Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

Sap is running 500 gph at 10:00am. Looks like it will be a good day. Testing 1.6%

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

Started running at 10:20am in main bush, 10:45am in the other. Coming in really hard now.

[spud]

Although the sap really started strong yesterday morning, it slowed down as the day went on. Sap ran all night and there is 1650 in the tank this morning. I got about 1 gpt since yesterday. Right now sap is only running 125 gph. It now looks like Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday have freezing nights and thats it. If that turns out to be the case then next weekend could be it for the season. My fingers are crossed that the weather person is wrong.

Spud

[Shirefisher]

The sap has slowed down here this weekend. I've had a few trees shut off completely. We made our biggest single draw off of 1 3/4 gallons of dark amber but super tasty syrup which was a surprise after only 3.5 hours of boiling. Today will be my last maple boil. I tapped 20 birch trees yesterday as they started to drip. I'll be cleaning pans and switching to batch boils on birch Wednesday...

[DrTimPerkins]

Although the sap really started strong yesterday morning, it slowed down as the day went on.

We got about 1.5+ gpt from yesterday afternoon to this morning in Underhill. Same thing...started very strong, but slowed as day/evening went on it slowed down some. Probably the wind. Sap sugar in the main bush at 1.7 Brix. Don't have final volumes or sap sugar for both sites yet, but with what is in the drums, the bulk tank and the sap tanks we're probably right about 0.55 gal/tap if everything was converted to syrup. Probably the crew will boil again Tuesday. Looks like a chance for a freeze Tues and Wed night, but surely getting nearer the end (but not there yet). Birds chirping everywhere.

[GeneralStark]

A little over 1 gpt in 24 hours here so I think the big runs may be a thing of the past here. I boiled yesterday and made over 20 gal of good flavored DR so I'll give it a go again this week. If flow continues at the current rate I'll probably hold off until Tuesday. Not supposed to be very warm so shouldn't be a problem storing the sap for a bit.

Possible freezes tuesday and wednesday nights but looks marginal...

[Mead Maple]

Well sap is running strong right now but the wind is absolutely pounding. Hoping the woods can handle it with the soft ground


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[spud]

The wind has slowed down a bunch this morning. I woke up to 33 degrees at the house. It’s possible parts of the woods froze last night. I have not checked the tank this morning yet. Last night at 7 the sap slowed down to 90 gph. The next three night are going to freeze. I’m noticing that my temps at the house are 3-4 cooler then downtown at the weather station. If this continues to be that way then I may see several more freezing nights in the next few weeks. Time will tell.

Spud

[WestfordSugarworks]

I'm hoping for two more weeks, Spud. I have found that there have been several times in the last few weeks where a week or 5 days out the forecast shows warm temps at night, but as we get closer to the date the forecast drops considerably. We are only at .38 gpt in our Westford bush and not sure about our yield in Jericho where we sell sap. I heard from a friend that higher elevation bushes have had much sweeter sap this season. not sure if it's true.

Was walking lines last night and noticed that a 2 year old mainline (2 year old drops) that we used CDL Signature spouts on has appeared to completely stop producing. None of the spouts were putting out any sap and many of the spouts had white or off white gunk in them. Just across the woods road is our original tubing where we run CV2s and those are still pushing out sap and looking very clean, though like others have said the sap slowed way down. I'm confident the spouts and tap holes are still clean. These two areas where both tapped in somewhere around January 10, within 2 or 3 days of each other. It's the first time i've seen obvious differences between a non CV and a CV spout, so figured I would share. Good luck to all.

[DrTimPerkins]

Just across the woods road is our original tubing where we run CV2s and those are still pushing out sap and looking very clean, though like others have said the sap slowed way down. I'm confident the spouts and tap holes are still clean. These two areas where both tapped in somewhere around January 10, within 2 or 3 days of each other. It's the first time i've seen obvious differences between a non CV and a CV spout, so figured I would share.

How old is the tubing and especially the drops in these woods?

[DrTimPerkins]

Decent sap run yesterday and overnight, although it slowed down quite a bit with all the wind. Guessing at this point that once everything is boiled we'll be right at our typical average production (0.59 gal/tap). Sap was down around 1.6-1.7 Brix yesterday. Waiting for the sap tally from the crew, so no solid numbers yet.

I think we did get a freeze, at least in parts of our woods. At 7-8pm some of the Smartrek sensors started dropping below freezing in the colder sections of our woods, and the vacuum started to tighten up a bit...a good indication of a freeze (trees stop producing sap AND gases when it freezes, so vacuum goes up a bit). Vacuum started a slight drop this morning around 7am, so they're starting to thaw out.

Forecast looking like a solid freeze Tues night/Wed morning, so that'll help a lot. a couple of 50+ deg F days towards the end of the week, but nothing real hot and some occasional rain to keep the soil moist. Flow still seems good so far. We'll get at least another week out of it, perhaps more if we do get some decent freezes.

I happened to remember yesterday that the float box on the incoming concentrate line might not have been drained and asked Wade by text to check it next time he was around the sugarhouse. He sent me a video of it...was like slightly congealed gravy...very ropey (not surprising), but the rest of the pan is OK. He fired up for 5 min to kill anything else that might have started in the pan (since we only boil about once a week).

21331

RO will be running a good bit today for sure. Won't have numbers until late this afternoon. The crew will be boiling tomorrow.

[spud]

Hey Dr. Tim what is the elevation to the areas of your woods that froze? My woods highest elevation is 1263. I thought yours was 1300-1650.

Spud

[tcross]

i'm at 1200 feet at my house and i got a freeze last night. certainly not a hard freeze. it was 32 at 8 p.m last night and 30-31 this a.m at 5. hope that kicks the trees into gear a bit as the flow was minimal yesterday.

[DrTimPerkins]

We have a really high density of Smartrek sensors, and the temperature precision and accuracy leaves a little to be desired, plus positioning of the units is not exceptionally uniform. We see a wide variation in temperature in the woods, probabably partly due to those factors, but also due to microclimate. Sometimes it is due to elevation (higher is sometimes colder, lower is sometimes colder). Often it is due to drainage (cold air follows the drainage patterns). Sometimes it is aspect (direction the woods faces) or when the sun was out during the day.

Keep in mind the sensors are in the woods at about 4-5 ft high. It is generally colder up in the tops of the trees 80-100 ft up. The fine branches can freeze, but the stem remains thawed. Still, there can be some amount of recharge when this happens. Not a full recharge, but enough to bump the sap flow up a bit the next day. Tim Wilmot did a lot of those types of measurements years ago. We are doing some of that now also, trying to get a better understanding of temperature and pressure/vacuum patterns in trees around a taphole under vacuum.

21334

The round blue things are vacuum sensors connected to small holes (via the yellow tubing) all around the stem -- they measure and record pressure/vacuum every 5 min. There are also temperature sensors in the tree measuring/recording temperature patterns at taphole depth all around the stem. This will allow us to produce a "map" of pressure/vacuum in the stem during water uptake and sap flow cycles, in a tree connected to a vacuum system. This is a student project. It is similar to a project Abby and I were doing several years ago that led to the "sapling capping" work.

The freeze we had yesterday happened in our more northwest facing woods, mostly higher up, but also in the drainage channels. Happened starting shortly after the front passed through in the evening. Was spotty, but covered (eventually) a majority of the woods.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Like the picture and what it represents --- the search for fundamental understanding.

[DrTimPerkins]

Like the picture and what it represents --- the search for fundamental understanding.

Thank you. We understand a good deal, but always seeking to refine our knowledge.

[tcross]

the short freeze up certainly helped me today! have about 125 gallons in the tank, from my 330 taps, since 6 this a.m. sap sugar tested 1.8 for yesterdays boil... hope today's is similar.

[tcross]

is anyone experiencing an abnormally high concentration of nitre this year? mine is supper fine and a lot of it! i can only get through about 150 gallons of sap (non ro) before i need to shut down and swap pans. what a PITA! it is filtering easily and coming out crystal clear however. seems last few years i could do twice that before swapping pans.

[WestfordSugarworks]

How old is the tubing and especially the drops in these woods?

The tubing was installed fall 2015 and this is our 5th year tapping these trees that I mentioned where we are running CV2s. Drops are same age.

We also used non CVs in a different section of the same woods that was tapped on January 1 and these are still running just as well as CV2s from what I can tell. The mainline, lateral, and drops were installed summer 2018 and this is our second year tapping these trees. The spouts are made by leader and look like the CV2s but without the ball. I checked them today and they looked good.

One thing I did not mention about the CDL Signature spouts which have stopped flowing is that we've had at least a couple times where drops popped off of the spouts, created big leaks and frozen saddles. Sap then backs up the mainline, laterals, drops and pushes sap back up into the tap hole. So those tapholes have been exposed to more microbes than average if you compare to tapholes on other mainlines in the same woods where we are running CV2s.

[spud]

It was 29.9 degrees at my house this morning. I assume it was a bit cooler in the woods. All the woods froze but only for 4-6 hours. Today its supposed to be full sun and 46 degrees. If I don’t see a decent run then I know the end is very near. Sap dropped to 1.4% late yesterday. I woke up to 1000 in the tank. I had emptied the tank last night at 5:30pm.

Spud

[Parker]

I always look forward to the Spud report

[hogisland42]

Spud where are you located?

[smokeyamber]

Checking buckets this morning and I saw some slime in a couple, taps are still dripping clear, should I clean the buckets out and press on or is this a sign of buddy sap ? 3/16 lines are still going strong and sap looks good and clear.

Thinking two more days then I will likely run out of wood anyway so will have to call it done...

Good season so far except for burning a ton of wood for only 8 gallons of syrup so far... sugar content must have been low this season.

