Northern Wisconsin

[Rhino]

Been tapping since Wednesday, got around 1600 in. yesterday some of the hard maples dribbled down the bark some before i could get the tap in the hole, most got damp but the soft maples stayed dry. After seeing that it is going to cool off by monday, i am going to hold off to tap again until monday. Hopeing to get all the pipeline done by thursday and the bags to go in next weekend. No need to get to excited with all the forecast saying cooler weather expected for up here.

[mike z]

I've decided to hold of on hanging my buckets until late next week when temps warm back up.

[LDF]

We only have 50 taps to put in. Two weeks ago I had decided to wait until St Patrick's Day to tap, based on the long range forecast. This week I was getting a little antsy and wanted to tap today. With the snow/sleet coming in today (snowing as I type this) and the cool down next week I am going to wait until next weekend.

[wilfredjr]

No rain here yet, but it will be any minute. I feel just like LDF: I wanted to tap on Daylight Savings Day, but with only < 30 bags, icy mist, cold wind, I can wait. I'll just mess around with equipment today. St Patrick between me and evil.

[bearair]

Tapped about 100 trees this AM. Rain/ice pellets started around 1:30. Going to wait on the rest of the tapping until tomorrow. Would have waited another week based on the forcast but, because my helper (Dad) is going to be gone the next two weeks, we are tapping now.

[flying squirrel maple]

We were going to tap yesterday but decided to wait one more week, we did get the new arch bricked and mortared, so not all bad.

[wilfredjr]

The Annual Spring Forward Snowfall last night looks like 4-5"; heavy wet and unshovelable. There is another round slated shortly, but it looks to be small potatoes on radar. We were worried by the forecast of 10'" enough to park a car out by the road. Best insurance ever. Weathermen around here sure like to curdle your blood, not that we're disappointed.

[elmcreekmaple]

We were going to tap yesterday but decided to wait one more week, we did get the new arch bricked and mortared, so not all bad.

And a shed full of dry oak collected and stacked

[BackofBeyondJim]

OK, here's a little "story problem" (I'm not a teacher but I'll do my best)...

I'm new to tapping, but I've been practicing a little here in Jefferson County on a big silver maple. (About 5 gallons of sap so far.) I also took my new home-built rocket stove for a spin as an evaporator. I'm looking to come north to Price county to tap 10 or so mature sugar maples I own there, but my time is limited.

Data: Forecasts (Weather Underground, TWC, Weather Bug) have been all over the map but when I average the predicted highs for Phillips this week I see:
Tues: 29.0 F, Wed: 31.3, Thurs: 36.0, Fri: 37.7, Sat 31.3, Sun 34.3 Mon: 37.5, Tues: 39.0, Wed: 39.0

The Question: If the above temps turn out to be accurate, would Wednesday be a good day to tap, (expecting sap to be running from Thursday on,) or should I wait longer?

Thanks for any advice!

[Got It Bad]

I also seen the same forecast and plan on tapping wed or thurs. but with what I have learned up here is the trees will probably still be sleeping till sunday or Monday cant take the chance so I am going to tap the week after I tap is usually very slow but then look out hope this helps good luck.

[BackofBeyondJim]

Very helpful -- thanks.

[Got It Bad]

Just watched the weather boy they really cant get it right looks like were in a deep freeze still until march 22 I guess there is no real date to tap just watch the weather day by day I hope the season is worth it.

[bearair]

Most forcasts can only get the temp right to about 3 days out. After that its just a guess, and the forcasters use the average temps from years past as a general rule.

[bison1973]

I actually disagree.. most winter storms they are already talking about a week in advance. And we almost always get that sorm. Temps for 10 day forcasts are very accurate.

[Jeff E]

What site do you use for your forecasts? I agree that they get the storms generally right, but the sites I have been watching have been predicting warm ups in 5-10 days for 2 weeks, and it has not happened yet.

My only worry is our window of opportunity for good sap is getting shorter. The later we go the more chance of a big warm up coming...

[sweeteffinsyrup]

I have to agree with Jeff E, there's no way I would have tapped if the forecast predicted temps like what we've had for the last 2 weeks

[Jeff E]

latest forecast I now see are for cold next week as well.... I hope it gets a bit warmer tomorrow, with a little sun, maybe we can get some sap.

Hey Back of Beyond Jim, that is quite a tag. Are you from a lonely, forsaken place? I have riden mountain bike in the Back of Beyond region near Moab UT. An amazing place.

[markcasper]

What site do you use for your forecasts? I agree that they get the storms generally right, but the sites I have been watching have been predicting warm ups in 5-10 days for 2 weeks, and it has not happened yet.

My only worry is our window of opportunity for good sap is getting shorter. The later we go the more chance of a big warm up coming...

Jeff,

What you say is true, but in my opinion, all of the fancy taps and gadgets have caused most of us, including myself to tend to think towards earlier and earlier every year. I have had years past where I have made wonderful LA as late as April 11th before things went south. It very well could be the case this year and there will be plenty of time even if it is another 7-10 days before things get going.

When I look in the history book, roughly 1/3 of the years I had no gatherings of sap before March 19th.

[bison1973]

That's why I said 10 DAY forcasts... not 2 weeks.

[BackofBeyondJim]

I decided to wait a week based on last night's lower forecast for Price County. (I have a 4+ hour drive to get there so have to work around other obligations.) Now it looks like temps might just inch above freezing next week too.

Jeff: My tag came from the name of my deer camp, which I borrowed from a book by Edward Abbey -- who famously lived in Moab, Utah. (!) So yes, there's a connection to your mountain biking reference. I've enjoyed Moab and many nearby parks and BLM lands --though not on a bike (so far)!

[Rhino]

Been out in the bush for the last 3 days tapping and staying at the hunting cabin. After the last 7 inches of snow i now wear snowshoes. Got alot done, i will go back today and should finish the last of the line taps. We were going to put our bag taps out this weekend but are going to hold off till weekend after this one. Cold through next week they say with more snow expected. Snow is so deep that later next week i am going to take the crawler and drive all over the areas where our bag taps are going just so there is walking trails, to make it alot easier to tap and then collect. Along the way home there are bags that are hanging that are going on 2 weeks that i am sure didn't get hardly a drop in yet. So far i have been trusting the weatherman as far as how hard i am pushing myself to get the taps in and it seems to be working out.

[bearair]

I like wunderground.com they seem to do the best job by using independent weather experts. Most news stations get their weather from NOAA. And the problem is NOAA is a government run program. While it does a good job, it's main goal is to predict and track bad weather. This is one reason why winter storms are now named. Now NOAA can say we tracked "x" number of winter storms this year. It helps to justify funding. Tempature prediction is just a side job for them.

[gouldjs]

Rookie here in Polk County. As of Sunday I will have had taps out for 2 weeks. With Sap weather about a week out again and heavy snow around my trees, am I in jeopardy of my tap holes closing themselves off? I have 15 taps in right now with 10 on reserve (thank god)

[jmayerl]

No, your taps will be fine when sap weather returns. Why does this question come up all the time? If you tapped in early march they will flow at least until late April if not into may. Bacteria growth is near nonexistent when the weather is below freezing(that's why you keep food in a freezer). It is bacteria growth that"heals" the wound you made in the tree. Do not ream out the hole, it does no good as bacteria has spread in the wood next to the hole. Do not drill another hole unless that tree can support a second tap in the first place.

[Rhino]

Just seen on local weather that they see no significant warm-ups in the future (not sure what they qualify significant as?) And Ginger Zee the weather lady on A B C world news said the jet stream is in a middle of the country flow pattern and she predicts 2 more weeks of much below temps for us. Man, we just can't get a break. Looks like we have to hope for April to be perfect conditions for sap flow and it might come hard and fast????? I did finish all the line taps on Friday so thats 3000+ and we are still going ahead with our plans on putting all the bag taps out this weekend no matter what they predict. The sun angle is getting higher each day so who knows how the trees will react to that heat on them even if it's 32 to 36 degree air temp? With all the producers that put out bag taps/pipeline taps very early, it will be interesting on the results of production after the season is done as to how they flowed after sitting idle for so long. I do believe that as long as it's cold there should be hardly a decline. This by far is the most relaxed tapping year i ever had as far as not having to rush because the sap is dripping slowly already while i am tapping. Sure can tell it's slow in Wisconsin when there isn't much chatter on traders every day!

[WI Sugarpop]

That's because we're so busy waiting.

[markcasper]

If I do not have any sap on hand by March 25th, this will be the latest year in 29 years of doing it. And I don't see that occurring by next Monday.

[BackofBeyondJim]

So, it looks like a warm-up for the weekend!?...

Also, I'm curious. Does anyone tap birch trees in northern Wisconsin? (I know the sugar content is much lower, but a Russian I met recently said the birch syrup was very tasty back in Belarus.)

[jmayerl]

Haha, warm up my butt! The forecast already changed and now only shows mid 30's here. Looks like syrup into Memorial Day.

[mike z]

Ok... who hasn't tapped yet in Northern Wisconsin?

[TerryF]

me in Marinette county, cold and lots of snow. maybe next week?

[BC Birch Tapper]

Yes the sugar content is much lower. Typically 100 to 1 +/- 20% and it flows after maple. THe ground has to thaw 1st before it flows. There are lots of treads on Birch Syrup on this site.

[markcasper]

Ok... who hasn't tapped yet in Northern Wisconsin?

I have not tapped yet.

[wilfredjr]

Nope. Daily range still stuck between 3° & 23°. Just visiting the trees and wearing in the path.

[Rhino]

Spent last day and a half in the woods fixing lines that i had flagged during tapping of the pipeline system. Tomorrow we will start tapping in the 1700 bag taps, I see next week is still on the coolish side but with that many to do and just 3 of us to do it, we decided to put them in. The sun is going to be out also so that makes the work go much better then tapping in a snowstorm or rain. Could of waited for the following weekend without missing to much but it just works out better this way. I am glad i held off with those for this long already.

[logboy]

I can't be the only one buried under tons of snow. There is 3' on the ground here near Menomonie with ridiculous drifts in many areas. I spent two hours getting the four wheeler unstuck last night trying to blaze a path into the woods. Today while I was picking my gravity lines up and putting in the taps I found a few that were buried under 8 feet of snow where it has drifted. I guess I won't be putting these in until later in the season. Tomorrow I get to move a 250 gallon square tank a half-mile by hand because the snow is too deep for the skid loader. I know I know, it builds character.

[markcasper]

It is looking as if there will be little and probably no syrup made before April 1st here.

