How much wood for a max of 50 taps on a 2x3 w/blower?

[Birddog]

I am getting a Mason 2x3 w/blower. I will have somewhere close to 50 taps, mostly reds. I am hoping someone can give me an idea of how much wood I should plan for.

Thanks!

[Big_Eddy]

I am getting a Mason 2x3 w/blower. I will have somewhere close to 50 taps, mostly reds. I am hoping someone can give me an idea of how much wood I should plan for.

Thanks!

Without blower - 50 trees - 1 bush cord of wrist sized wood for the season should do it. I don't have a blower, but I expect more heat will go up the chimney and therefore you'll need more wood overall (but will burn it faster).

If you have the space - start with 2 bush cords and see how much is left over after the season.

[sg5054]

I burned about 3 cord this past season on my 2x3 Mason. Now I have a smokey lake hybrid pan. I'll be interested to see the difference.

[steve J]

When I had my 2x3 with no blower I could make 8.5 gallons on 1 cord of wrist size wood. with a blower you should make more syrup on a cord than without blower. With my 2x4 which has a blower I can make about 16 gallons on one cord of wood.

[Dave Y]

What is a bush cord? a cord of wood is 128 cubic ft or 4x4x8. I would be surprised if you needed more than 2 cord.

[SandMan]

I am getting a Mason 2x3 w/blower. I will have somewhere close to 50 taps, mostly reds. I am hoping someone can give me an idea of how much wood I should plan for.

Thanks!

With red maple, I would calculate 5-8 gal/tap of sap. That is a max of 400gal of sap at 45:1 or 9 gal of syrup. You should make 10-15 gal per cord.

[maple flats]

I never liked formulas for wood. I do however use them and then roughly double it. I'd suggest 2 full cord, but expect you to use about 1 in an average year. Then you will have next year's wood cut, and can start cutting the following year's. If you have a super year you still won't run out. I am now cutting for the 2015 season, maybe 2016.

[Flat Lander Sugaring]

up until last year I was around 15 to 20 gal syrup per cord of wood. last year i did 150 gal with 5 cords

so 50 taps x .25 a tap = 12.5 gal syrup so one to two cord

[Birddog]

Thanks everyone for all of your input. It sounds like a good plan will be to have 2 full cords of dry seasoned wood split to wrist size ready to go for the season. I've got a good start on it but need to find a little more dry wood. I've got some ash, oak, pine and white birch. I have tons of poplar trees but I'm not sure it's worth messing with them. I cut and dried some and it's about as light as balsa wood.

I've got a couple of willow trees I need to take down. Are they any better than popple trees?

[PerryFamily]

I have burned weeping willow before. It burned fine but was kinda stringy to split.
Not sure about poplar but if its free, split it up a try it. Worst case mix it with hardwood.

Just an opinion

[Yellzee]

bush cord as far as I know is an Ontario slang for a regular 4X4X8 cord.

This started I think because people started selling "face cords" which is really one row or 16" X 4X8 of wood.... so city slickers started calling that a cord and people that were used to the regular cord starting calling it a bush cord for clarity...


my guess as to how it started anyways...