Got any ideas?

[lyford]

Not sure if I'm posting this in the correct section, but here goes. I am new to sugaring this year. I recently bought a home on 5 acres and have tapped my red maples (only maples we have here). So far we've made 2.5 gallons from 25 taps, no sure if that is a good ratio or not, but the syrup is great! I'd now like to increase my operation for next year, however, I have exhausted my supply of tapable trees at my home. My family owns 35 acres about 1.5 hrs south of my home. The potential exists for hundreds of taps on this property (mostly sugars with a few reds mixed in). Does anyone have any ideas how i can make this work. I can only make it down there at best once a week maybe less, I teach all day and have 2 kids under 3 at home. I am looking for a way to go down there once a week or so to collect the sap and bring it home to boil. Any thoughts and ideas are much appreciated. Good luck to all with your season!

[psparr]

I tap at our cabin and only get there on weekends. I tap early and more tree than I can handle. But I don't get as much sap as others because I tap early. But it stays cold with no problems.

[lyford]

psparr, what do you collect into, buckets or tubing? thanks for the reply!

[happy thoughts]

Reds are notorious for being sometimes stingy erratic producers on buckets. I found that to be true when we only had reds to tap. Just a thought but reds are supposedly very amenable to vacuum. Maybe you can think about increasing the yield of your own plot first. Short of vacuum, are there neighbors in your area that would allow you to tap for a share of the syrup? Three hours round trip seems a long way to go plus the price of gas and that's assuming you can figure out how to keep a weeks worth of sap collected and cold. You'd either need to cart all that sap home or plan on staying the weekend to process it. Just how much time do you want to invest?

As for yield, they say to expect about 10 gals of sap/tap on average on gravity. Reds tend to be lower in sugar. Sap made from my reds generally produced syrup at a ratio of 45-48:1. This is a weird year but normally from 25 taps I'd expect about 5+ gallons of syrup from 25 taps. Some years may produce much more.

[PerryW]

Visiting the sugarbush only once a week could be problematic. For Example, take the current cold snap we are in: Any sap that was in a tank or bucket would be frozen solid if not gathered before the temperatures dropped.

The only thing I can think of is to find a local producer who could keep an eye on the collection tanks during the week and gather if necessary. You may find someone who would do this for you in exchange for a portion of the sap.