[spud]

Spud where are you located?

I’m in Richford. Sap is running 185 gph and testing 1.5%. Should run till 9:00pm and then a much better freeze tonight. Hoping for another week. Fingers are crossed.

Spud

[GeneralStark]

Sap flow has been limping along since the last boil on Saturday but I did manage to collect about 1800 gal since then as of this am. Boiled today and made about 20+ gal. of some nice dark syrup. Right on the line with very dark. Rarely make any of that very dark but this may be the year....

SSC is still over 1 but not by much and haven't had a freeze in several days. I did notice some subtle earthiness to the smell in the sugarhouse while boiling but otherwise foam wasn't too bad and filtering was no problem. There were a few wood frogs chirping in one of the wetlands below us when I walked by with the family this afternoon as well as all sorts of other signs of spring.

Will boil at least one more time given a definite solid freeze tonight and no major warm ups until the end of the week.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

I saw sap running at 426 gallons per hour around 130. Hardest run I've seen yet.

[spud]

Yesterday was no gusher for me but I did get 1600 gallons by freeze up last night. Sap is testing 1.5 which is very good this time of year. This morning it is 25.7 degrees at the house at 5:45 am. It’s setting up for a good sap run day with early sun till noon and highs to be 43 degrees. I’m hoping there will be 3-5 more freezing nightS in the next ten days. The temps have been getting much cooler on the hill then downtown where the weather station is. When they say 35 for a low that means I could get 30. It appears I will pass last years numbers with gpt and sugar. I hope the price of bulk goes up a bit. Good luck everyone. Stay healthy.

Spud

[wdchuck]

Strangely, Spuds report almost always parallels my production even though we're pretty distant from each other. Keep up the good work, Spud- you're my daily entertainment! …..I'm at 3/4 of a crop, and looking for the full quota!

[DrTimPerkins]

Yesterday was no gusher for me but I did get 1600 gallons by freeze up last night. Sap is testing 1.5 which is very good this time of year.

Pretty similar in Underhill. Crew boiled and made another 550 gal of syrup (AR with good flavor). That puts us at 0.573 gpt. Got another 2,500 gal of 1.5 Brix sap overnight. Hoping the freeze last night kickstarts some flow. Should know this by this afternoon. Either way, it'll end up an average or somewhat above-average season for us. Could have been better -- darn squirrels. No freezes in our forecast (close though, so a little hope we could get another one).

[tcross]

bout the same in Derby yesterday. sap was at 1.5. sure does take a lot of wood to make syrup boiling 1.5 sap... has me thinking of what sugar content isn't really worth boiling... not that i'll stop though. had 21 on the thermometer this a.m so hopefully that helps out some!

[GiddingsHill]

Hoping to hit 5lbs/tap today in Bakersfield, Our average over the past 6 years has been about 6.5lbs/tap. Seems pretty unlikely this season. We just didn't get any of the early runs, no frost in in the ground but super deep snow here this year. Snow is mostly gone now and the ground is actually quite dry.
Like Spud, we are always colder than what is forecast, hoping that can limp us along.
Never been happier to have this land and this work to keep me occupied and employed (and sane?)
Hope everyone is well.

[sapmaple]

AMEN!! same feeling here!!

[WestfordSugarworks]

Running very good in our Jericho woods while our westford woods is not running well. Westford woods face East and warm up quicker so not sure what’s going on. Good freeze in both woods last Night, partial freeze in Jericho but not Westford two nights ago. Sap at 1 brix in Jericho.

Dr Tim what is the evaporation rate of your hyper brix rig? Thanks

[spud]

Sap is running 240 gph and sugar has gone up to 1.6. My East facing trees are not running very much. My south and west trees are the bulk of my sap now.

Spud

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Sap is running 524 gallons a hour as we speak. Strangely enough my north woods broke free first this morning. :confused:

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr Tim what is the evaporation rate of your hyper brix rig? Thanks

We were making ~100+ gal of syrup/hr last year, so evaporating about 150 gal/hr (evaporation rate) on a 4' x 12' evaporator (4' backpan, 8' frontpan). Total processing rate (evap + drawoff) was thus around 250 gal/hr. Because we were going into the backpan so cold (concentrate at about 25 deg F), that partition of the pan hardly ever got to a boil. This year we changed the heat loop in the backpan hood over to a concentrate preheater, so I suspect once we calculate the new rate it'll be quite a bit higher. Won't crunch those numbers until after the season, but I know it's been more of struggle keeping up with the filtering this year, so I suspect the reason is that we've exceeded our filtering capacity rate by a good bit. Bigger filter press in the plans for next season. We typically produce about 10-14 barrels per boil. Right now we get 3-4 barrels per press -- would be nice to only have to break the press down once a day. We're at 6 boils right now...maybe 1 more + the boil out of the pans.

[GeneralStark]

Good solid freeze here overnight and sap is running quite well now they everything is thawed. My woods face west primarily with a very steep mtn. to our east so can take a while to really thaw a good portion of the woods.

I also agree that this is an especially good year to be a sugarmaker....

I'm definitely close to the end here...

[DrTimPerkins]

Sap is running well in Underhill. Gonna need more barrels. :D

[Mead Maple]

Last boil of the year for me today. Between splitting daycare duties with the wife and our work weeks I have just about run out of time. Should end up with another 20 gallons to bottle. I exceeded my goal for this year and learned a lot on the new rig. Now onto the to-do list for next year...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Geroldn]

Last boil today in Northfield. Sap is running 15-20 gph off 215 taps. Sugar is <1%. Only got 2% in early March. Mostly getting 1.5% sap or less. Time to clean up and move on to other projects. Just over 60 gallons.

[VTNewbie]

Got 2 gpt in last 24 hours in Jay. Sugar is down to 1.3% though with 1.6% last run. Had been around 2% for most of season.

[WestfordSugarworks]

We were making ~100+ gal of syrup/hr last year, so evaporating about 150 gal/hr (evaporation rate) on a 4' x 12' evaporator (4' backpan, 8' frontpan). Total processing rate (evap + drawoff) was thus around 250 gal/hr. Because we were going into the backpan so cold (concentrate at about 25 deg F), that partition of the pan hardly ever got to a boil. This year we changed the heat loop in the backpan hood over to a concentrate preheater, so I suspect once we calculate the new rate it'll be quite a bit higher. Won't crunch those numbers until after the season, but I know it's been more of struggle keeping up with the filtering this year, so I suspect the reason is that we've exceeded our filtering capacity rate by a good bit. Bigger filter press in the plans for next season. We typically produce about 10-14 barrels per boil. Right now we get 3-4 barrels per press -- would be nice to only have to break the press down once a day. We're at 6 boils right now...maybe 1 more + the boil out of the pans.

Thanks Dr. Tim. I'm very interested in Hyperbrix if/when we start boiling all our own sap. Could you comment on the following? - My dad and I were discussing why our taps in Westford have pretty much stopped running, even after a good freeze last night. We've had pretty good vacuum, 27.5"-28.5", never running lower than 28" for more than half a day or so at any given time, throughout the season. We tapped January 13-21 in this bush. Running CV2s on 4 year old drops. Electrical releaser. Following all best practices. It wouldn't make sense to me that our tap holes stopped producing from tree wound response related to microbes this early.

Dad thought that as the season progresses, trees stop moving sap even during/after freeze thaw cycles. My understanding is that trees continue to translocate sugars and water through the spring, well past when the sap quality has become too poor to boil. Still not sure what's going on with our tap holes, but pretty certain the reason we're not getting sap is not for lack of tree sap movement.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Those Smart Spouts that I had mentioned had stopped running a few days ago started running again today.. They mostly look pretty dirty but still were kicking out sap, suprisingly. Seems like they stopped running while the CV2s kept running after a few days without a freeze. But now they're back on. Interesting.. Today marks 4 months since we started tapping. We tapped about 1500 or so on January 1st and those spouts all seem to be running well today. I think we did about a GPT in our Jericho woods today. Started real strong but slowed down a bit as the day went on. Pulled quite a few spouts that had started leaking today. Good luck to everyone.

[DrTimPerkins]

Thanks Dr. Tim. I'm very interested in Hyperbrix if/when we start boiling all our own sap. Could you comment on the following? - My dad and I were discussing why our taps in Westford have pretty much stopped running, even after a good freeze last night.

Happy to answer any questions about the Lapierre HyperBrix system. If/when things get back to normal, come on up (down I guess) for a visit.

Also can't comment much right now on your sap flow situation without hearing more of the details. Keep an eye on it as the season ends and we can chat later on.

[DrTimPerkins]

Looks like right around 1 gpt (~5,000 gal sap) from yesterday afternoon to this morning. Was running at 1.8 Brix in the main bush and 1.5 Brix in the other. Stopped around 2-3pm due to a freeze, with a light dusting of snow on the ground. This tank trace got to the top of the tank around midnite, then the sap went to the overflow tank until it froze up.

Lapierre HyperBrix RO is running now, with 35 Brix concentrate headed into the bulk tank.

21350

Sap flow will hopefully pick up again later this morning or early afternoon and it'll run for several days more. This is likely to be our last freeze of this season, and with several days of 50 deg F or more, it is approaching the end for us. Once flow gets too low or syrup turns commercial we stop.

21351

Hate to bring it up, but the Canadian/U.S. exchange rate isn't looking favorable for U.S. bulk syrup sellers. Has dropped over the past month from C$0.75 to C$0.71 That'll drive down U.S. bulk prices. The recent fluctuations in exchange rate and unknown 2020 crop are probably the reasons packers haven't set prices yet this season. Production in VT will be at or somewhat above average in most areas. Season seems to be going well in Quebec too, with a good bit of the season remaining.