[jputney]

No taps in yet.... was gonna start today but they changed the forecast again. Maybe tomorrow but don't think I'll miss anything waiting till next week. Time to get out the chains for the 4 wheeler will use the snowmobile and sled for a while but it's gonna be a mess when all this starts to melt!

[WildRiver]

We'll be placing the last of 200+ taps tomorrow, we jumped the gun three weeks ago with about 40. Looks like a good 10 day forecast.

[WI Sugarpop]

Tomorrow I get to move a 250 gallon square tank a half-mile by hand because the snow is too deep for the skid loader. I know I know, it builds character.
We had to move a 275 gal tote in deep snow so we set it on two of the grandkid's plastic sleds and pulled it. That worked great.

[markcasper]

Kind of funny to listen to some of the "bar" talk around my area and how next week is going to be the week things break loose. 36 daytime and teens at night and cloudy is not going to do it. Towards the tail end of next week looks a bit more promising, but that is 7 days out.

[mike z]

On my way home from work I stopped and checked the neighbor's bags. He tapped on the 8th. 0 sap in most bags, only one tree was running, I think around a drop a minute. I was going to tap this weekend???

[markcasper]

If its open taps I would hold off til at least the middle of next week. Monday through Wednesday calls for cloudy all days and only 35. I will probably start taping the checkvalves tomorrow and on the south side of hill, but the bags I will wait til at least middle to end of next week and then see what the forecast holds.

[wilfredjr]

Temp held @ 20° this morning; high was 38°
Coulda been somebody, but me & the dogs just marched around the trail in snowshoes.
Shooting for Thursday

[snowmkr]

Tapped 700 yesterday and finished 200 today most were dripping when drilled, but by dark only 1/4 of them had maybe a cup of sap

[sbingham]

Mike Z - I'm about 3 or 4 miles southeast of you.
I tapped 20 trees on March 8th which have done very little.
Decided to sneak in one more snowmobile ride for the season, got home at 2:30 PM today and tapped another 80 trees.
About half of them started dripping right away, the other half were dry.
By the time the sun set tonight some of the bags had 2-3" of sap in them.
I think when the sun comes out the heat is intense enough to warm up the south side of the trees.
Hopefull

[mike z]

Hi Scott, for some reason, I thought you were north of me a couple miles, anyway... sounds like we're real close now to getting some real sap flow. Please keep posting on what you get the next couple days.

[sbingham]

Mike - We are on Cross Road, 3/4 mile east of County I.
Our hunting camp is north of you, off the end of Fedyn Road to the east.
I'll let you know what happens, looks like the forecast is calling for brisk winds out of the north early next week - after that it looks pretty good.
I was encouraged by what I seen this afternoon.
Hopefully will be able to fire up the cooker by next weekend.

[logboy]

7510

This was a 2 hour incident last night, up to the handlebars. I dont have a snowmobile, so I'm not sure how I'm going to get the sap out until the snow really starts to melt. Hopefully it will set up enough at night to get in while it's frozen.

[markcasper]

I started to tap on Saturday and things are quite slow. There was maybe 1/4 of the trees on the south sidehill dribbling a little sap, only a 1/2 dozen or so were considered oozing. The north side of hill and those on top.....forget it, those trees aren't gonna do a thing til after Easter. The snow is unlike anything I have seen in a long time and as a neighbor said "*** deep to a large giraffe." Just getting to the woods with any kind of wheeled vehicle is one big gamble.

Towards the end of this week things are looking alot better in the temperature department, but we really need some 40's and 50's and several nights in a row above freezing to get this season going.

[dschultz]

[QUOTE=logboy;217763]7510

This was a 2 hour incident last night, up to the handlebars. I dont have a snowmobile, so I'm not sure how I'm going to get the sap out until the snow really starts to melt. Hopefully it will set up enough at night to get in while it's frozen.[/Q

That look's like me a week ago.Got tired of it and got a set of track's and now can go anywhere I want to,and drag and I mean drag my trailer along.

[jputney]

I run chains on all 4 tires..... not as good as tracks but way cheaper and helps a lot.

[Rhino]

Got done tapping today, just have to put some containers out yet in our price county bush and run the vac pump to clear lines out once the sap starts up. Just like Mark said is what we found to be true with our trees saturday........south side, sun hitting, dripping slowly.......north side taps/shaded nothing. Snow depth is exhausting, snowshoes make it alot easier but some jobs they are more of a pain. To put containers out we loaded up the loader bucket on our 4 wheel drive 80 horse duetz allis tractor and used that to navigate through the snow, first time we ever had to use that. some areas we were pushing snow with the front axel and it would struggle to go through it. Another first is we snapped in half military magnesium snowshoes from the use we put them through. I know on a thread i wrote once that these are bullet proof but not the case. My buddy text me who taps large pasture trees and he wrote that 1 out of 6 started to drip so if they arnt ready ours won't be for awhile.

[bearair]

@ dschultz all I can say is that sucks. Up around Siren we have maybe 1.5 feet of snow which is manageable. It's also been a few degrees warmer then around The Eau Claire area I'm heading up north today to see if anything is happening. But it looks to me like my turkey seaso. Is going to be spent boiling. Which isn't such a bad thing.

[dschultz]

Measured the snow in the woods we were in today, 2.5 feet. Got a call from a guy that has 80 acre's he want's tapped,went and looked at that today also,so that put's my total tapable acre's over 600

[Johnny Yooper]

put in about 45 taps on Sunday afternoon; about 10% of them had sap dripping from the hole; snow is up to your knees so it was all on snowshoes on Sunday. I added 12 more today; walked on well established trails for the most part to get to those last 12 trees and the snow was a little harder so didn't bother with snowshoes today. While tapping the last 12, I checked about 10 pails I'd put out on Sunday and half of them had sap, I use 2 gal frosting pails and a couple of them were 1/4 full. Weather forecast shows highs in the 40's/lows in the high 20's through Sunday, so things are finally starting to look good, just hope we don't get too warm too fast like last year!

[wilfredjr]

Sunny & 40° already. Probably should be out there now, but this maple trim has got to be on before Easter dinner, so I'l stick to the schedule or somebody might get mad.

[wilfredjr]

After damaging some drywall behind the trim, I took the dogs with me to the store for joint compound, and I received executive clemency upon return. As it dries, me and the dogs went out to tap around 2pm. 16 of 17 holes ran freely; when I knocked off at 5:30 it was still 42°, all taps still active. Pretty skyed.
Observation: the bigger the tree, the slower the drip.

7553755475557556

[WildRiver]

Some of our trees put out a gallon today, most did nothing to speak of. We may be able to boil on Saturday or Sunday. We put out about 250 taps, mostly bags. Southern Douglas County.

[bearair]

Still to soon. Trees are waking up 2 had over 3 gallons in the bucket, but most of the buckets were dry or just a few drops. Looks like another week before any boiling here

[gouldjs]

had my first drips in Polk County today. 22 taps out.....2 were dripping good....a few others were showing a little life.

[markcasper]

I tapped 200 on one of the north slopes this afternoon and only 15 were running.

[Rhino]

Same results pretty much all over, beautiful sunny day yesterday but not much going on with the trees. Talked to 3 other producers last evening, 2 are in my general area, 1 is 60 miles south of us and all 3 had the same results.......most trees not doing anything, few were dripping slowly. Has to be the deep snow pack. One of the guys that i talked to was tapping yesterday and he was surprised how many didn't even get wet. Might have to get some nice days back to back to back, get rid of some of this snow, and then be in business.

[hikewithmike]

Sunny, high temp. of 45, tapped 50 more today (350 total). All holes were wet, but drip rate slow overall. Maybe 30-40% of our bags have some accumulation, with only a few dripping at rates of 3 sec. or less. Expecting to have some full bags by the end of the day tomorrow as a few are half full as of 4 PM today. Hoping all the others will turn on as well.

2010- 50 small, poorly selected trees for the last few days of the season <1 gallon yield of syrup
2011- 300 taps bags and buckets, 30+ gallons yield
2012- 200 taps bags and buckets, 3 gallon yield
2013- 350 taps all on bags

27 X 45 pan converted Oil tank wood fired evaporator, + another similar evaporator if needed
Honda Rancher 350 "the Saperator"
Yamaha 250 "Saperator Jr."

[markcasper]

I worked on one of my south bushes vacuum yesterday and at about 5pm the releaser was tripping at around 30-40% of an average day. Ones on top of hill are bone dry even with the vacuum.

[Rhino]

Yesterday i ran the vac. pump to start clearing the lines, and fixing leaks/problems. After about a hour of this i was making my way down to another section of lines and i heard metal against metal. Went down to the pump and seen my pulley on the vac. motor completely broke in half. Good thing we have farmer friends in that area that i could borrow a pulley puller and at least get that off when i was there. Kind of a wasted afternoon with the running to town (20 miles away) and getting a new pulley. Today will be getting the vac pump back up and running and clearing lines/repairs. I know when i looked at some of my bucket taps not much was going on still with those. Last monday i put the buckets on and not much sap was in them yesterday (Thursday), and those have 3 to 4 taps running into them with lines. Another producer we talked to yesterday in our area said it's hard to get a good clearing of the lines when not much sap is flowing. Hopeing today the trees will do better so i can get this done.

[lpakiz]

Here in Clark County, they were running pretty good yesterday ( Thursday). We ran 600 gallons thru the new Intensofire clone in about 6 hours, lots of tweaking/fixing/adjusting/learning. Easy on the wood pile too.
We're not running today and will use the day off to do more changes we couldn't do while operating.
Hope your season gets started today. Weather looks perfect....

[Jeff E]

Hey Ipakiz, new evaporator or a highly modified existing?
I added over air this year to my old leader 3x12, and am on the learning curve as well.
Things are looking up. Trees put out 200 gallons on Tuesday, 350 gallons on Wednesday, 450 gallons yesterday. A good trend. Good sugar as well. I was at 2.6, which is very good for my woods.
Made my first syrup of the season last night, so I got some in March! I didn't think that was going to happen.

Mark Casper, glad to see you back at it full speed. Still working with that CDL 600?

[amherstmaple]

We collected 50 gal. on 100 taps yesterday in Amherst. Still a ton of snow in the woods! Forgot its like work lugging those full sap buckets around. Hoping to get 60-75 gal. today. Starting up evaporator tonight. Got the TV down to the sap shack to watch my picks win tonight.

[stumpmaker]

Have 105 tree's tapped since last week, checked today and NO action yet at all going on in NW part of Sawyer county. We tapped a few more tree's and they where bone dry yet. Snow is around 2' deep yet and turning to slush and wet under it. The ground froze real hard this year with no snow till mid December. So we just hurry up and wait till it warms up I reckon

[lpakiz]

Jeff,
Completely new from the ground up. It replaces a 2X3 flat pan!! Quite the jump in GPM.
Gonna give her another whirl tomorrow AM. There's over 800 gallons in the yard tonight.

