Good to see you post Brandon. That is a fair amount of sap and should keep you busy for a few minutes. Look forward to seeing more post.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected 585 gallons saturday that ran over last week and boiled it off Sat evening and made light syrup with it and collected another 625 gallons this afternoon and boiled it off this evening and made more light syrup. Canned 46 gallon all light so far and another 10 gallon waiting to can that is light. Pushing 60 gallon with what is in the evaporator and another 300 to 500 to boil off in a couple of days before it quits running wed night and cold until next Monday or Tues. Hardly any buildup in the pans or steamaway. Boiled 2750 gallons so far and haven't cleaned evaporator or steamaway and it is still rolling right along making light syrup which is amazing. Last 3 boils running close to 95 gph with startup and shutdown with the steamaway which is pretty amazing.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected 840 gallons yesterday most of which ran overnight and boiled off 650 gallons. 13 more gallon of light syrup and collecting again this PM and should have another 700 to boil off tomorrow and then cold until end of next week. So far little over 70 gallons all light syrup

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected another 480 gallons Thurs even and boiled off 680 gallons yesterday. Lost about 40 taps to bad storm on June 29th so tap count is down this year but have canned 68 gallons of light and 13 gallon of light med. So far 81 gallons bottled and about 5 to 6 more gallon. Close to 90% of normal crop in Feb and really cold Wed night thru next Thurs, so should get at least one more big run worst case scenario. Hopefully will get 2 or 3 more good runs. Sugar content above normal which goes in hand with day temps in the 30's to low 40's. Only 2 days above 45 so far in 3+ weeks.

[Dennis H.]

Brandon it sounds like a good year so far considering the lost trees and temps that are not that high.

Good luck.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Collected 530 more gallon this afternoon that ran from Tues this this afternoon and boiled it off. Canned another 14+ gallons of medium syrup. Up to 95.5 gallons of syrup and aprox 4 more uncanned and in evaporator. Looks like another big run from this afternoon thru Monday and more cold weather and sap weather last week.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

1600 more gallon of sap in 48 hours from Sat even until Monday even. Taps been in nearly 4 to 5 weeks on south side and still running like gangbusters. Cold for next 3 nights getting to about 15 tomorrow night and looks like big run again this weekend. Not much end in sight at this point and should be pushing 130 gallon of syrup by end of day. Boiled off 842 gallon yesterday and aprox 750+ to boil off today. Way above previous record of 97.625 gallon already and not much end in sight. Only 5 days above 45 in 5 weeks and nothing above 50 forecasted in the next 10 days. Cleaned steamaway after running 2000+ gallon thru it and cleaned up in just a few minutes. It is awesome and keeps the flue pan so much cleaner and is so easy to clean. Let it bubble for about 30 minutes with distilled water it put off early and just few minutes with scotchbrite and rinsed and looks like new. All the syrup has been light or light medium so far.

[tuckermtn]

Sounds like an excellent season so far for you. Your forecast sounds a lot like ours, even though you must be 750 miles to the Southwest of me...

Best of luck Brandon...

[bmiller]

saps starting to slow up for me

[maplekid]

wvmapler,how did you fair through the storm around thanksgiving? my company asplundh was there cleaning up. we had alot of work around elkins and buckhannon.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Thanksgiving storm didn't affect us much but the storm on June 29th hit hard with winds as high as 88 mph. Lost about 40 taps and some huge trees sheared off 10 to 20 feet in the air. Never seen anything like it and hopefully won't again. Worst storm I have ever seen and was like a tornado that lasted for 30 minutes.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

We keep on rolling. As of Tues 03/12, we had boiled 6200 gallon and made aprox 132 gallon of syrup all light and med. Collected another 580 gallon tonight and expect to collect another 600 to 800 tomorrow and going to try to boil off 1200 to 1500 gallons tomorrow. Taps been in over 5 weeks and they are running as hard as I have ever seen them run period this evening. It is amazing. I haven't ever seen sap runs like this one. We might top the 1600 gallon we got in 48 hours last weekend. God has blessed us tremendously this season and next week shows 20's and low 40's all week, so I am not sure when this will ever end. I had enough wood for 50% more syrup than I had ever made and I don't think that will be enough at this point but I have access to plenty more 2 year seasoned wood I can borrow.

We have an open house tomorrow and we will be serving pancakes and syrup and expect 200 people or more while we are boiling full blast, so it's gonna be crazy.

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Go Brandon!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Boiled off another 1410 gallon of sap yesterday. Long day of boiling to say the least and finished about after 1 this morning. Pulled the lines out of the tanks as the sap is getting cloudy and starting to foam a lot in the steamaway and flue pans. Still making good syrup and started out as dark in the morning and after couple draws went back to probably medium the rest of the day. Nothing showing any signs of slowing down and probably could push 10,000 gallon of sap if I stayed with it. Sugar content a little low but filled 5.5 five gallon buckets yesterday. Looks too cold for sap until next weekend so know would get a least one more run if I stayed with it plus probably another 400 to 500 that would have run this run before it quit today. We will end up somewhere between 150 and 160 gallons once I get it all filtered and canned. WV jugs are no where to be found as the state had a record crop this year. Did have good open house yesterday and sold 20 to 25 gallon of syrup. Time to start getting ready for next year and getting all the lines flushed out and finding new customers to sell another 60 gallon of syrup above what I normally make.

[Dennis H.]

You calling quits?