21352

[WestfordSugarworks]

Hey Doc P.

Quick follow up to my son's post yesterday on sap flow (or lack of).
We are collecting sap is 2 areas, Westford and Jericho.
Tuesday night a good freeze in both areas.
Wednesday ran good in Jericho (a gallon/tap over 12 hours or so), but Westford maybe 1/4 gallon per tap same time period.
Same 5/16 cv spouts, same vac, same tubing mostly.
Westford tapped a week or so later.
Son and I back and forth over reasons, with me saying Jericho froze one night a week ago or so and Westford did not.
I think this caused trees to move to next phase of life, sap movement not a big part of that.

What factors are at play here?

Thank you!

Tom Dunkley

[DrTimPerkins]

Hey Tom. Busy at the moment, but as I indicated...happy to chat a bit later. I'll likely have a bunch of questions for you first.

[spud]

Sap started running at noon. It snowed last night and this morning. Last night temp was 29. Sap should run all day and night. I did not check sugar today. I’m laying low today with some back issues. I hope to be good to go tomorrow. The 10 day forecast looks great for my area.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

Same here...started just about noon. Flow has definitely tailed off a good bit. Sugar at 1.5 Brix. The next couple of days will probably be the last decent run for us -- no solid freezes in the forecast for a week, and several days of 50+ deg F. Sometimes this time of year and being higher in elevation means inversions that keep it warmer higher up.

Hope your back gets better quickly Spud.

Anybody else notice this thread has now exceeded 750,000 reads? By far the most popular thread on MapleTrader. :cool:

[tcross]

my sap started trickling in about noon, but now it's running real hard! hope the sugar content is decent . after tomorrow night and Saturday we don't have any freezes in the forecast. some 32-33's but no real freezes. however that depends a little on what weather station you look at.

[GeneralStark]

Hey Doc P.

Quick follow up to my son's post yesterday on sap flow (or lack of).
We are collecting sap is 2 areas, Westford and Jericho.
Tuesday night a good freeze in both areas.
Wednesday ran good in Jericho (a gallon/tap over 12 hours or so), but Westford maybe 1/4 gallon per tap same time period.
Same 5/16 cv spouts, same vac, same tubing mostly.
Westford tapped a week or so later.
Son and I back and forth over reasons, with me saying Jericho froze one night a week ago or so and Westford did not.
I think this caused trees to move to next phase of life, sap movement not a big part of that.

What factors are at play here?

Thank you!

Tom Dunkley

I would argue that the trees are not the major factor and instead it is variations in tap hole closure rates in the two different woods. Many contributing factors to tap hole closure... im still getting good flow on tubing except
For some south side taps and those with older drops and cv spouts. New drops and spouts (1/2 my taps) are still running well though flow diminished since yesterday without a freeze last night. I tapped two bucket trees a week ago and they are still flowing well.

I’m probably a little a ahead of you depending upon your woods’ aspect given that I’m south of you in the Champlain valley.

A decent run here since yesterday with about 1.3 gpt on tubing and 1gpt on buckets in 24 hours with no freeze. Planning to boil everything collected since last boil tomorrow. I suspect that will be it given the forecast...

[PARKER MAPLE]

Same here...started just about noon. Flow has definitely tailed off a good bit. Sugar at 1.5 Brix. The next couple of days will probably be the last decent run for us -- no solid freezes in the forecast for a week, and several days of 50+ deg F. Sometimes this time of year and being higher in elevation means inversions that keep it warmer higher up.

Hope your back gets better quickly Spud.

Anybody else notice this thread has now exceeded 750,000 reads? By far the most popular thread on MapleTrader. :cool:
I keep reading this thread every day
Can’t believe I started this a very long time ago that it would keep on going like it has. But it has been a great spot for us VT sugar makers to gather and express our thoughts and experiences
Thank you to all that keep this going

[tcross]

collected a hair under a gpt of sap yesterday from 230 p.m to 530 this a.m. testing a measly 1.3%. still running alright and should pick up as the day goes. i'm at about .34 gallons of syrup per tap... don't think i'll get to .5 with the crummy sugar content and lack of any decent runs earlier in the season. i didn't' start getting any good runs until the last week or so, then the sugar content dropped off. we'll see.

[spud]

Parker is King of the Trader. :). Yesterday I did not get a lot of sap but it did run a bit. It froze here early evening but got warmer as the night went on. This morning it’s 38 at the house and I have 1700 in the tank. Sap is still testing at 1.6%. It would be nice to get 1000+ gallons per day for the next ten days or so. My weather is showing that could happen.

Spud

[spud]

collected a hair under a gpt of sap yesterday from 230 p.m to 530 this a.m. testing a measly 1.3%. still running alright and should pick up as the day goes. i'm at about .34 gallons of syrup per tap... don't think i'll get to .5 with the crummy sugar content and lack of any decent runs earlier in the season. i didn't' start getting any good runs until the last week or so, then the sugar content dropped off. we'll see.

tcross let’s keep going till May. :). I’m sorry to hear about your low sugar. I talked to two of my sugaring friends yesterday and they both said that 1.2-1.3 was normal for them all season long. They are both in Berkshire and their woods are at 500 feet. What’s your elevation? Good luck to you.

Spud

[Parker]

Spud...really? Ha ha..quite a compliment comming from you..i just post what i do...looking forward to visiting you one of these days

Westfordsugarworks; what are the soil types for your 2 diffrent woods..post them in this thread please..im guessing that might be the diffreance,,but,,just a guess..

[tcross]

Spud, i'm at 1200 feet. i'm staying in the game until i run out of wood. i figure i have enough to get through another 1500 or so gallons of sap. 2/3rds of my trees are red maples. could be part of the low sugar %, but most years they run right around 2%. it is what it is... i'll keep cooking it!

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Playing catchup here. Brought down 2000 gallons at 2am at 1.7% sugar. Around 4500 more headed over in a bit.

[DrTimPerkins]

Around 3,000+ gal sap at 1.5 Brix since noon yesterday. Temperature was a bit too cold to run...only about 1/3 of the bush probably thawed out well. Hovered around 34 deg F most of the day. Good dusting of new snow on the ground this morning. Hoping it picks up as it warms today.

11:25am Update: Starting to come in a little better now. Still a bit too cold for a good run, but should improve as the day goes on. A bit windy.

21356

[GiddingsHill]

was happily surprised to find about 3500 gal in the tank since 4pm yesterday. looking at temps logged last night on monitors in the upper woods we came pretty close to another freeze. the bulk of the sap is coming from lower woods right now. didn't bother to test it, super clear though.

[spud]

Sap is running 105 gph and testing 1.3%. The wind is not helping. Tomorrow should be better.

Spud

[spud]

Only went down to 34 last night. I woke up to 1200 gallons in the tank. Should have a bunch of freezing nights next week if we can make it. I’m still getting 1.3% as of this morning.

Spud

[drewlamb]

Anyone else seeing the long range forecast models that show a significant cool down next weekend? Perhaps low 20s or even upper teens for us here. Hoping the trees can hold on through this mild stretch. Red maple buds are looking super plump, but sugars look just fine. After all, it's only early April! Last year we made DR on 4/18, and typically go to mid-April.

Boiled 3 days in a row last Tues-Thur and made our first DR. Sugar down to 1.5 and 1.6 from two collection areas. Headed out now to collect >1gpt from last two days. At 0.33 gpt for the season, which is just below average crop for us. If we can get to our goal of 1000 gallons, we'll be right at 0.4.

Love boiling in these milder temps as the season winds down. Good luck to everyone with what's left.

[blissville maples]

Loving the cool no sun weather, no freezes since Tuesday but sap coming in around 3/4 gallon tap per day and not spoiling. Sugar has stayed near 1.2 since last week's 6 freezing nights, most I've seen in a row!!

Should be just about tied with last year's syrup totals after today's boil, getting some nice dark robust. Hoping to make it thru the week anyways depending how warm and sunny it gets. The sun really kills the sap quality.

Replaced nearly half my drops this year- what an amazing difference, best production I've seen out of anything I've tried. Have trees running like day 1 still. Couple Bush will be well over 30gpt by the end, too bad wasn't 2% sugar!!

Westford- what's your sap gpt run on a good run in January vs March/April? Also what does running well mean? I agree with general you have some taphole drying. Take one tree or a couple and drill a new hole as an experiment, I know I'll never tap early after trying this the other year, just not enough sap and hate to think my tapholes aren't 100% when march comes. Many things influence this, I've seen new drops running great and next tree new drop has slowed Soo....hard to determine exactly what is causing this but know things are closing up obviously. The sap is in there, just not coming out of hole!!

I'm hopefully going to add 2 to 4000 TAPS in the next 2 years wasn't sure if I could handle it all however after this year I determined this... As long as you have 6 weeks of run weather you will reach a full crop off a taphole. I believe you could tap half your taps say 3500 the second week of February those trees by April would be winding down and had given you their crop. During those six weeks there is plenty of time freeze ups and such to have your other 3000 taps tapped by the second week of March. You would then have another 3000 taps that are flowing at 100% 1-2 gallons per tap per day, and just as long as the weather didn't spoil it you would make a whole nother crop off that second tapping, while not overtaking your equipment.

As I paid attention over the last couple years tapping time is very important it must coincide with how many taps you are running and the right weather, and I think it's really the weather spoiling the sap is what we're dealing with, you can make beautiful syrup in April as long as the sap is good.

[spud]

Blissville that’s exciting to hear your still getting sap in southern Vermont. We have several people in my border town that have pulled the plug for the season. Most are at lower elevations. As a sap seller I’m at the mercy of my buyer. When he is done I’m done. As of now we plan to go another week or better as long as the trees don’t quit. Good luck down south.