[LDF]

Put in 35 of 50 taps last Sunday, 11 more Thursday night and the final 4 yesterday.

Thursday night collected approximately 4 gallons of sap (about half the trees were active), Yesterday collected another 10 gallons of sap. Still a lot of snow in the woods, it will be interesting to see how much this rain will knock down the snow pack and what will happen to the sap flow.

[mike z]

Hung 200 buckets Thursday, and collected 100 gallons yesterday, most of the trees barely ran at all.

[wilfredjr]

Reached 50° by 3pm Friday; gathered two days worth of flow under what I think of as ideal conditions: 12 gallons from 16 bags.
Wondering if this is a sustainable rate, as my storage is minimal.
Must boil soon regardless.

[PETE FELCH]

Cooking for the first time this year. Most of the sap from yesterday and the day before. Not much of a run today but a nice easy day to make sure both r o s were working .three barrels in the shed and about one more to go . So far a good start

[Late Bite]

Sap is flowing good in Marinette Co. Collected almost 140 gallons off 60 taps since the warm up. I bought a new pan from Jim Schumacher and am very anxious to try it out. The pan he made looks very nice. Plan to boil on Tuesday.

[jeffafa]

Sap started in mercer Thursday on full sun trees every thing else still waiting......

[markcasper]

The trees just do not want to get going! I drug a fence post and maul out in the woods and there is a good solid 5-6" of frost in the woods, on the top of that is 1/2"-1" of solid sheet of ice, and finally the snow on top.

The trees that were running the best this last Friday were in deep snow drifted areas, while several trees on the south slant and not much snow were nil. That led me to suspect ground frost and that I believe is the case after checking today.

[motowbrowne]

We have had about two days with enough sap to bother collecting. All told about 400 gallons from 400 taps over about three days. Luckily, most of that was 4.2 percent, and about 100 gallons at 3 percent. Still, everything is slow. I really hope we can get a decent crop this year. Two bad years in a row would hurt. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[flying squirrel maple]

Hey mike z have you done at collecting since fri. Could you post what you get the next couple days. Thanks

[mike z]

Well, I just got in from the woods. We have 250 buckets out now. I was going to collect tonight but found lots of ice, so I decided to wait till tomorrow hoping with the predicted warmer weather, some of it would be melted. I suppose I have about 100-125 g. in the buckets. A dozen or so, were on the verge of overflow but most had 3-6". Will collect tomorrow after work and boil Thursday.

[wilfredjr]

Very little gain here since last Friday; sunny sides only; most bags half ice till late afternoon.
Rookie question:
With so little storage, when I collect I was considering tossing the ice, as I understand from here (http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmaple/sapsugarcontentvariation.pdf) that sugar content lost would be minimal. Is there another reason not to?

[PerryW]

Very little gain here since last Friday; sunny sides only; most bags half ice till late afternoon.
Rookie question:
With so little storage, when I collect I was considering tossing the ice, as I understand from here (http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmaple/sapsugarcontentvariation.pdf) that sugar content lost would be minimal. Is there another reason not to?

I toss my bucket ice unless the bucket is mostly ice. If a bucket freezes almost sold, the sweet seems to get trapped in pockets within the ice.

Or you could save the ice is you couldn't boil right away and needed to keep the sap cool.

[Diesel Pro]

Slow going near Merrill

On the subject of ice: Ever drink a froxen soft drink or gatorade? Most of the flavor is gone when you get to the slush...

[wilfredjr]

Thanks. I collected for the second time today and most of the ice had melted in the 54° sunshine, filling up my 30 gallons of storage. One more nice day tomorrow before it snows, so I guess I'll be boiling! We small fry have fun, too.

[WildRiver]

First boil today, I sweetened the pans with 75 gallons of sap. It is so slow here in Douglas County, this is my production off 250+ taps. Hoping for a better next week.

[wilfredjr]

Process Notes
Sunny 40° @ 12:30
Brix 3% glass meter in ice chest
Each 2" pan holds 16 cups
3 pans @ boil 1:30
15 gallons in chest
Digital Alarm @ 220°
Warming pan spills into fire @ 4:56; recovers
Finish pan off fire @ 5:10 220°
Processed 15 gal sap
Saved for bottle or mix with next batch
1/2 gal syrup
bags collected as much sap as processed

[Diesel Pro]

Brother made the collection run Thursday. Last collection was Saturday. 70 gallons more or less from 88 taps. It's waiting for me plus Friday's dripings need to be collected. Temps above freezing Saturday, but snow and rain so we'll see how it goes. I was hoping for about 130 gallons for this weekend. Doubt I'll make that. Maybe next weekend...

[wilfredjr]

reached 40° again,: 1 1/2" snow overnight; no rain yet here
Bags will be almost full again by nightfall.
Got our first half gallon bottled.
Gory details of first boil on our blog

[Rhino]

Came home from the sugar bush today to refill diesel/gas containers for the next days to come. Ran our r.o for the first time and i have to say I am glad i bought it. Membrane process amd controls were sooooo helpful both in setting up and also when i was running it and had to give them a call when i had a question. Numbers from their machine were 5 gpm concentrate..... 8 gpm permeate. total 13 gpm or 780 gph. Sugar % was coming out at 7 1/2. Next time we might throttle it down and see what sugar percentage we can get up to. Have to hit the hay,estimate of 3000 gal. in our bag taps to collect tomorrow. Good luck everyone.

[wilfredjr]

Sunny since 2PM; 45°; snow receding slowly
collected my 15 gallons back from perimeter trees, which were running like faucets
must boil again tomorrow: going for 30
put out last 3 taps: observed giant full sun lakeside red maple preparing to bud

[amherstmaple]

It was a long weekend of boiling but we are all caught up. Bottled 5 gal. last night w/ another 6gal. in the garage to be bottled. Puts us @ 19gal for the year on 115 taps. 1st part of the week looks to be slow but the end of the week looks ideal. Plenty of snow cover in the woods yet.

[wilfredjr]

Rain delay on that boil. Maybe a window later, but I doubt it, and it looks like a wet week.
I should really get around to sheltering that arch pretty soon.
Neighbors stopped by and offered coolers for storage yesterday.
Showed them what we were up to and shared a pint.

[lostrock4]

It has been slow in the Hayward area also, some of the trees dripped good on friday April 6th i have 16 taps and have collected 4 gallons total. I'm having fun in my first year of chasing sap. The weather forecast look optimistic if some of the clouds would clear in the evenings. We got below 32 for a few hours sunday nite but then the rain came in and warmed us back. I'm still snowmobiling to get the sap so that's a plus.

[Diesel Pro]

Brother made the collection run Thursday. Last collection was Saturday. 70 gallons more or less from 88 taps. It's waiting for me plus Friday's dripings need to be collected. Temps above freezing Saturday, but snow and rain so we'll see how it goes. I was hoping for about 130 gallons for this weekend. Doubt I'll make that. Maybe next weekend...

Turns out I collected another 70 gallons Saturday and another 30 gallons Sunday for a total of 170. I have almost 9 gallons of near syrup from this batch and figure it will settle in around 6 gallons when I finish.

Not sure what this week will bring besides yucky weather...

[Jeff E]

We've been getting steady sap since last Friday. Making really nice light and medium amber, great flavor. Good sugar content. Gravity (bags and buckets are still very slow, but at least they are yeilding something.
Had a crazy Sunday afternoon. We had about 1900 gallons to process. First moment of panic came when I was helping a sap supplier off load his sap. I came back into the evaporator after a few minutes and the float was stuck on the flue pan. I was down to about 1/3" of sap, boiling hard. That was really close to a very bad day. As my evaporator grinds out about 170 gph, I was less that 2 minutes from a destroyed pan set.
Turned around and filter press didn't work. Fortunately it was just a failed switch.
Then the auto draw off stuck closed. I had installed a bypass a couple of years ago, so we could work around this. Turns out my replacing the plastic barbed fitting with stainless was a bad idea. Different contact surface with the soft plunger on the auto draw off made it get stuck.
So a good afternoon of almost destroying the pans, almost being forced to store unfiltered syrup, almost overcooking the finish pan, but ending up with about a drum of nice medium amber.

Hasn't frozen here for 3 days, and sugar is dropping. We were at 2.5% last night.

[GramaCindy]

HOLY COW, Jeff, what a bad day…..ended up GREAT though. Good for you. Wish I was swimming in sap like you, or 1/100th like you!

[mike z]

Collected 140 gal. tonight. Wanted to have empty buckets going into this snow storm. I think it's going to run like crazy.

[GramaCindy]

Collected 140 gal. tonight. Wanted to have empty buckets going into this snow storm. I think it's going to run like crazy.

and with a freeze this morning….could be interesting. I am worried about the wind though…tends to shut down a good flow. The upcoming weather looks very icky for Spring, but possibly great for sap!http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Cable&state=WI&site=DLH&textField1=46.1989&textField2=-91.3047&e=0

[mike z]

Spring can wait another 5 weeks, we have syrup to make. The world depends on us to do it. The temperatures for this storm event look pretty good for sap flow. I think all the pieces are in place, and we'll be playing a bit of catch up this weekend boiling. My trails could use a little more snow too.
Say Grama... how's that preheater working? Can't remember, do you have a hood over it? Good luck this week.

[wilfredjr]

Taps all stop here for two days; never over freezing; boil postponed till Saturday

[Cindee]

We are in Mountain. Greg collected two days ago and from 80 taps he got approx. 25 gals sap. We didn't check yesterday because it was so nasty out but around 40 degrees. I checked on some of the bags and was surprised to see some are 3/4 full. How did that happen especially in the rain, wind and crappy cold weather. But we will take it anyway we can.

[Mark]

We are in Mountain. Greg collected two days ago and from 80 taps he got approx. 25 gals sap. We didn't check yesterday because it was so nasty out but around 40 degrees. I checked on some of the bags and was surprised to see some are 3/4 full. How did that happen especially in the rain, wind and crappy cold weather. But we will take it anyway we can.

It helps when a low pressure moves in because it lowers the pressure outside of the tree.

[Cindee]

I keep a spreadsheet daily of temp, pressure, etc. I didn't quite know that when the pressure is dropping the sap runs better. You said because the pressure is lower outside the tree, how exactly does that make the sap run better? The average air pressure is 29.92

[Mark]

Standard pressure at sea level is 29.92. The best runs that I had with bags was when I had a warm up and then later in the day the pressure dropped, that increases the differential in the tree to the outside.. Now I just lower the outside pressure about 25 inches less than standard with a vacuum pump.

