March journal

[jimsudz]

Well it's the first day of March and I don't see a journal so I'll start one. I should be at work but my son is sick so I'm at home playing mister mom, one of the perks of being self employed.Finally got all the taps set last Saturday,but weather isn't cooperating. Gathered every little bit on Thursday,plan on boiling this evening. Have around 550-600 gal to run through my home built RO, hope it works good.My 140 buckets tested 2.5-2.6% I'm impressed. Happy boiling ,and have a great season.

[Yellzee]

Hope to fire up for the first time tonight. Just need to get the pans cleaned up and a new grate in the evaporator. if it warms up another degree or two this afternoon it might be a decent run.

Have to take time first to dig any lines out of the snow that fell.

[cpmaple]

well been a very busy day for my son and I started the day by running a new main line to one section of our bush got that done by noon. then hooked up larger fuel tank to vac pump done, came house started putting buckets out got 65 out and 100 more to go tomorrow. Got stack up for evap and all hooked up good to go in the am. Hauled 550 gallons of sap house running very well today with it only 36 out and gray. Now taking a break for the night and up in the am to light the fire clean pans then to boil sap to sweeten pans cant wait for the morning. best wishes to all and hope you have a great season

[Mountain Winds Farm]

The weather is a funny thing ha-ha. Never got above 32 here in Berne today. Nothing ran, but we lite the fire at 7 this morning and amid the various mechanical issues that always seem to pop up on the first day of cooking we pulled about 14 gallons off.

[maple flats]

Still tapping, maybe half done. No flow. Likely no flow til Tues or Wed. Hope for 1st boil in my new pans maybe Thurs. Then the long range looks good for a long stretch, days in the upper 30's to mid 40's, no more than 1 day in a row without an overnight freeze. That should make things real good.

[heus]

Frozen up here in NE Ohio until probably mid next week. We have bottled 29.5 gallons almost all medium. My sugar content is LOW. Lots and lots of boiling to get those 29.5 gallons plus another 5 yet to be bottled, then whatever is in the evaporator until the next boil. Next year I will have an RO!

[lakeview maple]

7192I went to the sugarhouse this morning to boil up what I had left in my main tank.I had to unthaw the lines from the head tank to the arch,well finally got everything going and had a nice boil going in a few minutes.Man I love AUF it really gets things going fast,my friend Bill showed up and hung out for a few hours long enough to eat half dozen pancakes with hot syrup.I made 2 gallons and a quart ,seems like a pattern starting here.....Hmmmmm, of dark amber .Im going to pull the front pan before boil again and give it a good cleaning,I think Im getting a darker grade from the fact I came EXTREMELY close to toasting my front pan.I was going along and forgot the defoamer and the next thing I know I smell syrup,I look into the pan and it was foaming way up,I hit with the defoamer and brought it back quick.I think my pan was close and it darkened the grade,just a thought.Well I hope you all are having a great season so far ,the weather looks good for the rest of the week.Good Luck and God Bless ,Al

[Yellzee]

Working long hours trying to get the new flue section welded in to my old pan. The thin stainless sure distorts like crazy when tigging. Think that is finally done leak free and now to get the dividers soldered in. Float box made up. This has been a bigger job than anticipated and i would do it a bit differently next time to make it easier. Should be good sap flows next few days so need to get this done!!!! Have to take son to hockey tonight an hour away so there goes this evening

[Jeff E]

Thinking tomorrow may be our first sap here in NW Wisc. I have to get my transfer pumps in the woods tonight, make sure the power is there, and then tomorrow turn on the vac. Then I suppose I will have leaks to find all over the place!