Spud

[Mead Maple]

Trees here are still running, and running hard today. I am all done but bringing sap over to a friend.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Ultimatetreehugger]

4000 gallons today. Micro freeze in my woods last night made it a hard run today. 39000 gallons so far this year. My poor dump truck was gripeing at me the last two days for making it haul 312000 pounds of sap on muddy back roads. My trees aren't even swollen yet so we will carry on hopefully into next week. Be sweet my friends!

[GeneralStark]

I turned off the vacuum pump yesterday at about noon after the last sap I had collected since the last boil on Tuesday went through the RO. Boiled about 1900 gal and made about 15 gal. of VD. Extracted as much syrup from the evaporator as I felt necessary given the situation and made another 15 gal. of DR. Ok tasting syrup with a slight lingering aftertaste which is a sign of what's to come. That and the sap to syrup ratio of about 126:1 (.7 ssc) confirmed my suspicion that it was a good time to stop...

Ended up at .41 gpt for syrup and about 32 gpt for sap. Average sap to syrup ratio was about 78:1 which is below average here as was my syrup production.

Started the clean up today and hope to wrap that up asap. I need to transition the sugarhouse to retail mode, fill some bourbon barrels that were just delivered and wrap up a custom label graphic design project. Lots of uncertainty with how farmer's markets here and in Boston are going to work out this season, as well as with other sales outlets so need to work on some details related to some alternate options. Also seems like a good year to get an early start on planting the greenhouse and garden in hopes of putting up a bunch of food.

Good luck to everyone else still at it. Looks like some cooler weather coming for the northern folks. It was sunny and almost 60 today here with a couple more warm days on tap. The peepers are screaming here tonight...

[blissville maples]

Blissville that’s exciting to hear your still getting sap in southern Vermont. We have several people in my border town that have pulled the plug for the season. Most are at lower elevations. As a sap seller I’m at the mercy of my buyer. When he is done I’m done. As of now we plan to go another week or better as long as the trees don’t quit. Good luck down south.

Spud
Really didn't think it was going to last this long but that freezing spell other week really helped out with flowand sugar content. It brought the sap back to clear and we hit Amber for another couple days.

I'll be turning the pumps off this afternoon and boil off what's left. I'm really surprised the flavor hasn't tumbled worse than it has. Getting ready for some spring time!!

Boiled off 3600 gallons yesterday and made 55 gals dark robust almost strong flavor but nice color. Outs us at 1546 for the year- 6 gals behind last year, been alot of work with all the extra water but I'm happy with the crop.

Be careful of ticks everybody apparently they don't even need to be on you for more than a few hours. I've been bit by 20 or 30 ticks in my day always get them off in the first few hours never had an issue. Woke up yesterday morning with a sore spot on my abdomen no tick but a tick bite started to get a bullseye- got some doxycycline hopefully that will kick in. if you ever get bit and go to the doctor don't ever let them talk you into waiting to see if you get symptoms, you tell them it's my body and I want antibiotics now as it won't hurt if used correctly.

[spud]

In the last 24 hours I have gotten 1000 gallons. I noticed that the sugar was at 1.4% after being 1.3% for a few days. A short freeze 3-5 hours is coming tonight. I think we should be able to go till next weekend.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

About 6,700 gal of sap since Friday afternoon and still trickling in OK. Sugar content 1.5 Brix. Sap quality is still good (not buddy or sour), so should make good syrup. RO is running now and the crew will boil tomorrow. Chance of a light freeze tonite, but not nearly hard enough for a full reset. No good cold weather until Friday night. Sun today won't help much. Peepers were out yesterday afternoon so the end is nigh.

[spud]

Dr. Tim what would your definition of Reset be? I like to see 29 degrees and for at least 4-5 hours. I’m seeing I could reach those temps in the week to come. I tend to be 3-5 degrees cooler then where the town weather station is. For me it’s just a lot of fun to see how long I can go.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr. Tim what would your definition of Reset be? I like to see 29 degrees and for at least 4-5 hours.

Cold enough to freeze the trees completely. Depends on how warm it was before and how cold and for how long. 29 deg F might do it is it stays that cold long enough. Mid-20s would be better.

[drewlamb]

My prediction for low 20s later this week was perhaps a little too hopeful, but looks like several nights coming in the mid to upper 20s in north central VT. Maybe not enough for complete recharge but certainly enough for several more boils. Made about 50 more gallons of nice DR yesterday and will boil the approx 1 gpt we got over the weekend tomorrow. Sap cloudier by the day but still tastes and smells good. No peepers here yet.

[spud]

Cold enough to freeze the trees completely. Depends on how warm it was before and how cold and for how long. 29 deg F might do it is it stays that cold long enough. Mid-20s would be better.

Dr.Tim would another factor be the size of the tree? A nine inch tree must freeze faster then a 18-36 inch monster maple. Right now it’s 27 at my house at 6:00am. It was 29 at 3:00am. I’m hoping My smaller trees froze hard enough to run again today and for the week to come. I guess time will tell. Has PMRC ever charted this kind of data? If my small trees go on to run all week then maybe tapping small trees could be of benefit to sugar makers. The freeze/thaw cycle would be much easier to achieve. Either way it will be fun to see what happens.

Spud

[tcross]

i've gotten a hair over a gallon per tap the last 4 days running... with lite freezes at night... 29 to 30 for a few hours. sugar jumped saturday from 1.3 to 1.8... then back down to 1.2 yesterday. had another lite freeze here last night so it should be another decent day today. my red maples are really swelling, but no sign of buddy flavor in the syrup or sap. my syrup has been dark robust for the past 4 boils, but on the line of Amber with a real good flavor. calling for 28 for a low here tonight and tomorrow night... hoping the warm weather and the sun don't make the red maples bud! the ice just went totally out in my pond yesterday... no peepers last night, so hopefully i can make it through the week! good luck everyone who's still plugging along!

[WestfordSugarworks]

Parker you asked about our soils.. In Westford where the sap has pretty much stopped we have Lyman-Marlow complex, 5 to 30 percent slopes, very rocky. This is a well drained soil type according to the VT Interactive Map Viewer details.. Soil here is still very moist tho. In jericho the soil type is the same although there are small sections of different soil types. Still haven't figured out what happened..



We are still going alright in Jericho, not sure how many gallons per day but it seems like they're taking 1-2 4000' gallon tankers out every day. Last I checked our sugar was at 1. I've heard higher elevation producers are having a bumper year with good sugar content. Still plenty of snow in the higher elevation Cold Hollow bushes. We had our barrels picked up in Westford today and the driver confirmed that high elevations are doing well. Restaraunt sales are flat, grocery store sales very strong still.

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr.Tim would another factor be the size of the tree? A nine inch tree must freeze faster then a 18-36 inch monster maple. Right now it’s 27 at my house at 6:00am. It was 29 at 3:00am. I’m hoping My smaller trees froze hard enough to run again today and for the week to come. I guess time will tell. Has PMRC ever charted this kind of data? If my small trees go on to run all week then maybe tapping small trees could be of benefit to sugar makers. The freeze/thaw cycle would be much easier to achieve. Either way it will be fun to see what happens.

Yes, size is a factor. Also rain/snow. Wind a bit (trees don't experience "windchill" the way animals do, but wind does reduce the boundary layer and remove latent heat faster). Yes...we have decades of different studies like this...including one going on this year (see figure below). That is a study looking at how temperature and pressure/vacuum vary within maple stems (under vacuum conditions).

As for tapping/capping smaller trees, yes...small trees both freeze and thaw out faster than larger trees. That is part of the rationale for "capping saplings", and is a possible strategy to respond to climate change. NOTE: I AM NOT RECOMMENDING PEOPLE TAP SMALL TREES.

[blissville maples]

Well this is it for me, not sure how it will go sap very milky and foamy on top- tells me microbes are at work making gases producing foam and bubbles.

Light frost last night sap still running ok will be hard to quit but it is time. Since 4pm Saturday have right around 3000 gallons of sap now.

Total sap this year is 104,000 gallons to produce about the same maybe 30 gallons more syrup as 93,000 gallons of sap last year!!

Looks like best Bush is about 34.5 gallons of sap per tap while others around 30gpt and like I said it is still flowing but it's getting junky sitting in tanks for even a few hours at these temps. Upgraded one tank to stainless and that helps, working on getting more stainless vs plastic.

[spud]

Thanks Dr. Tim for the info.

Westford- you say your only testing 1%. What is the temp of your sap? You may want to put a quart in the fridge for a few hours and then test it again.

My sap is only running 100 gph and now testing at 1.2%. The end is near but the pump still runs till the buyer says shut it off.

Spud

[GiddingsHill]

only managed to get down to about 30 here last night but it seems to have been enough to wake the woods up and get my test a hair higher (up to 1.4 from 1.2)
sap is running ok, a bit over 200 gal/hr. another light freeze possible tonight if it stays clear. lower woods are hammering, upper woods are not as good. we keep limping on...

[tcross]

sap is coming in hard right now (125-130 gallons since 9 this a.m on 330 taps... good job cv spouts!)... but testing a measly 1.2% and clouding up. looking like a slight freeze tonight but a better one tomorrow night. probably going to see what the sap quality looks like after that... the end is very much in sight for me... Thinking this weekend clean up will begin. i don't find it fun boiling 1.2% sap!!