[PerryW]

sap ran like that around here like that last monday and last friday. It ran exceptionally well even though there was no freeze the night before (and the day before was also a great sap run.)

Seems like sometimes the conditions are just right that the trees are just ready to give it up.

[Diesel Pro]

I hear it's actually running pretty decent today in spite of the crappy weather. I won't know for sure unless one of my helpers comes through for me and makes the run.

[mike z]

Just back from checking buckets, some half full. Not the amount I was hoping for, but hopefully with below freezing temps tonight and a little warmer tomorrow, it will run better.

[wilfredjr]

Never over 26° today, but the two full bags dumped at 7 this morning on my two top producers refilled 4 & 6", while the others changed minimally. Amazing disparities among similar size trees all grouped within fifty yards. Spouts all frozen now; just a little sleet so far. I doubt we get what they're saying.

[WildRiver]

I just checked my bags and there's quite a lot of slushy sap out there, evidently it ran pretty good during yesterdays storm. We have about 4" of new snow, I'll collect tomorrow for a Sunday boil.

[amherstmaple]

We collect 90 gal. on Wed. and 60 gal yesterday on our 115 taps. Don't think we'll get much today but the next couple of days look good and next week may have some good days. We have 20 gal of syrup. Been a stellar year for us. Not sure how much longer we'll leave them out. Season is starting to grow old on Momma.

[wilfredjr]

All bags frozen solid with minimal additions overnight; calm 24° light snow all day; 2-3" total; sudden warm-up to 32° just now, clouds clearing off?
Must boil tomorrow regardless

[mike z]

Collected 330 g. yesterday, with many buckets running over.

[bearair]

Heading up to the cabin to boil. My Dad got up to the cabin last night and discovered the two 7 gallon buckets on our tree by the cabin were overflowing. (They were empty on Thursday AM) Hopefully the woods are full also.
Collected 800 gallons so far on 275 taps. Its been hit and miss on how much the trees are producing. We are on very flat ground and the trees in the southern edge if the woods have flies the buckets while some most if the trees deep in the woods have been dry. Hopefully the weather the last few days woke them up also.

[bearair]

It's started, collected 700 gallons off of 275 taps last emptied on Wednesday. Looks like a bumper week.

[WildRiver]

It's +12 F this morning, probably a little ice in the bags. It's still sunny this morning but a lot of weather is on the way. Gonna boil 50 gallons collected yesterday and bottle this afternoon. Awfully slow here in Douglas County.

[Cindee]

we are in Mountain. The run started for us the other day. We have had crappy weather, rain, snow sleet, wind. Went to check the bags just for grins and they were anywhere from 1/2 full to full. Went to check on them yesterday we didn't think it was going to be a good day and again now they were full to their silver hanger frames and 10 minutes away from overflowing. It was a great site to see them drip with the sunlight on the bags and watching it splash. We collected 103 gals off of 80 taps. I am trying to correlate the air pressure to the run. Today it is 29.97 which is up from yesterday but we have a storm coming in this afternoon. Good Luck everyone.

[wilfredjr]

12° sunny early; all bags frozen solid; boil went well except for obligatory back pan spill (likely culprit me adding firewood nudging the brisk apart): 30 gallons of 3% sap to 3 80% syrup in 7hrs: this batch cooking is getting old fast. No way I want more than 20 taps without upgrade of gear.

[WildRiver]

Just finished boiling 50 gallons, we're now at 5 gallons of syrup. It's still winter up here, right now +37F ,sunny and windy.

[sweeteffinsyrup]

12° sunny early; all bags frozen solid; boil went well except for obligatory back pan spill (likely culprit me adding firewood nudging the brisk apart): 30 gallons of 3% sap to 3 80% syrup in 7hrs: this batch cooking is getting old fast. No way I want more than 20 taps without upgrade of gear.
I hear ya there Wilfred. I am very thankful for all the syrup I got from mother nature on this 2nd year of mine, but I'm also thankful the season is over with.

[Run Forest Run!]

I hear ya there Wilfred. I am very thankful for all the syrup I got from mother nature on this 2nd year of mine, but I'm also thankful the season is over with.

How much syrup did your second year yield? I'm betting you had a major improvement over last year. I sure did! I now know that I can't handle too many taps. When the sap is flowing like it is supposed to do (not like last year!) it doesn't take much to overwhelm a backyarder like me.

[wilfredjr]

We got the same two imperial pints that we got the first year: total bummer. We're up to 13 as of today, and stand to get about 9 or 10 more: we're rich like you!

[Merklin Maples]

Yesterday we collected the most sap this year. Over 100 gallons on 125 taps. Down to 16 degrees Sat night. Most bags had ice. Sat finished over 4 gallons of syrup. Up to 8 gallons for the year. Was surprised the sap ran. We have had snow, rain, sleet with rain, rainwith snow, sleet with snow and the trees are running well.

[Diesel Pro]

Friday evening I arrived to find many of my pails overflowing. Collected about 150 gallons total for the week to date. Went back out Saturday on a partial run while we were cooking and pulled another 36 or so gallons and then ran Sunday am and collected another 30 gallons after skimming ice. I had read that there is not much sugar in the ice/slush, but my initial testing shows that to be untrue. I probably threw out 10 gallons worth of ice and slush.

I'm rallying the troops this week. I'm hoping that I can fill my tanks (240 gallons) prior to the weekend and still have the pails out filing for one last hurrah.

[wilfredjr]

Temp broke 40° and sun melted yesterday's 3"; still about 5" in the woods; all taps still running clear; #1 producer nearly filled the bag in 9 hrs; found that bag #13 sprung a leak when I broke up the ice to collect the sweet by banging it on the tree; must boil again tomorrow to keep up and out of the yuk slated for Wed. Arch repair
77867787

[GramaCindy]

OMG…I am DROWNING IN SAP. I only have a 2x4 and can't start boiling until around 2:30. Collected 113 gallons on Sunday, and my brother collected more than 125 yesterday and his back gave out before he even finished. I am NOT complaining at all, just wish there were more hours in the day.

[Diesel Pro]

Sunday-Monday's run brought in around 90 gallons. We'll see what today brings, but I expect big things this week. Hoping I can speed up my homemade RO and get it to run deeper than 8% efficiently as I'm thinking that I'll have between 3-400 gallons to process this weekend.

[markcasper]

Sap run last Friday was outstanding and Saturday was good too. Sunday, Sunday night and Monday morning were definately bag sap times. They ran an outstanding run with temps around 32 while the tubing was frozen from Saturday nights low of 20. Collected almost 3 gallons per tap off bags on Monday. Went to gathering them Monday morning after work and ended up having the full gathering tank slide off due to all the ice on the trailer bed and it exploded, losing all the sap and it destroyed the tank. Finally got another one in 4 hours but I lost alot of sap as gathering didn't commence until 1 pm yesterday, and 80% of them were running over since early morning. Whats a guy to do?

[fishman]

I find that drinking sometimes helps. Just remember there's no sense crying over spilled sap.

[duboisj]

Are people in northern WI having luck storing sap for a day or two outside? We've never had to store before and I'm not sure how long things can go in a tank without spoiling. No refrigeration is possible for us.

(Just a a few big plastic drums with large, hopefully relatively sterile, liners).

[Diesel Pro]

Right, wrong, or otherwise I have been storing for up to a week. Right now I have 130 gallons in my buggy, but it is parked inside (heat off) and out of the UV. Next runs get stored in outdoor tanks stashed to the north of the building to stay out of the sun again. I don't know how well it's running today, but I suspect slower than yesterday.



7788

[wilfredjr]

Cloudy low 40°; all day batch cooked 35 gallons of sap collected from frozen bags. Nice Brix bump there from 3 to 4%. I should toss the ice more often.
Grate repair held up; no pan slip into fire today!
7792

[Run Forest Run!]

You'd think that after I'd finished sugaring for the year that I'd be tired of looking at great pictures of bubbling syrup. Nope! Still love it!

[WildRiver]

We boiled off 450 gallons over 3 days and are now caught up, I'm tired and sore. Trees were still dripping today, only slower.
I'll bottle tomorrow and start collecting again Friday if needed. This sure beats last year. Douglas County.

[sweeteffinsyrup]

How much syrup did your second year yield? I'm betting you had a major improvement over last year. I sure did! I now know that I can't handle too many taps. When the sap is flowing like it is supposed to do (not like last year!) it doesn't take much to overwhelm a backyarder like me.
I ended up with 27 quarts of syrup. It was overwhelming at times, like you said, but it sure is rewarding

[Jeff E]

I can appreciate the tired and sore!
Another front moving through today. Then good sap weather through Sunday forecast.
We have met a lot of nice people over the last few days who simply ran out of sap storage, fire wood, or time and brought us there extra sap. At one point we had 6 trucks lined up waiting to dump there sap. We processed about 11,000 gallons of sap over the last 3 days, had record sap yield in one day from our woods, and a record syrup made in day for us (172 g). Glad I was able to take most of that day off work!

YOU GOTTAA WAAAANT IT !!!!! as they say. Hang in there, summer is coming!

[wilfredjr]

Collected from 12 of 19 bags (one retired hurt) in the rain this morning and have 35 gallons on hand to boil. Approx 4.5 gallons of syrup in the pantry, all bottles being 18.9 oz. Gift list expanding hourly. Looks like I'll pull the taps and final boil on Saturday: if the sun hits those trees they'll bud out in a second.

[bearair]

Are people in northern WI having luck storing sap for a day or two outside? We've never had to store before and I'm not sure how long things can go in a tank without spoiling. No refrigeration is possible for us.

(Just a a few big plastic drums with large, hopefully relatively sterile, liners).

We store our sap outside in large 275 gallon totes and haven't had a problem. Last year the warm weather spoiled about the last 30 gallons but that's unusual. I've read somewhere on this form that you should treat raw sap like milk. Keep it below 40 degrees and you should be good. If you keep it in the shade and covered it should be good even when the temp gets to 50 for a few hours. Depends on how cold it was overnight and how big a container. The bigger the better.

[bearair]

Collected over 400 gallins of sap Wednesday on 275 taps and due to time, only picked up the buckets that were overflowing or close to overflowing. This weekend should be a big day for collecting and boiling. Running out of room to store the sap.

[WildRiver]

We've got our work cut out for us now, over a foot of new snow on the ground. I collected 100 gallons yesterday afternoon till I was soaked. It looks like we've got some good sap weather coming up, it was dripping slowly yesterday. Douglas County.