[brookledge]

I,m at a quart of syrup per tap and it seems like I just started. I can remember when getting to this point was considered a good year. Not any more. Not happy unless a 1/2 gal atleast if not more
Keith

[Farmboy]

Finally found some time to get on the trader even if its 1230. The season is looking pretty good so far. I made just over 36 gallons so far off 183 taps. The next week looks decent for sap flow too. By the weekend I will probably have extra sap coming in from my friend. He tapped 375 great sugar maples with buckets and is boiling on a stock 2X6. As of tonight all his tanks were full so he's going to need some help boiling. I'm already looking for land to tap next year where I can set up a few hundred taps on vac and I'm looking into building an RO. Boiling until almost midnight after school most nights gets to you

[maple2]

gathered and boiled, yesterday. temps hovered around freezing. sometimes windy and snow.still managed to gather 2200gals. made 54gals. of lite

[lakeview maple]

7295I got started at 630am and I had 750 gallons to boil,gonna be a really long day.I boiled for 11 hours ended with 6 and half gallons ,I really need to get an RO for next year.Had a great day tho had a ton of people show up and lend a hand .I guess after church tomorrow Ill jump right back into it.I checked 1 of the tanks on the way home and still have 175 there and 300 in the main tank at the sugar house.Hope everyone is having a great season so far and God Bless ,Al

[nymapleguy607]

Last few days have been driving me crazy, got 100 gals thursday night, and then windy friday hardly got any sap. Collected another 100 gallons yesterday and chased loose taps and vacuum leaks. Made about 1/2 gallon of light. Mother nature is just teasing now todays supposed to be in the 50's but its windy again so doesn't look like a good run today. Hopefully the snow melts in the woods and the bigger trees thaw, I would like to put the new arch to the test.

[heus]

The floodgates are open in northeast ohio!

[jimsudz]

Starting slow in western ny.Made about 25 gals of dark and light dark. the runs don't seem to great.230 on vac are doing good 1.8-1.9%.150 buckets have been sweet 2.8-2.9% but no runs over a 1 gal average.200 taps on gravity have been sweet 2-2.3% but no huge runs. Have sap to boil today!

[lakeview maple]

We started boiling after church today around 2pm,had around 500 gallons in the main tank and I had collected everywere else.We had a good boil going and ended with 3 and half gal of a nice medium amber,gives us 19 gallons for the year so far.Going to try and finish it all off tomorrow,it slowed way down this afternoon barely running by 5pm.Good luck to all and hope your all having a great year,God Bless,Al7308

[nymapleguy607]

Ran better than I thought it would yesterday, 160 gallons collected at 2, and boiled. About 4-1/2 gallons of medium made tonight looks like another good boil.

[Yellzee]

Weird long break in the action in my area. Hasnt been warm enough and looks like it might stay that way another week. Going to take advantage of the cold and take out a bunch of iron wood trees in the one area of my woods. I hate dulling the chains on it but it does burn like crazy once its finally dry i guess. Kids just had fresh syrup on their pancakes and i didnt hear any complaints!

[Yellzee]

Awesome sunny day here. Too cold for sap so i cut down30-40 ironwood trees and dragged most of them out. Had a few hang up as i wAs being real Selective on drop zone to save the maples best i could. Worked out well. Will have to mix some other wood with all the ironwood next year or i'll melt the evaporator! Only touched a tiny area of the woods. Its scary how much ironwood is in there.

Sitting here finishing the batch from last weekend, almost done!

[Farmboy]

The season slowed down last week and they syrup got dark because it got too warm but this week it got cold agian and we have snow on the ground again. The syrup should lighten up when I boil tomorrow night. The three cords of pine I had cut and split are long gone. Going to have to finish the season on pallets and marginaly dry slab wood. Ive made 48.875 gallons so far off 183 taps so Im over my goal of a quart per tap. Ive got 440 gallons of sap from today I will boil tomorrow. My friend is finaly getting sick of boiling till 2am with his 2X6 so he gave me 275 gallons of sap today. Hopefully I will break 60 gallons of syrup this weekend. All next week looks pretty good temperature wise and Ive only seen 2 moths so far and that was two weeks ago and I havent seen them since. This looks like a banner season! I need to find a few hundred more taps and hopefully and RO for next season. You gotta Want it!