[DrTimPerkins]

Crew made another 350 gal of AR syrup today from what came in late last week and over the weekend. At 0.66 gpt before boil-out. Flavor still good. Sap coming in is milky, 1.4 Brix, and slow. No good cold weather in the forecast until maybe Fri and Sat. Wade will decide in the morning based on flow and flavor whether to continue or not. I'm thinking it'll probably be over and they will just boil out the pans. Hate to quit, but we don't like to bother making commercial syrup or include it in our totals. Lots of final measurements to do before pulling spouts.

[spud]

I got about 1000 gallons since yesterday. The sun today and tomorrow should probably end it for me. It’s been a real good season and I passed last years numbers. Sap was testing 1.2% yesterday. I did freeze up last night but not for long. The west side of my woods is what’s running the most.

Spud

[tcross]

i got a gpt run yesterday... like spud, mainly my west and north facing bush. testing 1.3%. thermometer read 28 this a.m at 530, so hoping to have a decent run today and tomorrow, then i'm tossing in the towel! syrup still tastes good, but it's getting a more robust maple flavor each boil.

[DrTimPerkins]

Got about 1,500 gallons of 1.4 Brix sap since yesterday afternoon. Flow just stopped around 9:30-10pm...wasn't due to a freeze...just stopped. Sap wasn't sour or buddy. Temps just got too high yesterday with the sun and shut it down. No solid freezes coming soon enough to juice things up again...the tapholes are just done.

So...we called it. Crew is boiling what came in and will be boiling out the pans today. We'll end up right around 0.68 gpt for the season, with sap sugar content just slightly below normal for us. After that they'll do the rounds of all the final measurements and the data analysis will begin.

One study we did this year is to look at whether there is any difference drilling straight-in versus drilling at an angle. Recommendations these days are to tap straight in, but there hasn't been any study that I know of actually looking at it. We have two different studies testing it. Second year of number of taps in red maple to follow up on the work we did last year. A third year on taphole depth in sugar maple. A third and final year on tapping date (Oct, Jan, Feb) and taphole rejuvenation. Sixth year of effects of long-term tapping on growth. Some preliminary work on several different spout types. More on differences in yield from sugar maple and red maple. A student project on vacuum propagation into stems. A final year of 3/16" vs 5/16" cleaning methods. One study on evaporator efficiency with and without a concentrate preheater. Lots of data to crunch and figure out. Plus a good deal of editing on the new maple manual (3rd edition) this summer/fall.

[GiddingsHill]

Question for you, Dr. Perkins.
Have you done tests on yield off different tap diameters? Is that a variation included in the preliminary work you are doing on different tap types?
I'm trying 1/4" signatures this year...the jury is still out on production vs. 5/16" signatures but anticipating it will be lower... could very likely just be the season though, not very scientific...
Why i'm trying 1/4":
We bought an adjacent property last year to add on some taps (haven't added anything yet). It came "set-up" which actually means I have two generations of junk pipeline and 5/16" to remove and dispose of at my expense. quite a mess. About 15 acres of this lot was old pasture which came back to soft maple, most of which is 6" to 16" diameter. prior sugar maker had probably at least 2000 taps in this zone and tapped pretty much everything regardless of diameter. he had tapped this area for 11 years with 5/16" spouts. I've started pulling out old pipeline and thinning out some dead/diseased trees. since most all of the wood i've pulled out is suitable only for firewood I've been seeing a lot of cross sections as i block it up to split. pretty impressive the damage 11 years of tapping these trees did. Some literally tapped right to death (i think). That was the impetus for dropping tap diameter, I might lose a little on production but damage to tree ought to be less. Time will tell.

Sap flow still close to 1gpt in last 24hrs. another light freeze this morning. test around 1.3

[DrTimPerkins]

Question for you, Dr. Perkins.
Have you done tests on yield off different tap diameters?

Not a subject of study this year. We have done that in the past as has Centre Acer.

21385

In both studies (UVM and Centre Acer) there was a 10-11% reduction in sap yield with 1/4" spouts compared to 5/16" or 19/64" spouts (both studies were done under vacuum). However, as you note, there may be a reason to use them if you have trees on the small side or trees that have been overtapped and you wish to be a little more gentle. You will take a hit on yield however.

Full article can be found at https://www.themaplenews.com/story/uvm-proctor-center-examines-effect-of-spout-diameter-on-sap-yield/262/

1/4" spouts were developed originally to solve the problem of a syrup shortage. Back in 2008 (I think) there was no syrup left in the strategic reserve, two poor seasons in a row, and syrup prices spiked to $4.00/lb. One of the equipment manufacturers came up with the idea of tapping with 1/4" spouts in the fall and reaming to 5/16" in the spring. Unfortunately, although it was a reasonable thing to try, it doesn't work (the taphole even if reamed won't produce well in the spring). A few tried it -- most didn't. Production turned out to be great the next year all around, and syrup prices dropped again. But the manufacturers already had made the molds...so they kept producing 1/4" spouts and are still selling them. They are just touted as producing nearly the same amount of syrup but producing a smaller wound.

Have you tried tapping below the lateral line to find good wood?

[spud]

Sap stopped today so I shut off the pump. I had a good season and did better then last year. I thank everyone who contributed to this thread throughout the season. It’s a lot of fun for me to read how others are doing. It’s time to switch gears and prepare for planting more apple trees. Those that are still making syrup I wish you the best. I will post some production numbers in the next week. Until then I hope all Traders stay safe and healthy.

Spud

[ToadHill]

Dr. Perkins, I thought (maybe just assumed) that tapping straight into the tree (level) was recommended by the manufacturer for the check valves to allow the ball to move more freely, i.e. taking gravity out of the equation. Any validity to that?

[wiam]

Tasted a little off while boiling this morning so emptied back pan to front and boiled it down with permeate in back. What we finished this evening tasted fine. Just dark. Ended with 952 off 2100 taps. Best year so far.

[GiddingsHill]

Thank you, Dr. Perkins.
Im not surprised that the production is lower, and 10% lower does seem to be in keeping with what i suspect we'll be at this season.
I bought the 1/4" spouts in anticipation of tapping the new woodlot i described in my prior post, but ultimately ended up not adding any new taps this year so i used them on the existing setup which has larger trees and has only been tapped for 7 years, so finding good wood isn't much of an issue here yet. But i do like the idea of minimizing the size of the tap hole wound. Yes i do tap below the lateral, but not very often, i probably should more. I think what I'll probably use in future years is a more targeted approach using a combination of 1/4" and 5/16" spouts in different areas depending on tree health and diameter.

[WestfordSugarworks]

They are just touted as producing nearly the same amount of syrup but producing a smaller wound.

I'd be curious to see differences in stain column area between 1/4" and 5/16" spouts. If 1/4" spouts produce 10-11% less stained wood than 5/16", then I would see that as a reasonable alternative to 5/16" spouts. Not sure if studies have been done on this.

[WestfordSugarworks]

We had our last boil in Westford last night. Ended up at .42 gpt.. the sap had pretty much stopped flowing a week ago. Meanwhile in Jericho, where we started tapping on January 1 and finished tapping somewhere around January 15, we are still going alright. Got a little freeze last night. .3 gpt of sap today or so. Sap buyer will keep coming until the sap is bad. This was our first year of stopping production due to sap ceasing to flow. Reassuring to see others had the same reason for shutting down. We made some great tasting DR last night.

[tcross]

threw in the towel last night. the steam started to get a hint of an odd taste and sugar content had been hanging at 1.2 for 3-4 days. syrup still tasted good however. think some of my soft maples are budding. hit 24 here last night. probably could untap all my reds and keep going but im about out of wood and it's time to move on! good luck to all those who are still keepin at it!

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Sap is still good here and running strong. Getting about a gallon per tap each day. Sugar content is between 1 and 1.2. Going to continue until my buyer says stop.

[DrTimPerkins]

I'd be curious to see differences in stain column area between 1/4" and 5/16" spouts. If 1/4" spouts produce 10-11% less stained wood than 5/16", then I would see that as a reasonable alternative to 5/16" spouts. Not sure if studies have been done on this.

Not on the tips of my fingers, but I can probably dig this out later. Send me an email to remind me if you don't see it within a month or so. LOTS of data to look at right now, so this isn't at the top of the list.

[n8hutch]

I'd be curious to see differences in stain column area between 1/4" and 5/16" spouts. If 1/4" spouts produce 10-11% less stained wood than 5/16", then I would see that as a reasonable alternative to 5/16" spouts. Not sure if studies have been done on this.

There is a good article in this years LaPierre Maple Catalog on the subject. If you haven't seen it already. It relates to 1/4 inch tap wounds vs 5/16 and how tapping too close to an old tap wound creates a larger wound in area than 2 taps placed a proper distance apart. I found it to be good info.

[DrTimPerkins]

I believe what you're referring to is an article by Stéphane Guay that is on pages 28-29 of the Lapierre 2020 catalog. He was formerly a researcher at Centre Acer before he was "let go." The only real reference to 1/4" taps in that article is that it would allow (in his tapping model) a reduction in taphole spacing from 16" (with 5/16" spouts) to 15" (with 14" spouts), or a 6.7% reduction in taphole spacing. Stéphane advocates a novel taphole spacing approach that hasn't really received much attention outside his sphere of influence, so I can't really comment on it. I'm not a big advocate of pattern tapping -- others are. Keep in mind...the growth rate of trees in Quebec tends to be a good bit lower, so wounding and how to deal with it can be more of a problem in parts of that Province.