[mike z]

Checking buckets now, hoping for another large run like followed the last snow storm (b. pressure very low right now). I'm starting to burn next years wood supply, and might need to temporarily store syrup in a bulk tank until I figure out what I'm going to do with it.

[Diesel Pro]

My big debate is whether to go another weekend after this or draw the line. By my calculations we have collected about 300 gallons raw as of Thursday. We RO'd some of this down by about 100 gallons on Wednesday but if things keep going We'll have 2 days of boiling this weekend. Making improvements to the RO a bit and I should have some relief firewood coming. Not that I'm lacking the raw wood I have it coming out my ears it's just that I have nothing dry and ready. Last minute deal for me I started with near 0 dry wood. If it would stop raining and snowing I have quite a bit of uncovered junk wood that I'm looking to use up but that's all soggy...

[duboisj]

Thanks a lot everyone for the notes on storage. We were able to boil a couple of 55 gallon drums over Wed. afternoon and evening, and a few buckets to boot.

Trying to decide now whether to start back up tonigth or wait until tomorrow. Haven't seen the trees since Wednesday evening, but I assume there'll have been good flow since then, so things are probably full.

[mike z]

My trees really didn't produce much today. Just a bit too cold. I will go collect at 6:00 tonight, but I don't expect much more then 150 g. from 250 buckets. But tomorrow... if that sun is out...

[stubby spile]

Got 1860 gals made in clark county hoping for one more week sap flow slow today

[GramaCindy]

I am drowning in sap….aprox 450 gallons in storage, cold, probably frozen, it's 1* out right now. 24" of nice fresh white stuff, beautiful, but will make any future collecting a hassle to say the least. Had two days off this week, one snow day and one personal day. I boiled as long as my body could take it, finished quite a bit of syrup and plan on boiling all weekend. I will freeze my almost syrup and finish it in a few weeks. Looking to possibly pull my taps, as the woodpile is just about done. I had no idea that a season could be this good.

[WildRiver]

Our snow totals for this last storm were about 20 inches, lots of weird shaped drifts around the buildings. Also it's +8F this morning, I boiled off 100 gallons yesterday so at least the holding tank isn't frozen. Today is going to be a day of snow removal. My wife is on a cruise to the Bahamas right now, evidently she's the smart one.

[mike z]

We only got a few inches in Rusk Co. It's been great for our trails, since we pull a sled around all season to collect. I have 270 g. to boil down today. Probably collect another 200-300 for boiling tomorrow. I think I'll be going through most of next years wood supply the way it looks.

[wilfredjr]

Started late; quit early: left 4th batch on the arch and shut 'er down. Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
Guess I'll be back at it Wednesday.
Completely off base about maples budding out: 12° early, 42° late, sunny all day; no taps ran until 2pm and the trees show no inclination to pop.

[spudzone]

After sputtering in late March and early April, my trees went nuts April 14/15/16 and then slowed with the recent snow. All that sap yielded 30 to 1; that surprised me and is the best ratio I've experienced. We got lucky in Hayward with only 6-7 " from the last storm. After Zero deg f this am, some trees really got revved up this afternoon and were going strong at 6 pm when I collected. Forecast looks like several prime days this week. Gonna run out of storage again! Glad I'm not a deer or one of those disgruntled robins I saw last week...

[logboy]

I'm drowning in sap and its still coming. I hit 1,000 gallons for the season today from 100 taps. I probably had a lot more but i couldn't stay ahead of the barrels a couple days. I finished bottling syrup tonight and I'm at about 21 gallons so far with 200 more gallons of sap yet to boil. Sure is making up from last year. I'm in Dunn County.

[Diesel Pro]

Got 1860 gals made in clark county hoping for one more week sap flow slow today

Silver Chev truck with tote in bed and on trailer?

[hikewithmike]

Had to collect everything and leave it in the woods in barrels. Little hope of getting it out until the snow melts a bit. We had 17" Thurs/Fri. Probably 250 gallons out there, and got another 250 in the shack left from the end of last week and the few areas we were able to collect (today and yesterday) by ATV. At least we're prepared for a run again. Collected 320 sap sacks in snowshoes, two of us at a time. I was the lucky one to be there all the time. With overnight lows in the mid-high 20's and highs in the 40's all week expected, should be a crazy week. Rain, cloudy or sun, it doesn't seem to matter right now. They are eager to run! Scrounging wood for the second time on Monday. Fortunately we have some generous friends. We are blessed!

[WildRiver]

I got my old Allis Dozer running and was able to make my main trails passable for the ATV, been bottling syrup in my spare time.
Sap is running some today, lots of full bags to empty.

[Merklin Maples]

Getting some sap. Not overwelmed. Storeage not a problem. Not been working the regular job so have had plenty of time to cook and bottle. Over 19 gallons made so far this year. Neighbor has wood I can use if I need to. Hope it keeps coming for a while.

[stumpmaker]

Still not much going on for my 105 tree's. Collected 70 gal. on Saturday after it warmed up. At 6 pm not to many dripping after all that sun! Will be looking to buy some sap so I can have some syrup to cook down into sugar traditional style for school kids demo and public demo this year. Will keep at it and see what comes of this year. Odd some are swimming in sap and some of us are high and dry yet.

[Diesel Pro]

Still not much going on for my 105 tree's. Collected 70 gal. on Saturday after it warmed up. At 6 pm not to many dripping after all that sun! Will be looking to buy some sap so I can have some syrup to cook down into sugar traditional style for school kids demo and public demo this year. Will keep at it and see what comes of this year. Odd some are swimming in sap and some of us are high and dry yet.

I would guess your season is yet to come. not sure what you have for snow cover, but I hear it's pretty white up there. I might be able to find some extra near Merrill WI, but that's a long way to haul it.

[spudzone]

Still not much going on for my 105 tree's. Collected 70 gal. on Saturday after it warmed up. At 6 pm not to many dripping after all that sun! Will be looking to buy some sap so I can have some syrup to cook down into sugar traditional style for school kids demo and public demo this year. Will keep at it and see what comes of this year. Odd some are swimming in sap and some of us are high and dry yet.

Most of my trees are are about 15 miles from Seeley, and I'm drowning in sap again after yesterday and last night's run. Hilltop trees are filling bags overnight in many cases. A friend near the LCO Casino has had a much slower run on seemingly prime trees. The run is really variable around here. Another foot of snow coming tonight and no 4 wheel drive right now :(

I may have sap for you after I pull the plug wed or thurs; more than I can handle. 715-558-1845.

Cheers
Chris

[mike z]

Almost all my buckets were running over today. Collected 490 g. tonight. Can't boil it till Wednesday. ****! Looking for a boiling partner, will split the fun 60/40.

[Diesel Pro]

If you weren't so far away I'd run my RO on it for you. Mine were quite full today as well (145 gallons from 43 or so 5 gallon pails) and looks like they'll hit again Wed, Thurs, and Friday if weather man is right.

[WildRiver]

Yesterday I picked up 330 gallons and a friend ran the evaporator while I was collecting, I was done at 8:30 P.M. and felt like I was in a wreck. I'm definitely in better shape than a week ago.
We picked up another 8" of snow last night, and the sun is shining now. More sap is coming.

[mike z]

just checked buckets... yep, full again.

[Diesel Pro]

Boy I would have thought Tuesday would have been dead with Mondays warm overnight temps. I have my helpers making the run this evening and another helper starting with the RO this afternoon to concentrate it down and make room in the tanks.

[Rhino]

Came home again last evening to restock diesel/gas and just to get away from it for a short time. Back at it today again but we have drawn a line in the sand and are wrapping it up this weekend. Letting everything fill up and overflow (hopefully) the next 2 days and finish what we get. Hard to believe there is alot of snow on the ground and we are pulling the plug. With the warm temps it would be hard to process it fast enough before it would turn sour on us anyway. Like everyone else...... what a season. Long extended stays at the sugar shack and i lost 25 pounds from the start of tapping to now. (no gym membership needed). Looking forward to sunday evening when it's done.

[WildRiver]

240 gallons picked up yesterday and boiled off, I need to restock my wood supply. This should be the last day of sap run according to forecast, I'm ready to be done.

[Jeff E]

Amazing last 2 weeks! I agree, I am letting folks know that I am done buying sap as well. the warm up this weekend I suspect will change things in the trees around me. The Buds are ready to go!
I will leave the vacuum on until the syrup flavor goes south, but I dont want to buy sap to make bad syrup. Most folks are ready to be done as well.
Me and the 3x12 + RO have processed 26,000 gallons of sap in the last 7 days...while going to work most days. Kind of tired!

[bearair]

Hit the 2300 gallons of sap mark yesterday. With 40 gallons of finished syrup and more to boil off I'm taking tomorrow off then hitting it hard all weekend to finish the boiling. Trees are running again today bit this will e the last day according to the forecast. Now it's time to enjoy the spring and prepare notes and wish lists for next year.

[Diesel Pro]

My one yard tree tap (box elder) hasn't done a thing since yesterday. Waiting to hear how my maples (near Merrill) are doing today, but I'm not expecting great things.

Tonight is forecast low of 30°f so I am hoping we get another flow Friday.

[wilfredjr]

Just south of Summit Lake, sky clearing after the rain last night, 37°, no taps running; only a dribble yesterday after last collection Wednesday; buds poised to pop.
50 gallons in ice chests and no place to go with more till I batch boil all day Saturday; leaving bags up just to record end game and profile tree output from 3/26-4/26.
Almost 10 gallons of syrup bottled, likely 12 total; out of pint bottles and switching to mason jars.
Very impressive how the larger operations handle "adversity": mind-boggling numbers; thanks to all for the lessons.
I supposed this sap orgy had to happen after last year's outage. This is about the max we can handle till we throw some money at the problem; >
Out gathering the final 10 gallons after Thursday's last snowball collapsed the hoophouse:
7820

[bearair]

Boiling maple syrup, again...and killing misquotoes. Only 300 gallons left to boil off. Due to the warm weather and no nit enough time to boil any more, Dad is dumping the buckets in the ground as he pulls the taps today. 43 gallons bottled should easly finish with over 50 gallons of syrup. Long but A very productive maple season.

[WildRiver]

Beer with friends and making syrup is fun, but I scorched some syrup last night and noticed just in time to avoid pan damage.
We've pulled all taps and will finish boiling today, 252 taps and nearly 50 gallons of beautiful syrup.