[cpmaple]

Its been 10 days since i have had a run. Hoping to get one saturday but the rest of the week looks great also. Made 21 gallons so far off from three boils. Made a waterjacket canner last weekend works good and hold 30 gallons of syrup at once two 15 gal pots. with the down time i've been getting alot of things done around the house and sugarhouse that needed to be done. Move my head tank so i could see it and stop over filling it no to get vac pump fired back up cant wait. looking to be a great season. cpmaple

[maple flats]

I've only canned 33 gal. so far. Only had 3 days of fair sap flow, several more of very little flows. Looks like Sat-Sun. will turn this around. The Accu Weather forecast for my area looks good from then thru mid April. I'm ready!!!.
I did some work in the sugarhouse while I waited. I got in some high temp. hose I had ordered a long time ago. I now have hose going from my draw off tank to a T between my finisher and the filter press. From the T a hose goes to the mixing tank under my finisher draw and the other end feeds the filter press. I can now pump from the draw tank thru the filter pump and move it to the finisher. When ready I can then dump a mix tank full, add DE and pump thru the filter and either bulk it or pump to the canner. When I empty the front pan I can also pump it back in after cleaning rather than drawing into a SS pot and lifting it all the time. This was all done using just 2 valves, and one T, as well as the connection to each point needed. Now I need some syrup to try it out (and to heat the tubing to get it to lay flat like I want.

[heus]

Very happy with the season so far. Have made 125 gallons off of 517 taps and no end in sight. Syrup has lightened all the way from grade B to light. My original goal was 150 gallons that looks attainable now. I really need an ro next year!

[Jeff E]

It is encouraging to read how the season is actually going well somewhere!
Last post here was March 6 for me, and on 2700 taps I got about 150 gal of sap, then it all froze up, and has remained frozen ever since. The 5 day forecast shows no relief in sight. I am looking at 1 month old tap holes that have produced basically nothing so far. Here's looking to April!

[PACMAN]

Im in the same boat Jeff,I have new gravity system with 400 taps and its been in since feb 23 and I got 170 gal 2 weeks ago and the temp dropped. I havent gotten a drop since, but hang in there. I think this week will give us all the sap we want.

[heus]

This is just an old fashion sugaring season. Many will be making syrup well into April. I am hoping for two more weeks of producing grade B or higher. Considering that I have just produced my first light syrup of the season, I think we have some more time left. April 4th was my last boil two years ago. I need 25 more gallons to get to my goal of 150.

[brookledge]

My season began great in feb and by march 6th I had a qt./tap.(boiling every day or atleast 5 times a week) since then the weather has been to cold(boiling every other day or up to 4 days apart). Hopefully today will put me at 1/2 gal/tap. Yesterday I matched last yr total. But still a long way from where I want to end up. My goal is 2/3 gal per tap this yr
Keith

[heus]

Wow 2/3 gallon per tap. You must have all road/yard trees with giant crowns?

[lakeview maple]

We had our open house yesterday,and it went great.Had alot of people stop and see how maple syrup was made.Had a good run of sap all day ,almost to the point it was flowing as fast as I boiled .It finally slowed a bit towards 5pm and we made good head way into the bulk tank.Going to try and finish it off today with about 200 gallons left ,I still need to collect at our other bush and theres 150 gallons there.The weather looks really good for the whole week,so Im going to try to stay ahead,lol.Definately need to look at either a preheater or RO for next year.We are right at our max taps for our setup maybe even a little overtapped.We did make 4 and half gallons yesterday which puts us at 26 for the year,yippee hoping to keep adding it up.Have a good day all and God bless ,Al

[sjdoyon]

We haven't had a sap run in ten days. Last three days of run was great, sap came in at 3 percent and final run was at 3.25. We have 265 gallons of nice medium amber made to date. Expect to be boiling entire month of April. Wondering if we will need to keep going into May.

[lakeview maple]

Went to the sugarhouse after church today and started up at around 130pm,made another 2 and half for a total of 7 gallons of dark amber for the weekend.Had a few visitors today as well,good times had by all.Looks like a busy week with the way the weather is shaping up,and Im getting a little nervous the wood pile is getting pretty low.Hope everyone is having a great season,Al