If you want to see what alternative approaches (taphole size, dropline length, tree size, etc.) have on sustainability of tapping, you might want check out Dr. Abby's tapping zone model at: https://mapleresearch.org/pub/tapzonemodel-2-2/ and the accompanying Excel spreadsheet at: https://mapleresearch.org/pub/tzspreadsheet/ It can provide some insights into how small changes you can make in your tapping approach could influence wounding over the long-term. It is a major reason we (at UVM PMRC) went to tapping below the lateral line in some of the older, historically heavily-tapped with 7/16" spout sections of our woods with huge success. Just by changing one thing...tapping below the lateral line, we went from hitting stain 4.7% of the time to less than 1% of the time. We will have an article and a video coming out soon about how hitting stained wood impacts your sap yield and net profit. The results were quite shocking to us when we first crunched the numbers, but in short, for each 1% of the time you hit stained wood when tapping, your sap yield goes DOWN by an average of 1/2%. So if you're hitting stained wood 5% of the time (which is not hard to get to), you're leaving 2.5% of your total sap in the woods. MANY people hit stain WAY more than 5%. When we did a survey several years ago, the majority of producers thought hitting stain 10% of the time was acceptable.

An example from Abby's TZM (a slightly modified version from what you can download) comparing 5/16" spouts and 1/4" spouts is below.

21390

In this example, starting with an 8" diameter tree and 30" droplines, after about 30 yrs your chances of hitting stained wood are around 10.5% with 5/16" spouts, but only about 6.5% with 1/4" spouts. You can see pretty quickly that doubling the size of the tapping band (via tapping below the lateral) has the greatest positive impact on reducing the probability of hitting stained wood. NOTE: This is all based upon measurements of average maple growth rates (in a range of diameter classes) in Vermont.

[n8hutch]

If I remember correctly, and I dont have it in front of me he was advocating for 1 tap per tree. Regardless of size ? My Orchard Tends to grow really slowly so it was interesting to me.

[DrTimPerkins]

If I remember correctly, and I dont have it in front of me he was advocating for 1 tap per tree. Regardless of size ? My Orchard Tends to grow really slowly so it was interesting to me.

He advocates for a particular style of pattern tapping consisting of 3 levels (heights) of tapping spaced around the stem of the tree, with 15" (for 1/4" spouts) or 16" (for 5/16" spouts) spacing (height) between them.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Trucked another 3000 gallons of 1٪ today. The end is near, syrup is still table grade but getting hard to filter. Been a good season, hoping to get through tomorrow and maybe Friday. We will see.

[sapmaple]

He advocates for a particular style of pattern tapping consisting of 3 levels (heights) of tapping spaced around the stem of the tree, with 15" (for 1/4" spouts) or 16" (for 5/16" spouts) spacing (height) between them.

I found this article very interesting gave me a new prospective on tapping. looking at a tree with three different bands of tapping makes sense to me. and I think varying the length of the drop line at the time of drop replacement can allow for fully using all three bands over the years of tapping. In the article he had a specific pattern of tapping but I can see making your own pattern as you see what works for your situation

[DrTimPerkins]

If I remember correctly, and I dont have it in front of me he was advocating for 1 tap per tree.

I don't recall whether he was specifically recommending this, but his examples were all 1 tap per tree. We've done 1 tap per tree at UVM PMRC for many years, partly because it is mostly our older trees (with slowest growth rates) that have been tapped the longest (with 7/16" spouts and multiple taps per tree) and in which we have the biggest issue of finding good wood.

The higher your vacuum level, the less benefit you get from adding a second tap on a tree or conversely, with higher vacuum levels you should adjust the diameter at which you add a second tap upward.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Interesting, we run 25 inches of mercury and use two taps on anything over 18" DBH. Still okay or outdated?

[WestfordSugarworks]

I found this article very interesting gave me a new prospective on tapping. looking at a tree with three different bands of tapping makes sense to me. and I think varying the length of the drop line at the time of drop replacement can allow for fully using all three bands over the years of tapping. In the article he had a specific pattern of tapping but I can see making your own pattern as you see what works for your situation

I agree, I was interested in that article and am even considering using it if/when I set up new woods. We use a tapping pattern now but the pattern shown in that article allows for many more years of tapping. Our pattern needs to be varied/changed after 5 seasons or so on a small tree.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Still getting just under a gallon per tap a day. I shut down my south woods yesterday. Sugar content is holding strong at 1% in my other woods.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Tree hugger, where are you located and what elevation?

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Wheelock, Vt. North of lyndonville. My woods are all between 1400 and 1600 ft.

[GiddingsHill]

Still going here, light freeze Thursday night kept us chugging along. Looks like a good freeze throughout most of the woods since about 3:30AM this morning, down into the high 20's. Im anticipating an increase in flow but probably not much change in sugar content.

[spud]

Looks like tomorrow should run for you.

Spud

[Ultimatetreehugger]

One gallon per tap today. Ran quite strong for a while after noon. Sugar content is still at 1%.

[WestfordSugarworks]

Got about 1/3 gpt in Jericho today.. we’ll keep the pump on until the buyer says we’re shut off

[GiddingsHill]

Sap ran very hard yesterday afternoon until freezing around 10pm
Thawed out about an hour ago and Hammering the releasers right now.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

4000 gallons of .9 percent. Saps running very hard as of 10 PM.

[tcross]

some of the guys up this way are still rocking and rolling. if it weren't for low sugar content and budding soft maples, i may be as well. was un tapping and flushing lines yesterday and the sap was running out of the holes well! sugar maple buds look tight... not so much on the reds. i have one big red next to the house that stays warmish all year long. little green leaves are growing on that guy! frogs in the pond chirping away last night. after today, it looks like good sap running weather!

[PARKER MAPLE]

We are all pulled and picked up for the year. Very successful season for us. Another 1600+ taps to add this summer. Going to buy the pipe this week and get the wire and mainline run right off before the bugs get to bad.
Thanks to all that keep this thread going. I check it every day and it’s a great place to catch up and read what everyone is up to.
Stay healthy and well
Parker

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Best of luck on your install Parker! 4000 gallons today. Sugar content spiked to 1.3 in the north woods. Sap is now as clear as early season. Mother nature you sure know how to keep things interesting.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

2000 gallons overnight without a freeze. Saps a little cloudy but nowhere near what it was. Buds are hanging tight. Tonight's freeze should help the run.

[GiddingsHill]

5300, 5300 and 5000 gal trucked out of here sunday, monday and today respectively. unsure on test. Vacuum still good, remarkable after last nights insane wind. sap looks alright.
looking forward to a freeze tonight.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Giddings Hill, that's a hard run! 2000 gallons out today. Tonight's freeze will open them right up again.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Spoke to soon. My buyer just pulled the plug but I can't complain. Made 1118 gallons of syrup out of 62042 gallons of sap giving me .4 gallons syrup per tap. May the Maple Gods smile on the producers still going!

[Mead Maple]

Fantastic to hear everyones totals, super impressive. I finished bottling this weekend and ended up with a total off 55 gallons on the nose. Crushed the 20 gallon goal I had. But as usual, I cannot leave well enough alone so I will spend the next 8-10 months dinking around and trying to up the taps, add a preheater, build a good set up, and figure out the RO situation!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GiddingsHill]

We shut it down this afternoon. clear sap but wouldn't RO. unbelievable flow still, since just 7am this morning we had another 3500 gal when i shut it down around 6pm. where was this weather two weeks ago?
A good season, probably around 6.5 lbs/tap

[WestfordSugarworks]

Congrats Giddings. We’re still collecting in Jericho. Not getting more than 2000 gals/day these last few days off of 11.5k taps but our buyer is still coming. Said they’re making processing grade. We’ll see how it runs tomorrow and Sunday. Would be curious to know how producers are doing in the higher elevations.. forecast seems like it might allow them to go until late April. This spring reminds me of 2018

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Anyone in Vermont still going?

[tcross]

there are a couple guys near me still going... however they're up close to 2000 feet in elevation! my hunting camp is about that high... 1950 feet. was up there last weekend checking things out and the red maples were pretty swollen, however sugar maples didn't even have any sign of budding. still a good foot to 2 feet of snow up there as well.

[GiddingsHill]

we are still going, was thinking it was over Friday (primary sap buyer shut down) but another buyer said he wanted the sap. So we are still going, though im only running the pump intermittently and starting to pull some spouts. impressive flow still. I know some guys in the Waterville/Belvidere/Montgomery area are still at it, and Butternut Mountain's home woods crew in Johnson is still boiling.

[WestfordSugarworks]

We're still collecting in Jericho. Sap flow is actually pretty decent for how late in the season. Our buyer is still able to filter okay. Some CDL signature spouts that I thought had dried up a month ago are still flowing a little on 2nd year drops. Sap is at .8.

[DrTimPerkins]

There is at least some production still going on in the NEK.

[tcross]

we've been having perfect weather the last week or so for sap production up here in the NEK. sort of wish it was March again... but the sight of green grass and ducks and geese on the pond is rather comforting!

[GeneralStark]

The sap is still running here from tapholes drilled in early February... but I pulled taps two weeks ago... and I wouldn't want to try to make syrup with the sap. I too wish we had experienced this weather back in March and early April!

What's a sap seller getting paid for % bulk price on "processing grade"?

[spud]

The sap is still running here from tapholes drilled in early February... but I pulled taps two weeks ago... and I wouldn't want to try to make syrup with the sap. I too wish we had experienced this weather back in March and early April!

What's a sap seller getting paid for % bulk price on "processing grade"?

Last year it was .16 cents a gallon. It appears I shut my pump down a little too soon. My buyer was able to get another 3+ gallons per tap after I shut down. It’s been fun to read how some are still running. I was told Organic price has been set, but I don’t know what the price is. Anyone know? I have been very busy on other projects that have distracted from sugaring.

Spud

[WestfordSugarworks]

We shut down today, our buyer is done. Organic price for producers making over 35000 pounds delivering with own drums is 2.28. Processing grade for same producer would be 1.68. Processing would seem to be worth making for larger producers but our buyer picked up at least a few partial loads which seem to have pretty low margins when sap is so weak.