[wilfredjr]

Mid 60's yesterday and pulled the bags with the last 2 day's worth - 10 gallons or so, late afternoon during final boil - half bags mostly; critters had downed 2 ice chests and a pail overnight, so my work was cut in half for me; saved last sap for brewing - slight tint to it; maples seem spent but buds not really popped - should go today
7828

[Merklin Maples]

Pulled the plug yesterday. With 125 taps and a 2x4 flat pan on homemade arch we converted 1328 gallons of sap to 34 1/2 gallons syrup. Tired. Just need to finish the cleanup in the sap house.

[mike z]

I finished the season with 108 gal. off 250 buckets and a big flat pan. The sugar ran at 3% almost the entire season, and made really light syrup. Man, it was a good year... and do I need a pan upgrade. Probably won't see another season like this for 11 months. HA!

[syrup2make]

WOW what a season. I have read most of the threads here and I find something very interesting. I collected 2,182 gallons of sap. The sap ran 3% most of the time, but I would estimate that 500 gallons was 2%. I converted that into 24 gallons of good syrup and 16 gallons of bear bait syrup, (sap turned milky). This means that I made 40 gallons of syrup from 2200 gallons of sap. This means my ratio was 54 to 1. What the heck happened to my ratio? I keeped very accurate volume measurements. I can see some sap loss due to spillage between holding tank to evap pan, but not 600 gallons worth which would be the loss to bring the ratio to 40 to 1. I would like to know how the people using flat pans made 108 gallons of syrup and are still alive. We were running 24 hrs at times and the wife and I are just about drop dead tired. I love maple season, but I am so happy that it's over.

[GramaCindy]

I finished up last Tuesday, pulled taps on April 21st. At that time, my trails were a big mess, I was almost out of wood, and totally beat. WOW, what a season. I actually lost track of amount of sap collected, but my best estimate is around 1000 gallons/113 trees. With over 12 gallons of really nice syrup, I am just fine. It could have been so much more if I had more hours to boil, and on a 2x4, things can go fairly slow. My best evaporation rate was 13 GPH. As I write this, we have had 5 days of 70* and now 3-4" of fresh snow. What a weird spring.:o

The reason that I had so much sap and only 12 gallons of syrup, sadly, I had several storage containers that went too low in sugar to bother with. My mistake was to use the smaller storage containers first for fear of them getting too warm, and leaving my best storage containers for later….UGH. We also dumped aprox 200 gallons of fresh sap at the end, due to exhaustion and being out of firewood. Lessons learned for sure!

[jmayerl]

WOW what a season. I have read most of the threads here and I find something very interesting. I collected 2,182 gallons of sap. The sap ran 3% most of the time, but I would estimate that 500 gallons was 2%. I converted that into 24 gallons of good syrup and 16 gallons of bear bait syrup, (sap turned milky). This means that I made 40 gallons of syrup from 2200 gallons of sap. This means my ratio was 54 to 1. What the heck happened to my ratio? I keeped very accurate volume measurements. I can see some sap loss due to spillage between holding tank to evap pan, but not 600 gallons worth which would be the loss to bring the ratio to 40 to 1. I would like to know how the people using flat pans made 108 gallons of syrup and are still alive. We were running 24 hrs at times and the wife and I are just about drop dead tired. I love maple season, but I am so happy that it's over.

Question 1, it all depends on how you measure your sap. Example, 275 gallon cage totes only hold 261 gallons, don't ask me why but that is there true volume. It adds up after awhile.

Question 2, I agree with your thinking. I boiled almost 4 weeks straight and made 120ish gallons on an evaporator. Yet some flat panners claim similar results. I have to wonder, maybe they don't have to spend a couple hours each day collecting, maybe there hydrometer is a bit heavy and they don't finish all the way, or maybe there superheroes!

[ScottP]

Question 1, it all depends on how you measure your sap. Example, 275 gallon cage totes only hold 261 gallons, don't ask me why but that is there true volume. It adds up after awhile.

Question 2, I agree with your thinking. I boiled almost 4 weeks straight and made 120ish gallons on an evaporator. Yet some flat panners claim similar results. I have to wonder, maybe they don't have to spend a couple hours each day collecting, maybe there hydrometer is a bit heavy and they don't finish all the way, or maybe there superheroes!


In answer to your question #2 we finished off roughly 212 gallons with flat pans. We start in a 4ftx8ft pan and we cook down whatever we collected that day. The next day we transfer that into our finish pan which is a 2ftx4ft flat pan. We had around 480 trees tapped(never officially counted them this year) with 5 gallon buckets. Our operation consists of 4 guys that all have day jobs so we are not starting with collecting until 5:30pm and we try to be going home by midnight. For this season I took one day vacation to get caught back up but I was the only one who did that (in our operation). We are hoping to run lines this year since we are not getting any younger. As far as quality goes I sell our Syrup bulk and get paid top grade for everything so I dont think my hydrometer is heavy so we most be Superheroes.

[markcasper]

And some people were going to quit and sell everything due to last years poor year. I had a great year, even with losing more sap than normal due to tanks running over, hoses in the wrong places and trying to do too many things at once. Vacuum systems were not really much help this year. Our 300 bag taps were outstanding with yielding right around 5000 gallons sap and the sugar average for the season at 3.3%. If one does the math...thats close to 2/3 a gallon of syrup per tap with no pumps, no vacuum, no messy engines. The amounts of light amber this year was just amazing. Definately a year for the record books.

[mike z]

I used a 2x8.5' flat pan, and finished 108 g. from 250 buckets. I draw off heavy too. I had help collecting the buckets most of the time from various friends and family, and my uncle, who is retired, helped run the evaporator the whole time. We consistently run the evaporator 12 hrs at a time, sometimes up to 16 hrs. The niter baked on the pans so bad this year though, I had to clean the front pan every time between boilings. Had a good supply of wood on hand because of last years bad season. I took 5 days off work this year and sometimes collected by myself. One day I gathered 490 gallons in the rain and snow. Took me 5+ hrs. The whole time I just thought, make as much as I can, so I can use the money to buy new, fluted pans for next year, and I'll never have to work this hard again. If I new the sap was good right now, I'd go get it and boil it down.

[Rhino]

Just had to drop some numbers of my buddies here that are truly unreal. These are all pasture trees/ large standing by themselves type. I always refer to them as superman trees. Last year when the weather was crappy he made a quart per tap which was great considering. This year he put in 140 taps and made 1 gallon of syrup per tap!! Just smart spouts with bags hanging off them no high vac/lines. He got a sap hydrometer halfway thru the season and sap tested 3.5 and slowly went down from there. The volume was the unreal thing. I told him after last years poor crop that you are pretty much guarenteed to make at least a quart per tap every year at the least. I know the best run he had he text me that his 140 taps gave over 300 gallons of sap! How nice that would be to have 1000 trees like that.

[mike z]

Anyone check there buckets today, after the snow storm? Big snow = big flow. I may have just made that up, but it seemed to be true this year. Maybe the trees are too far alone??

[spudzone]

Anyone check there buckets today, after the snow storm? Big snow = big flow. I may have just made that up, but it seemed to be true this year. Maybe the trees are too far alone??

Mike- Here are two hard maples on a north exposure that were tapped around April 20th near Hayward. 14-16" of heavy snow yesterday. The sap shown is all from 5/1 through 5/3 mid-day. Rinsed the bags before the storm as some were looking a bit suspect. So, there is some flow, but pretty moderate. Our reds are too far along and all have been pulled. Left a few of these in close to the house so my boy could go collect with me for fun; pulled most though. Gonna collect on Sunday, May 5th - wow!
-Chris
7833

[Jeff E]

I was wondering if anyone was still collecting sap.
One tree I pulled the tap from in front of the house is running sap down the bark. I agree the buds are too far along, and the last syrup I made was getting starchy-very foamy to boil, hard to filter, flavor changing.

Anyway, I dont know where I would put the syrup. Never thought that would happen!
Bulk price seems to be stable, maybe down (2.60/#) a bit from the last few years. There is a lot of syrup available around here. It will be interesting to watch the prices in the stores...

It would be interesting to hear if anyone boils sap from this week to hear how the syrup turns out. Keep us posted.

[mike z]

Thanks for the update Spudzone. Yes, let us know what the syrup is like if you boil it down. I checked my buckets. I didn't empty before the storm so they appeared a little milky. I was going to pull buckets tonight and start cleaning, but I'll wait till tomorrow and see what they are like. Was hoping they'ed flow hard enough to wash them out. They were flowing "some".

[spudzone]

The 15 or so bags on hard maples I haven't pulled were pooching a bit this evening, so I collected and buried the buckets in snow; about 28 gallons. They clearly ran well today with temps climbing to around 40 degrees. A taste test definitely shows a shift in flavor. The sugar content seems ok, but there's more going on in there, too. Stronger flavor, but not quite weird or "off" yet. I'll empty them tomorrow again and do a quick micro-batch with my turkey fryer/propane finishing pan tomorrow just to say I sugared in May. I've only done this 4 years now, and all except this year were fast and early warm ups in March. My earliest last boil was in 2011 on 3/21. This year will be 5/5... amazing!

For Mike- here are the pics I posted from yesterday PM and the same two tonight. Pretty typical of the better trees with late tapping dates. Please ignore the sloppy bag install! :)

-Chris
78347835

[mike z]

Well, started taking down buckets yesterday. Strange to be taking down the buckets with so much snow on the ground.

[spudzone]

The 15 or so bags on hard maples I haven't pulled were pooching a bit this evening, so I collected and buried the buckets in snow; about 28 gallons. They clearly ran well today with temps climbing to around 40 degrees. A taste test definitely shows a shift in flavor. The sugar content seems ok, but there's more going on in there, too. Stronger flavor, but not quite weird or "off" yet. I'll empty them tomorrow again and do a quick micro-batch with my turkey fryer/propane finishing pan tomorrow just to say I sugared in May. I've only done this 4 years now, and all except this year were fast and early warm ups in March. My earliest last boil was in 2011 on 3/21. This year will be 5/5... amazing!

For Mike- here are the pics I posted from yesterday PM and the same two tonight. Pretty typical of the better trees with late tapping dates. Please ignore the sloppy bag install! :)

-Chris
78347835

Boiled about 30 very fresh gallons down to about 6 gal last night and shut it down. The sap was definitely getting buddy, and I dumped the batch. The aroma was off once I got it to temp, and it only got worse from there. Oh well, now I recognize "the smell". We had about four 70 degree days before the big snow, and that must have pushed the trees too far. This is how we learn the craft, I guess.

I can hardly complain, though - 23 finished gallons this year on about 65 taps; my best, by far.

-Chris

[mike z]

I always thought it smelled like wet card board with a hint of corn silage. How does it go from cotton candy to that??