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I called it quits for the week and then went and put the lines back in the tanks this PM. Been too cold most of the week for any sap and hit 12 and 15 the last 2 nights and 19 tonight. Supposed to hit 45 tomorrow with sun after sun all day today started the thawing, so we may get some sap tomorrow and then cold and lots of snow until next Friday which shows slight warm up. Never seen this kind of weather in Feb and March. Last sat was the only day it has hit 60 or above since Feb 1st. Never seen March stay cold and snowy the entire month and Feb about the same. I am sure it is global warming. Oops, I forgot, it doesn't exist on non election years. LOL

[Russell Lampron]

I have been reading your threads for years and this has to be the first time that I haven't seen you post about having a week or 2 of 60 to 70 degree weather to screw up your season. It has been colder than normal here too. We haven't had a decent sap run in almost 2 weeks. The sap flow stoppage has been for the same reason, too cold! I'll take that over too warm any day. How are your trees looking? Ours haven't even started to bud yet.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Russ,

You hit the nail on the head as we always have way too much in the 60's. I probably need to start making some syrup earlier maybe last week in Jan. Obvious cold doesn't hurt taps much. I tried 25 of the antimicrobial spouts this year so be interesting to see if they keep running after the others quit. Looks like it is going to start warming up here March 31st. Last time we had weather like this was 2005 which was the best year I had before this year. I always follow your posts and enjoy reading them. It is obvious you know what you are doing and have a tremendous setup. Nice pic of you in the Maple News.

[Russell Lampron]

Russ,

You hit the nail on the head as we always have way too much in the 60's. I probably need to start making some syrup earlier maybe last week in Jan. Obvious cold doesn't hurt taps much. I tried 25 of the antimicrobial spouts this year so be interesting to see if they keep running after the others quit. Looks like it is going to start warming up here March 31st. Last time we had weather like this was 2005 which was the best year I had before this year. I always follow your posts and enjoy reading them. It is obvious you know what you are doing and have a tremendous setup. Nice pic of you in the Maple News.

Thank you for the compliments Brandon. You know what you are doing too. We have both learned a lot and passed on a lot of that knowledge on this site. I have been using the check valves here and have been finding that my tubing stays cleaner and my taps run longer too. I am looking forward to your findings with the anti microbial spouts.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Been too cold here for last 11 days. Never seen that in my life and may never again. Usually done a week ago. Supposed to start warming up little tommorrow and 44 on Friday and 50 on Saturday, so should know if the taps want to give any more or not. Canned quart shy of 150 gallons so far and about 10 more to can. Canned first batch of dark today of 12 gallons to go along with about 80+ gallons of light and about 55 gallons of medium.

[220 maple]

Brandon,
I hope your sap is not buddy, everyone's in Highland County turned buddy last week, nobody knows why because there is no bud growth on their trees? Mine turned buddy also, the trees won't stop running because of the freezes and the moisture we have. Because I have a outlet for buddy syrup we will boil what comes in. As of today we should have 80 gallons of the bad stuff. Good Luck.

Mark 20 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

I tasted it this evening and it tasted good and slightly cloudy. Been cold here, so not sure why it would do that. Highland county have as good a year as we did?

[220 maple]

Brandon,
I have not heard any totals from the Highland Producers, I very confident some of them had record years like You and I and about every West Virginia producer I know. I had posted earlier about Jay getting a 20,000 plus gallon run in Feb. The last weekend of the festival he was still making syrup. Ivan was having a big run during that last weekend and was hoping for more freezes! BackCreek just posted on the Virgina thread that he made 380 gallons, I believe that is a big number for him. SugarTree CountryStore at McDowell also was having a much better season than last year. He always buys bulk syrup from me, I took him two barrels the week before the first weekend of the festival and have scheduled to take him two more barrels later today. I'll try and find out more details on Highland County producers.

Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

Thanks for update. I boiled off 320 gallons more yesterday. Had to start up with dry evaporator so only drew off about a gallon and wasn't expecting to draw any. Syrup was probably a medium color and had a pretty good flavor. This was sap that had ran over last 8 days. I thought we would get a better run than that Friday and yesterday thru today or I wouldn't have fooled with it. Might pick up another 100 or so tomorrow and fire up as I have to boil out evaporator so will run it down to about 1/4" pull fire and drain rear pan and put it back it and fill back pan with water and keep adding to the front pan until I get it down to about 5 gallons.

[220 maple]

Brandon,
That is exactly how we finish up at the end, fresh water in the flue pan, then keep adding to syrup pan until we get it down to a manigable amount, to finish in the syrup pan.

Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

Too much syrup in the flue pan anymore to chase with water with having the steamaway on top of it. Lot more syrup with steamaway in the evaporator than there used to be. In past, probably 3 gallon. Now probably 5 gallon.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Canned off everything this past Tues and ended season with 167 gallons on 580 taps. 55% light, 45% medium and 10% dark. Had one line with 20 taps on it that apparently ran on ground all season. Walked by it a few times as it comes into the mainline in a big swamp and just missed it and kept wondering why the mainline wasn't running good as it had some of the best taps on that lateral. Cutting off all the drop lines and going to try to go with replacing new drops and seasonal spouts every year. Got about 60% of drops off and lines flushed. Hoping to add about 100 more on gravity next year and about 10 more buckets and get above 700 taps next year. With seasonal spouts and drops, hoping Jan 15th will be go time and hopefully they will run for 8 to 10 weeks. Never tapped that early, so probably will only tap about 60% of them and then tap other 40% around Feb 1st.

[Russell Lampron]

Wow you had a good season. I hope that next years plans work out well for you too.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Already sold way more this year in 6 weeks than I have ever sold for entire year in the past. Sales are going great and looking to add 150 to 200 taps before next season. Already added about 50 and all my lateral lines are naked(dropless) as installing all new drops and Leader seasonal spouts for next year.