[GiddingsHill]

last load went out yesterday as well, flow was pretty incredible. haven't crunched the numbers yet but i do know we had 39 gal of sap per tap, which is crazy. wish it had tested higher!

[DrTimPerkins]

I'd encourage all Vermont producers to consider contributing information to the Vermont Maple Bulletin https://vermontmaplebulletin.wordpress.com/ a running description/update of each maple season done by Mark Isselhardt of UVM Extension Maple. Just shoot an email to Mark.Isselhardt@uvm.edu to get added to his list of contributors.

[DrTimPerkins]

Interesting short piece on the local news (from August 2019) my wife just forwarded to me about "Vermont Maid."

https://www.mychamplainvalley.com/news/vt-history/this-place-in-history-vermont-maid-syrup/

Lot of companies like this popped up around this time.

[sugar matt]

Thanks Dr. Tim. It is always great to see maple history in the news; however, this piece was a little weak with the facts of the Vermont Maid story. One can read a piece on my maple syrup history website that shares a corrected and more detailed version of the history of Vermont Maid. I hope folks enjoy it!

The Beginnings of The Vermont Maid Brand of Blended Syrup (http://maplesyruphistory.com/2020/02/09/the-beginnings-of-the-vermont-maid-brand-of-blended-syrup/)

Matt Thomas
www.maplesyruphistory.com

[DrTimPerkins]

Oh for sure Matt....you definitely can't rely on short news pieces for the full (and correct) story. I've come to accept the news as a mixture of information (of varying accuracy) and entertainment. Thanks for sending the link.

[woodfordmark]

I am looking to replace my base stack for my 2x8 setup. I am located in southern Vermont, where is the closest show room for items like this. Any help/info would be appreciated.

[Brian]

I think Bascoms in Alstad NH

[Brian]

Address: 56 Sugar House Rd, Acworth, NH 03601
Hours:
Closed ⋅ Opens 7:30AM Wed
Phone: (603) 835-6361

[sjdoyon]

Finished cutting and stacking firewood.21616

[TapTapTap]

Finished cutting and stacking firewood.21616

Wow! That's a lot of wood. You must have one of the larger wood-fired operations.
Ken

[TapTapTap]

I got nervous about having jugs for the season and went ahead and placed an order from Bascom. The funny thing is that 2 of the 4 packages arrived by a little car, instead of a Big Brown van. The 3rd box is due later tonight. I'm wondering if the guy's running back to the terminal with his little car to get that one because he couldn't fit them all in. Then box 4 is due Friday. What do you bet that Big Brown shows up for the single 4th box?

[Goatogether]

Hi Everyone,

Hope y’all had a semi decent Thanksgiving given the circumstances of this bizarre time. I am a new maple tapper and have built a sugar house to get started into this addictive sport.:cool: I have a good amount of trees accessible to me, but I am looking to start off tapping 50-100 taps on gravity this year as a start. I am looking for someone to show me how to do a well planned layout and the how to’s of rigging the mains and laterals and drops in this first sugarbush. If you all know of anyone, or would be willing, I am open to hearing from them/you regarding cost and services. I really want to start off on the right foot this year, and hope to continue adding to my small operation. Any feedback or help would be greatly appreciated....

Ellen, West Charleston where Echo meets Seymour

I have: Lapierre Waterloo Small 18x 48 propane evaporator
A 5 x 400 gpd RO RB35 Reverse Osmosis
2 275g collection tanks
1 500g collection tank
Kabota Grand L4340 aka The Honeybadger
2018 Polaris XP 1000 EPS

2020: 6 drops to 5g’s, 10 quarts on home stove
2021: Can’t Wait!!!;):mrgreen::o Nervous excited!

[vtbackyardmaple]

Won't be long now with sun solar flares. The deep freeze has hit my area now.. waiting sort of patiently for the sap release now.... *eagerly rubbing hands together*:D

[PARKER MAPLE]

I am feeling the same

[GeneralStark]

I've been super busy making, selling and shipping product and trying to finish up some non sugaring projects around the homestead. No major changes this season but I did take the evaporator apart and made a few repairs to the arch. A couple minor details to finish there but no biggy. I also really scrubbed the soot side of the flues on the back pan and got it back to almost like new...

Still have some wood to finish up in the next couple weeks, but I did finish clearing a bunch of downed trees off lines. Lost a couple taps to blow downs but will be gaining a few to make up the difference and then some. I'll be changing out a few hundred drops and doing some repairs before tapping. Planning to be ready to tap by mid to late January as usual.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Replacing half my drops this year and gonna add 300 more taps once that is done.

[vtbackyardmaple]

treehugger what happened between 2017-18. 100 to 1000 taps. Wowie!

[PARKER MAPLE]

40”’of snow down here might slow us up a bit. Not looking forward to the snowshoe

[GeneralStark]

40”’of snow down here might slow us up a bit. Not looking forward to the snowshoe

Yeah that's quite a bit of snow to be dealing with... as much as I love it I'm glad we only got 5". From the reports I have seen, it looks like most of that 40" fell in a very short period of time. A report from Ludlow suggests a snowfall rate of 9" in one hour, which is insane.

[BAP]

40”’of snow down here might slow us up a bit. Not looking forward to the snowshoe
I’m glad we only got 20”. That’s enough for me in one storm.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

treehugger what happened between 2017-18. 100 to 1000 taps. Wowie! lot's of hard work and a much lighter wallet. Needless to say I got bit by the bug.

[vtbackyardmaple]

Yeah that's quite a bit of snow to be dealing with... as much as I love it I'm glad we only got 5". From the reports I have seen, it looks like most of that 40" fell in a very short period of time. A report from Ludlow suggests a snowfall rate of 9" in one hour, which is insane.

OMG! That's like 3" of rain in 1hr! Hurricane like rain. Better check with my friend. He's close to there... well I guess not... sort of...
according to weather channel...
On average, thirteen inches of snow equals one inch of rain in the US, although this ratio can vary from two inches for sleet to nearly fifty inches for very dry, powdery snow under certain conditions.

[vtbackyardmaple]

Hey little hogback... you know my father in law.... Dennis Maloney! Almost everyone over there knows him.

[randolphvt]

Anyone tapping for Wed/thursday 50 degree days in VT?

[ecp]

Not in the warm weather. I like hitting the frozen trees much better. The 26t though I'm going for it. hopefully it will pay off starting a little earlier this year.

[PARKER MAPLE]

Wow 40” of snow last week Friday to now only 5-6” and lots of bare spots in the woods.
Warm rain all day sure did change things a bit.

[randolphvt]

Tapping my lines today and putting up buckets.

[4 Paws Sugar Shack]

How many taps and buckets do you run randolphvt

[randolphvt]

50-70 taps

[4 Paws Sugar Shack]

Keep me posted on your sugar content I'm curious about your early success

[randolphvt]

Sap collected this morning tests 3.4 brix.

[4 Paws Sugar Shack]

Awesome chiefy. My wife and I are planning on tapping Thursday morning, the next week out looks like prime weather for a run here

[randolphvt]

Get out and tap Vters.
https://weather.com/forecast/national/news/2020-12-28-january-temperature-outlook-2021

[4 Paws Sugar Shack]

Our propane tank is coming tomorrow for the sugar shack and we plan on tapping tomorrow mid-day. Maybe we can get a boil going this weekend. What size evaporator do you have randolphvt and do you have a r.o? I'm Curious of your setup and would like to have you down to ours if you're ever in the area

[randolphvt]

Starcat with blower and ro 4 x 150gpd membranes.
You can see my evap in the homemade section of the forum.

[randolphvt]

Buckets overflowing this morning. Good run overnight.

[4 Paws Sugar Shack]

Good deal randolphvt 👍

[PARKER MAPLE]

Good morning
Does anyone have a price list for buying and selling sap for this season?
Thank you
Pm

[blissville maples]

Here we are again, another season already here!! Looks like we will be getting in on some polar vortex action so no rush to tap here, looks like cold will go into first or second week of February. I Plan on starting tapping the first or second week of February, depending on forecast. Seems to be the sweet spot; not too earlier and not too late.

Acquired a lease on a portion of property, about a 5000 tap potential. Just finishing up the first 1700 for this year this week. Pump house which holds tank and all vacuum components just about finished up, just a few loose ends. Should be right around 5200 taps this year which is a nice increase from 3500 deffinantly going to reach my next goal of producing 2000+ gals, as I expect to make 22-2400 gals if all goes as planned. 2 nice new stainless tanks which should help keep sap cleaner, should be a great year, can't wait!!

Good luck to all can't wait to see what everyone is up to....

[VT_K9]

We picked up 1500' of 1" prelash mainline from CDL...maybe 50' let on the reel after this week. It is pretty nice not tying the mainline to the wire. Also re-aligned about 200' of 1" mainline (reused the wire and used new mainline) after logging on the property. We should be able to hit 800-1000 taps this year.

The logging was pretty interesting. Our sugarbush is about 9 acres of the 70 acre property. Definitely the highest concentration of Maples. Once one area was logged we realized how many more maples were present. Looking through all the hemlocks it was hard to see the real potential. The logger did a real nice job working around the maples. If time permits we'll get a line into that area and start tapping it this year. If not then it will be there next year.

Hoping to drill mid-February.

Mike

[Mead Maple]

Morning everyone!
Hope everyone's summer was safe and productive.

Looking at adding at least 2-300 taps additional here and I'm actively on the hunt for an RO. If anyone knows of one that's a 500gph unit or less please let me know!