[GramaCindy]

Man this winter has been BRUTAL! Still 30+" of snow out there. Getting out there to tap the trees at this time is IMPOSSIBLE other than on a snowmobile. I have really had to work on my patience. I usually tap a test tree for sure by now, but have refused to do so this year. If the sap did run on some of our warmer days, I would have NO WAY to get to it. Now there is more snow forecasted for this week. I think IF we will have a Maple Season up here in Northern WI, it will be at least 2-3 weeks late.

[mike z]

My taps are not in yet, still waiting for better weather. The longer I wait, the more the snow depth goes down too I figure. Lots of time yet Cindy. Last year I put my taps in March 27 and 28, and we all know how good last year was. :)

[lostrock4]

I checked my test tree this afternoon (3/16/14) and low and behold it was dripping. The kids got there first taste of maple sap today they loved it. I'm going to put in 20 taps on monday morning and see what happens. I also checked the frost in the woods. We have 24-30 inches of snow in the woods in Hayward. Underneath that snow we have 4 inches of wimpy frost and then below that is regular dirt frost free. The heavy blanket of snow protected ground this winter thankfully because last year we were 1-2 weeks behind everyone. I'm getting around on an artic cat snowmobile pulling an otter sled. I'm glad the trails are close to the trees. The kids can walk on top of the snow, but i fall right through the crust. I'll give an update once I see some flow.

Anyone know of any Maple Sap buyers in the Hayward area? Thanks, David

[Jeff E]

I have been slugging it our for about 10 days now, and finished tapping my woods yesterday. All done on my big backcountry snowshoes.
I had been keeping some trails packed down with the snowmobile, so at least it is relatively easy to move around in the woods from area to area.
Found a winter kill (finished by wolf or coyote) deer a week ago. The final chase took place on a snowmobile trail, then the deer left the trail and was run down within 20 yards. On Saturday I went and checked it out again, nothing but hair left. No bones, no skin....amazing.

Anyway, back to sap. I have half the woods with good vacuum and did get sap last week, and am now ready for the next little run for finding and fixing leaks on the other half. Yesterday it was 20 deg F and a warm sun. Many of the trees were 'wet' when I was tapping. It seems they are ready to go once the weather is right.

[motowbrowne]

Jeff, same story down here. Tapping on snowshoes. Luckily, we had some melting last week, and have a decent crust on top of the snow. My taps have been slowly running on warmer days, so I think you're right that they are ready when the weather turns. Good luck this year.

[WildRiver]

I put out 50 taps w/buckets yesterday, I could walk on top the snow. Nothing running yet, Douglas County. If it wasn't for a dozer clearing the main trails, collection would be tough. Snow is still crotch deep in the deep woods.

[mike z]

I'm going to put out a few test taps tonight. Not quite sure when to pull the trigger??

[Brad W Wi]

Put out 3 yesterday, only 397 to go. Plenty of snow and more on the way. Last year we collected on the 30 of March for the first time. I figure we got time yet.

[mike z]

Hi Brad, just wondering; what is the evaporation rate on your 2x8? Looks like another cold weekend coming.

[kraemerp]

I hear you...got a little over half my taps out and not in a hurry for the rest. Cold raining and overcast today so I am guessing the sap won't be running today either

[Cindee]

OMG.....after 3 years or tapping and prepping we were out there today and we looked at each other and could not come up with the depth of the drill hole and then insert the tap.....Please someone refresh our memories. We are going through one of us having Cancer and chemo and the short term memory loss is because of the chemo...

[1arch]

OMG.....after 3 years or tapping and prepping we were out there today and we looked at each other and could not come up with the depth of the drill hole and then insert the tap.....Please someone refresh our memories. We are going through one of us having Cancer and chemo and the short term memory loss is because of the chemo...

I recall the package directions of leader check valves taps we use saying 1" - 1 1/2" into the white wood.

[logboy]

I tapped roughly 75 in Menomonie. Many were flowing pretty well. I probably could have tapped a few days ago. Looks like things will run again tomorrow before freezing back up for a week or so.

[Merklin Maples]

Put in 125 taps yesterday. Was surprised to see many were leaking. Was a job tapping in snowshoes. First time I have ever had to tap on shoes. What an adventure. Now the wait for a run. At least I am ready.

[lostrock4]

1.5" - 2" is plenty deep. Enjoy The Sunshine!

[lostrock4]

1/2 of the maple trees were dripping a little bit on Thursday. The weather was beautiful. Only half a gallon of sap. It's a start. Looking forward to the middle of the week when it warms up again.

[Rhino]

Trees i was tapping Thursday and Friday all were dripping down the bark before i could get the tap in and that was even on the north side holes. Today with a high of 20 and sun, the holes started getting wet around 11 oclock. Today, I walked by a section that i tapped Thursday that my 1 1/4 mainline is apart, and the snow under it was eroded and a big sapsicle was hanging from the line so some action did take place. Snowshoes are making this a o.k job. 90% of my steps i don't break through at all on the crust, it's the other 10% that gets me. Kinda like a trap door, then you fall and struggle to get out of the quick sand like snow thats under the crust. Legs are getting back in shape though. Looks like tapping all this week with line repair mixed in sometime in between. All extended forecast now show warm ups starting late in the week so things are going to progress in my opinion. If we are all tapped and ready by April 1st, I will be happy.

[mike z]

I was considering tapping tomorrow. It is not supposed to be above freezing, do I risk leaking taps, because of splitting frozen wood, if I tap when it is this cold out? Otherwise I will wait until it warms up.

[markcasper]

Things are looking better than a few weeks ago! Two weeks ago I was going to throw the towel in for this year. The snow really went down since then and you can now walk on top of the snow pretty good without falling through. The bad side is one of the woods I tap was about 50% wrecked from bear damage and didn't find out until yesterday, I managed to get all of the lines out from under the snow before the cold hit. A little better than 1/2 of the laterals were mangles and i saw many drops chewed in half as well. Going to be at least a day, if not more just to repair all that. The good thing is I have alot of vacation time over the next 4 weeks and Lord willing that doesn't get tampered with.

I tapped a test tree a week ago Thursday and this past Tuesday there was only about a cup in it. I have heard a few reports of neighbors that had gathered the equivalent of a 1/2 - 3/4 gallon of sap per tap as of Friday and that has been all and from south slopes only. Noone that I know of has cooked yet and very few have gathered any. I am hoping to get tapping by mid-week. Its not the tapping that takes long, its all the repair work and in a normal winter one would have found some days to get out and do this before hand. I will be down on taps this year, but hopefully better vacuum will even that out. Good fortunes to everyone.

[wilfredjr]

Single test tap yesterday noon started to drip lightly then froze on the spile, some dribbled down the sack and made an icicle, which balanced the bag against a strong wind.

[Cindee]

In Mountain WI things are very slow. My son and his buddy spent the week end (7 hours each day) shoveling paths to the trees from the main trail just to make it easier on anyone collecting. There is over 2 ft of snow out there yet but hopefully after all snow has been shoveled away from around the base of the trees they might start to thaw out. On a good note though of the 40 trees tapped at a different location some of the bags are half full but a lot of them are frozen. My question is how long can sap stay in a bag without spoiling. Our test bag is 2.5 weeks old and is half full. I think the run will start Thursday when we have the wind and the rain coming in.

[TerryF]

Must be two inches

[WI Sugarpop]

Must be two inches
What is 2 inches?

[markcasper]

Sometime between last Tuesday night and Friday night my test bag wound up with a gallon of sap in it. Time to get it on! And get them in. Went to put up another section of mainline yesterday and wow the difference 3 weeks makes. A month ago....virtually impossible to walk.

[TerryF]

Cindee had a question on here of how far into the tree to drill for tapping. It's been erased now but that was my answer

[Rhino]

Been tapping since Thursday, Tomorrow i should just about get it done, repair work yet to be done on the line issues that i flagged. I start tapping at first light so some of these last couple mornings have been crazy cold for the end of March, by midday with the sun out, it's perfect temps to be in the woods tapping. We cut back on taps this year which might be a good thing? This weather might just flip flop and we go hot and stay hot like 2012?

[Ahnohta2]

Has any one started tapping in Bayfield or Ashland County yet. We are holding off till saturday to tap in Moquah, Wi - Bayfield Cnty. If you have tapped in Bayfield or Ashland Cnty, has there been any production???

[TIMIKE]

Going to get some good weather here over the next couple of weeks. Don't see 2012 happening....weather pattern much different then 2012.

[mike z]

The weather pattern for 2013 season was one of my favorites.

[markcasper]

Looks like today is going to suck working in the rain! So far behind I have no choice. Saddle install this morning and then maybe over to the other woods to fix all the bear damage. Hopefully will be able to get tapping tomorrow. Talked to a neighboring producer last night and he shut the pumps off, hardly a dribble coming. He bought a new 1800 gallon upright poly tank and has 500 gallons of sap from last Friday and it is a solid chunk of ice. I told him its going to be several days....don't waste your gas. Sunday is to be in the 50's, and after todays rain, that should at least get the south taps going.

[wilfredjr]

Test tap sack from last Saturday holds a measly inch of sap; dry today even in 40° sunshine; 5" fresh snow.
Still planning on partial deployment Sunday; 5 maybe 10

[NJG]

We are south of Catawba and still had 20-25 inches of snow in the woods today. All tapped in but of the 20 I checked today, less than 5 had any moisture in them at all. Can't be too much longer!

[Ahnohta2]

Has any one started tapping in BAYFIELD or ASHLAND County yet. We just started to tap in Moquah, Wi - Bayfield Cnty. approx 10% were slow drippers. If you have tapped in BAYFIELD or ASHLAND Cnty, has there been any production???

[wilfredjr]

Tapped 12 today 10 of 12 running well in sunny 45°; 2 old reds quite slow; week-long test tap started day with 2-3" now 6"

9507

[superiorsyrup]

Ahnota2

We tapped on Saturday, had a ok run on Sunday have about 100 taps probably wont have to collect until mid week. We tapped early Saturday and none of the trees were dripping then. We tap in Bayfield county Delta area

[GramaCindy]

Two of my fellow sappers have tapped, Drummond and Grandview, both say it's dripping pretty good. I will tap later this week, after hopefully we loose some more snow pack. Barnes.
Ahnota2

We tapped on Saturday, had a ok run on Sunday have about 100 taps probably wont have to collect until mid week. We tapped early Saturday and none of the trees were dripping then. We tap in Bayfield county Delta area

[lostrock4]

Hayward update. Sap definitely turned on today. The run is starting up here. Lots of slow droppers all week now most of trees had 1/2 gallon.

