Sap's Running in Central Ohio

[bowhunter]

Looks like we're off to a pretty good start after the big snow last night. I have some trees that will do 2 gallons today. I hope I can average a gallon per tree for the next couple of days. The weather looks pretty good.

I ran out of wood and containers last week so I pulled about 50 of my one gallon milk jugs. I still have 22 trees tapped with 2-gallon aluminum buckets and I found a supply of kiln dried pine and fur scrap wood from a local packaging company. I was burning green wild cherry so I'll be anxious to see how the half pint does on some drier fuel.

[bowhunter]

False alarm. Did a little better than yesterday, but still only 0.7 gal per tree today.

[bowhunter]

My trees averaged 1.7 gallons per tree is the last 24 hours.

[Marcus]

Hi Bowhunter. We are pretty close. I am between Plain City, and London close to 42. I was going to wait until saturday to boil, but am out of sap storage, even though i got 5 more buckets yesterday.
Marcus Yoder

[SWohio]

This should be a boiling weekend Bow. I only have 10 taps out. 4 did good yesterday. The other 6 combined for just 1 gallon. I am expecting (hoping?) that they all come on today with the sunshine and warmer temps. good luck!!

[emo]

I've had sap run since mid-January. Have about 3.5 gallons of syrup canned. Had about 30 gallons of sap yesterday and boiled about 20 of it down to about 20% sugar. Expecting more today and Saturday. It has been a good year.

[bowhunter]

Good to see there are so many Buckeye's out there addicted to the sap. You boys better get ready to carry sap when you get home from work today. I just checked my buckets about 2:30 this afternoon and had a couple running over. Even my slower trees have 1/2 gallon in the bucket. I emptied everything right at dark last night and thought it would be pretty slow starting today because it was pretty cold overnight. I think I'll have 25+ gallons on 22 buckets at 4:00 today. Looks like I'm boiling tomorrow and probably have to boil a little on Sunday and Monday afternoon to keep up.

[JBUTCH2450]

We have had a good year so far. Tapped our vacuum trees the last week of January and have had a good year. Our bags started running good yesterday. Looking forward to this weather, just hopeful of a few freezing nights! We should have plenty of sap for this weekends open house! Good luck to everyone!

[SevenCreeksSap]

Good to see there are so many Buckeye's out there addicted to the sap. You boys better get ready to carry sap when you get home from work today. I just checked my buckets about 2:30 this afternoon and had a couple running over. Even my slower trees have 1/2 gallon in the bucket. I emptied everything right at dark last night and thought it would be pretty slow starting today because it was pretty cold overnight. I think I'll have 25+ gallons on 22 buckets at 4:00 today. Looks like I'm boiling tomorrow and probably have to boil a little on Sunday and Monday afternoon to keep up.

Its funny you had such a good run today. I could tell sap was going into the tank but it didnt slow my consumption rate down as much as usual, so I think was running slower for me in eastern Ohio. I'm expecting saturday and sunday to be good with it maybe going to 60 degrees. I had a great run tuesday night into wed. 200 gallons in the tank on 182 taps. My bucket taps have almost dried up but They've been in since late Jan. I'll probably pull those after this weekend if they don't really run.

[bowhunter]

This is my first year and so I don't have any experience, but I tapped my trees in late January and I really can't tell any difference in the flow n good days. I'm waiting to see when they start to dry up. In fact it seems to me like the smaller trees are much more reliable on marginal days and I think it's because they respond quicker to the temperature changes. Other guys have told me they probably don't have as high a sugar content, but I haven't been able to notice that much difference in syrup yield from the smaller trees. Based on the rule of "86" I'm running about 2.25% on average. I don't segregate the sap, but earlier in the season my smaller trees were making most of the sap. I've pulled the taps on most of them because I had a total of 70 and it was overwhelming on higher flow days. I have about 60 gallons of storage and I don't really want to store more than 2-3 days. My sap is now only coming from the bigger trees.

[bowhunter]

Sap flow was good today. Did 1.5 gal/tree. Boiled down 48 on the half pint...busy day.

[bowhunter]

High temperatures have slowed the flow considerably. I got about 1/2 gal per tree overnight. I had about 3 or 4 trees that are still going strong. Most have stopped flowing.

[bowhunter]

Boiled again today and finished 1 1/2 syrup on 46 gallons of sap. If I did the math right, the sugar content is ~2.9%. The previous batch was up to about 2.5%. I still saw a little flow this afternoon, but didn't have time to gather sap so it'll have to wait until tomorrow.

[emo]

Boiled all weekend to keep up with the sap. Since all of the trees I tap are free standing, no surrounding trees, most of them have budded and I had to pull taps yesterday. Should have about 5 to 5.5 gallons when finished, 3.5 gallons already in jars. Not to bad for 13 trees. It was a lot better than last year, just shy of 1.5 gallons.

[bowhunter]

I don't think any of my trees are budding yet,but I had to dump all my sap at noon it was cloudy in the buckets. We may be close to the end here.

[bowhunter]

No sap flow overnight. The temperature was 34 overnight so there probably won't be anymore sap until Wednesday or Thursday. Clean up my pan and sugar house a little yesterday. Also working on my RO design.

[bowhunter]

I think it's over here. I had some cloudy sap I dumped this morning. Although the temperatures looked pretty good, flow was almost nil. About 10% of the trees did a gallon, but most barely wet the bottom of the bucket.

[bowhunter]

I can't believe it's still going. I added some new taps and pulled some dry. I got about 1.6 gallons per tree in the past 24 hrs. It's still clear and it smells fine as I'm boiling. With the current forecast it looks like there should 2-3 more good days over the next week if the trees don't start budding out.

[bowhunter]

Got about 0.6 gallon per tree this evening. All 23 were running at 6:30 p.m. If it gets cold enough tonight I might get a good run tomorrow with enough to boil again on Tuesday. The sap looked clear. It seems to be a little more frothy than earlier in the season, but otherwise looks and smells fine.

[emo]

Glad your trees have not budded yet. Mine started budding and pulled taps a week ago. Have been watching the trees drip like mad all week. Probably could have had another gallon or more of syrup. weather this week looks good as well. Already got everything cleaned up and put away. This has been an almost perfect year for making syrup.

[bowhunter]

I'm sure your trees are a little ahead of mine. I'm probably 20 miles north and about 250 ft higher in elevation so we're still a little colder. This is my first year, but I'm really surprised that my taps are still flowing since I opened most of them in late January. I got another 0.8 gallon per tap today so I guess I'll boil down a about a gallon of syrup tomorrow. I've already made 15 1/2 gallons of syrup this year.

[Marcus]

I am done for this year. I own a landscape company,so have to git to work to make money for making syrup next year. I will have to push some surgar maples. I am drinking some coffee i made with some leftover sap, its tastes great. I have learned a lot from this site. Thanks to everyone forall your ideas.

[bowhunter]

Nice talking to you...sort of. I'm not sure this is exactly like talking. Anyway this was my first year also and this forum is a big help. See you next January.

[Holliemac]

Hey All, I got a few more gallons of sap 2 nights ago, then all froze again. Even my pond is frozen over solid again.
I'm about an hour up north 71 from you in Westerville and Marysville. Two of the big trees closest to the house are budding out but the ones in the woods below aren't and all the sap is still clear, so I've left the taps in. I don't like to leave it drip out on the ground because it attracts bugs and we all need to watch for the Asian Longhorn Beetle, which loves maples.