[wilfredjr]

Ditto Summit Lake. Mom called to request 2 quarts syrup, so I put in last eight taps. Firewood situation eased with conservation measures and warmer temps, so I might squeeze out another boil. Hope you guys don't get blasted up there this weekend.

[GramaCindy]

I'm sitting here, sap sacks ready to go, drill charged, Hoping that this weekend I could FINALLY get into the woods without getting something stuck. This morning it's another good 10" of snow and blowing snow. Probably no school today it's that bad. Dangit. The coming week's forecast looks PERFECT. My trees are across the road, and mainly down a hill, not ON the hill but at the bottom. We made the HUGE mistake this winter of not keeping the trails packed down, and by the time we realized we should have it was too late, even with the snowmobile. At this point in time, I will tap what is on top of the hill on snowshoes and hope that I can collect enough to get in a single boil.

[lostrock4]

Sap is running good 25 gallons out of 30 trees it should freeze tonight so Monday the sap should be flowing good. Still a ton of snow here fell down 3x in the wet snow but I didn't spill the sap lucky me :)

[Rhino]

picked up 1500 gal yesterday with 1500 still out there. Trees by us were dripping fair yesterday nothing to great. Without half tracks on the tractor and the crawler, there would be no way of gathering our bags. At times the half tracks would have to dig down and hit mud to get out of some of areas that are more hilly. Looks like maybe a few freezes the next couple nights so the runs might get stronger.

[Merklin Maples]

We got 126 gallons of sap from 125 taps. Not complaining. Hope last nights freeze will make the sap pour out of the trees today. Rain in the forecast for tonight. Hope it takes some snow down with it. Ready to get dried out in the driveway.

[stumpmaker]

Sap just starting to go on most of the 100 bucket hose combo's we got out two weeks ago. Snow is still 3' to 2-1/2' deep and it is like mush. Tough going breaking trail again after a foot of snow last Friday. Will collect in a few days. Looks to be good now that the tree's are thawed out and the snow pack is starting to put moisture back into the ground. Oh the joy joy of snoshoing in deep mush!!

Now to find pallets as my wood pile got buired under to much snow this year. Plow guy was a bad boy with all of the snow we have this year.

[Rhino]

Sap started to run around 11:30 today then by 3 oclock they fell flat. Even though we got to the mid 20's last night i think it was just for a short time. Looking good for the start of next week, Monday we might be at a high of 32 but with night time freezes and daytime sun they should go. Picked up 1050 gal that tested 2.1 Paper mill forester who will mark our woods after the season stopped by to touch base on the future select cutting. Was impressed with the case 530 with the half tracks on. This year it even amazes me what that thing will go through pulling a 300 gal. tank.

[lostrock4]

Sap ran great today with 21 for a low this morning. Not much sap yesterday in hayward. It looks like 30 gallons today and only ten yesterday. I boiled down 50 gallons on monday and got 244 ounces for a 3.8% content so the hard maples are showing off this year.

[wilfredjr]

Only 7' snow from last blast. Warm 50° today melting it like mad and taps all woke up early, nearly filling most bags. No storage left so better boil all day tomorrow. Hard on the dogs with the lake still froze over but dangerous so banned from "helping".

[Rhino]

Trees are hanging in there yet but we didnt need this 70 degree day. snow is now just patchy on the north slopes. Yesterday was a good run for us today just fair. Sap quality is good in the bags but came out warm as bath water from the pipeline. (use black mainlines). Tonight on the verge of a freeze but Tuesday night they say mid 20's. If we can just make it to this weekends cold snap before the sap turns buddy would be great. Tomorrow is time for me to plant veggies in my green house.

[Rhino]

Now to see what happens? 21 degrees this morning and the extended forecast looks good thru early next week for us, but will the sap be good thru that time? Yesterday was just a real slow drip, we sure did need this cold morning to jump start the trees again. My buddy from Edgar still made good syrup from what he gathered Sunday evening after that 70 degree day and he is 2 counties south of us, so i would say we should be good to go yet.

[markcasper]

I don't know Rhino.... 28 down here this morning, I as well boiled til noon Monday and the last 10 gallons went to DA, filtered nice, certainly didn't act like the normal end of season syrup. I had to work the past 2 nights, 12 hour shift and just pretty much let it go. I hauled just an enormous amount of sap between Friday and Sunday....15/ 400 gallon tank loads to be exact from a little over 800 taps of my own.. I got my new tubing install's vacuum going last Friday for the first time and holy motherload of sap!! I was getting close to 3 gallons per tap @ 26" vacuum from them per day between Friday and Monday morning. I know people won't believe that, but it is true. And the other woods were all running over 2 plus gallons per 24 hr.

All of the tanks are running over now as I left the vacuum going in case and checked the north one and the sap is cloudy as heck but not stringy, I think I'm going to go for it and start hauling and or dumping and start over. I am in major need of some real dark syrup and never really got any last year either. Will let you know what happens, I do know I'm not boiling crap, so will see.

[Rhino]

Keep ramming it thru Mark, I just got home from the woods after walking the lines and doing maintenance on equipment. Sap started to drip at 9 a.m by the time i left some bag taps were a drip a second, some nothing and some everywhere in between. This is the first year i tapped my 15 yard trees that i planted many years ago, My best tree right now is 5 drips a second, almost a steady stream. (hard to believe myself). Now i know why my buddy with those open pasture trees on bags does so well. Talked to him last night and now he is up to over 60 gallons of syrup from 80 taps. Last year he did hit that gallon a tap but probably gona be short this year. Sap looks clear and even had ice in the bags this morning on April 23rd! Mark, what kind of pump are you running? This spring all our pipeline gets tore out and a select cut will happen and i want to go to high vac. with the new system. I heard and read good things about Indianavacuum pumps. Just want to make sure i make the right choice. thanks

[markcasper]

Yeh you can make a gallon a tap on pasture trees in a better average year, the double sugar % of normal really helps. I'm only running sp-11's, nothing fancy. A young fella I buy from also bought a hobby releaser the same as me and he was in disbelief as well. His trees yielded 31 gallons per tap for the season and that was over the meter. The one day he brought me 1350 gallons from 360 taps and had started filling the 4th load that evening, he was close to 4 gallon per tap that day. I paid a consultant to come look at my woods a few years ago and in my new install I have 1 1/4" , 1", and a small amount of 3/4" in there. The proof is in about getting bigger mainlines deeper into the woods.
As for sap.....I dumped 2300 gallons onto the ground, cleaned the tanks and am collecting the new sap. Unfortunately I think at least i am about done. The trees started off good this morning and really tapered by late afternoon, even at that, I still averaged at least 1/2 GPT in about 7 hours. The soft maple are really getting that reddish hue and plus I heard the frogs this past Sunday night. Saturday night there was nothing.

[lpakiz]

Mark, don't be afraid to boil your late sap. I boiled some on Monday that was pretty bad-cloudy like whey, smelled fermented, disgusting foam floating on top and sticking to the sides of the bulk tank, heavy white sediment left on the bottom of the tank. I boiled a sample from each tote, and the samples tasted "off". I don't know where the off taste went, but after I boiled it, it is some of the best tasting syrup I have made. Several tasters said they preferred it over our regular, good-tasting mid-season syrup.
So, go for it if you can....

[markcasper]

Well I dumped it yesterday....everything that ran from Monday into Wednesday morning. Everone around here has quit except one guy that I know of. I'm going to go this afternoon and pick up what there is and run it through.

[markcasper]

I boiled some on Monday that was pretty bad-cloudy like whey, smelled fermented, disgusting foam floating on top and sticking to the sides of the bulk tank, heavy white sediment left on the bottom of the tank. ..

You pretty much summed it up...mine was worse though, the one tank had cottage cheese like growth floating on top. My gathering tank was almost full and that crap went full bore stringy on me so that was the first to go. Some of that sap gets "layered" so to speak, you think its ok on top and then half way down it is stringy. so I just decided to dump all. Trees have really slowed down.

I tell ya....if the foodies were to ever look at some of these posts I think they'd have a whole new outlook on consuming commercial and grade B.

[Rhino]

Just got back from gathering, My bag sap looked really good.....my pipeline sap just a tad milky. My trees really slowed down yesterday at some point, they started good yesterday then fell flat. Just under a half gallon a tap, not bad but i thought they would keep going and end up with much more. Snowed from 8 a.m on this morning, Huge flakes at times. Mark, i am getting a leader rep to gps and map my woods along with flagging mainlines boosters (if needed) and releasers after the old lines get ripped out. The deal with that is i buy the equipment from him, I never dealt with wet/dry lines or boosters or factory releasers before so this should be a real learning process for me. It's good to hear you can get that high of vac with a sp11. Still have to decide what way to go, Hot rod a dairy pump with oil flood/cooler or bite the bullet and go factory pump?

[markcasper]

Rhino, I have always had good luck with the sp's, don't know if should be running that high, but have not wrecked one yet because of too high. I just went out in the rain and could not believe my eyes! One tank running over, another 3 inches from the top! The vacuum dropped on the one running over down to 21 so don't what happen there. Last night when I left the woods at 6 it seemed the trees really slowed down and was kind of giving up hope. It has been raining all day here, so maybe that has something to do...off to gather again and this sap is cloudy and yellowish but nothing like the crap I dumped, I will be ro'ing and boiling tonight.
Will get my good dark syrup after all, hopefully the sugar % has not dropped too much.
Rhino, Leader likes to push their pvc boosters, I would run the other way on that one!! Just put stainless y's / t's in for your wet/dry with the so called "whips". Save the cracked fittings of pvc and don't let them talk you in to them. Its so unecessary.

[Rhino]

Mark, i totally get the y's and t's concept of joining the two but im scratching my head on the "whips" part?? What is a whip?

[markcasper]

Rhino, The whip is simply a Y going out of your dry line and connected to a single branch mainline that is connected to the main wetline. I think they just call the short piece between them a "whip" thats all.

Ducked in to eat a bite before going to get the last sap. Sugar dropped to 1.7 on one, 2% on the other tank and I expect the last one will be down to 1.5. Sap way better shape tonight.

[markcasper]

Syrup I made overnight was DA in color and had an off taste, not overpowering or anything, but there is sure some metabolism going on. I picked up close to 2000 gallons of sap from 850 taps between Wednesday noon and last night with vacuum. Will make one more round tomorrow morning and then call it a year.

[WildRiver]

We have open top PVC sack hangers, some of the sap is stained yellow from rain running down bark. Dump it, or boil it?

[jmayerl]

We boil it as long as it is not too yellow, then it gets dumped.