[DrTimPerkins]

Crew just finished up retubing (all laterals and drops) one section of our woods, mostly removing all 3/16" tubing (experiment done) and setting up a new project in that area. About 1,100 taps total. With that completed, tapping will start Monday, Jan 18. Should be quick(-er) and easy (-er) without much snow on the ground. Hopefully it'll stay mostly that way and the weather not excessively cold until they're done.

Happy New Year and good luck to all as things ramp up to the coming 2021 season.

[PCFarms]

Has anyone made syrup through the Maple belt?
We started tapping on Jan 4th, we are going to be close to 39,000 taps this year. We had the first 15,000 tapped by last Thursday and were surprised to get a run with a just a degree or 2 above freezing on Fri/Sat. About 0.6 GPT in, boiling it up today after winterizing everything once again on Sunday.

[PARKER MAPLE]

What’s happening in the maple world of Vt?
I’m sure people are getting prepared and have started taping. We will start in a couple of weeks. Looking very much forward to this season. We have built a brand new building. On route 100 in Weston. And everything will be processed there. I wish this COVID thing was over. As I’m sure there would be tones of people that would like to stop and see what’s going on.
Anyways let’s keep our fingers crossed that this is a great season and everyone makes more then they ever have.

[Mead Maple]

I had to do some traveling yesterday. My range went from Montpelier, to Fairfax, then through Fletcher, Fairfield, Sheldon, and up to Enosburg Falls then over to St. Albans (I-89) and back to Montpelier. I was so entranced by the amount of tubing I saw from the road on my travels I had to be aware of the corners lol. Looks like everyone is ready to roll, most of the large operations that I came across had already tapped. Was great to see and as Parker Maple said, COVID definitely plays an impact on everything. Being out in the woods with the kids surely makes that all disappear and I couldn't be more thankful for it, just like during deer season. Anyways, props to everyone up in the area I traveled. Everything looks great!

[GeneralStark]

I started tapping today. Hoping to finish by 2/5. Doing the mountain goat sections first before we get much more snow. Finished all the repairs and drop replacements a couple weeks ago.

Yeah the big Covid factor for me has been day care. It has been inconsistent for a variety of factors, so my time to work has been constrained. My two year old loves to be outside in the snow but she is not quite at the point of being very productive... Fortunately no major changes this year so I should be able to manage through this season.

I'm hoping to make some syrup in February as I need it. Have been buying more syrup than usual this year to keep up with demand. I need to expand...

[Geroldn]

I’m planning on tapping Valentines Day weekend. Mid-February has worked out well for sap production on a northwest facing hillside. My wife delivers flowers, so Valentines Day is big work day for her. Only 250 taps so that can be done on 1 weekend.

[tcross]

we usually tap the week of the feb 18th... where ever that falls. historically my first boils have all been around feb 20th. i've been working on re tubing 3/4 of my bush and putting it on a wet/dry system and having it all come in on 2 lines... and grabbing another 100 or so taps. should make my life easier with maintenance and better vacuum transfer. other than that, i gotta clean up the sugar house a little and i'm ready to go!

[VT_K9]

We installed 1700' of 1" mainline in a new section of our woods. We replaced about 300' of older mainline with new (stepped up from 3/4" to 1" to help avoid frozen pockets). We finished side tying the new mainline on Monday. Today we ran about 1500' of new sap line, adding about 65 new taps on one mainline run. We have plenty more to go. It would be nice to finish those runs up next week so we can start drilling by the second week in February.

Mike

[sjdoyon]

Started tapping today, thankfully only 14-16 inches of snow in the woods.

[Mead Maple]

Made my way through Bristol yesterday for work and saw some very clean woods and set ups along RT. 116. I did check to see if GeneralStark was close to the main road but it appears he's a bit further off the paved path but nothing saying those lines weren't his given his set up. I'll be curious to see if he replies here!

Wanted to run more lines this weekend but looks like given the temps I'll be checking more items off the wife's to-do list inside in hopes that the next few weeks I'll have her help out in the woods. (We can all dream can't we?!)

[Goatogether]

We finished tapping Thursday after a beautiful two days! It’s our 1st year with 143 on vacuum, 9 on gravity, and 7 on buckets. Really enjoyed being in the woods, quiet and peaceful, the other woodpeckers and me 🍁. Only lost one bit, tore up an old pair of gloves getting used to the one-hand ( um maybe next year🤣) tubing tool, and took 3 snow dives. Now working on getting the shack organized and watching’, waiting’, hoping’. Good luck everyone!

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Finishing up our expansion this week. Looking at another tank, making a cover for a current tank, and plumbing it into the old tank.

[blissville maples]

Looking like a small bump in temps end of this next week, may see a couple drops of ita a warm 35 vs a cold 35 degree. Funny how there can be a difference must have something to do with inverted temps in the atmosphere.

Looking like it will cool right back down after next weekend for who knows atleast a week though. If you pay attention we happen to get these swings quite often where you'll have 5 6 7 days of cold then moderate for 3 to 4 days sometimes without freezing nights, then right back down again. I presume this year will be pretty similar to last year except hopefully a lot more sugar in the sap!!

At any rate if it takes you a week or two to tap in, it is looking like the time has come, right on cue as the second and third week of February should start seeing some things loosen up. That is for those of us under 1000-1500' elevation

[GeneralStark]

Made my way through Bristol yesterday for work and saw some very clean woods and set ups along RT. 116. I did check to see if GeneralStark was close to the main road but it appears he's a bit further off the paved path but nothing saying those lines weren't his given his set up. I'll be curious to see if he replies here!

I'm up above 116 at the base of the cliffs off a road that parallels 116. Lots of tubing setups in this neighborhood due to the good ground for growing sugar maple.

[DrTimPerkins]

... good ground for growing sugar maple.

And Vermont soils are also great for growing more stones. Many a day spend "picking stones" as a youth.

[Pdiamond]

How many tons do you think you've done doc.

[DrTimPerkins]

How many tons do you think you've done doc.

It would be too depressing to even hazard a guess - probably about the same amount of weight as the hay bales -- just more bales by number than stones. Kept me outside in the fresh air though, and taught me that I didn't want to be a dairy farmer (that and haying). I have no desire to physically work THAT hard, but certainly admire the determination and many other wonderful qualities of farmers. You've got to be a real optimist to farm for a living.

[Pdiamond]

Unfortunately that hard working fool was me. I now have degenerative back disease. Guess what, nothing they can do to correct it. I just get a little slower every year. But keep moving because I have to pass on traditions that haven't been fully learned yet.

[drewlamb]

Good to get a look at the VT thread and see the shared enthusiasm mounting. I'm certainly feeling it.

We had a few non-covid related health setbacks that had us worried about getting work done, but we started tapping this week and will be ready by end of the month. Big change for us this season is no more tractor collection. Before this year, we had 3 road tanks collected by truck and 3 woods tanks collected by tractor. Tractor had a 750 gal poly tank on trailer and 250 tank on FEL. We added a 10 acre parcel that sits below our main bush which now allows us to divert all the sap down to a roadside tank for truck collection. No more plowing tractor paths then tearing them up in the mud, getting stuck, pumping from 3 different woods tanks, and lost time making multiple collection trips. Also added 550 taps in that area. It's steep ground but we're used to that and it's good for our 3/16 system. Honing all the systems for efficiency is one of my favorite parts of sugaring. Another big step in that area for us this year.

Look forward to following everyone's season and may we be blessed with lots of sap and lots of sugar!

[blissville maples]

Good to get a look at the VT thread and see the shared enthusiasm mounting. I'm certainly feeling it.

We had a few non-covid related health setbacks that had us worried about getting work done, but we started tapping this week and will be ready by end of the month. Big change for us this season is no more tractor collection. Before this year, we had 3 road tanks collected by truck and 3 woods tanks collected by tractor. Tractor had a 750 gal poly tank on trailer and 250 tank on FEL. We added a 10 acre parcel that sits below our main bush which now allows us to divert all the sap down to a roadside tank for truck collection. No more plowing tractor paths then tearing them up in the mud, getting stuck, pumping from 3 different woods tanks, and lost time making multiple collection trips. Also added 550 taps in that area. It's steep ground but we're used to that and it's good for our 3/16 system. Honing all the systems for efficiency is one of my favorite parts of sugaring. Another big step in that area for us this year.

Look forward to following everyone's season and may we be blessed with lots of sap and lots of sugar!

Sounds like someone's life just got much easier!! Enjoy the improvements, I personally know what it's like!

[blissville maples]

Unfortunately that hard working fool was me. I now have degenerative back disease. Guess what, nothing they can do to correct it. I just get a little slower every year. But keep moving because I have to pass on traditions that haven't been fully learned yet.

I feel your pain, years of overuse and lacking a governor haven't treated my back well. Got worse this year and I purchased a harness call "sit and decompress" .....check it out fairly inexpensive and it does seem to help....

[Pdiamond]

blissville
Where did you find that?

[blissville maples]

blissville
Where did you find that?

I found it while searching inversion tables, eventually it brought me to the product called 'sit and decompress '

If you Google it should come up in a search.

[DrTimPerkins]

I feel your pain, years of overuse and lacking a governor haven't treated my back well. Got worse this year and I purchased a harness call "sit and decompress" .....check it out fairly inexpensive and it does seem to help....

Truly amazing how a simple thing you did a billion times when you were younger will one day suddenly be a problem. Many of us are past the days of "die young and leave a good-looking corpse", so guess we just get to keep going as long as we can manage. Good luck, stay healthy, and best wishes for a great 2021 season to all sugarmakers out there.

[steam maker]

Blissville, thinking of getting a steam pan for my evaporater. Can i ask what u ro to and then what it is coming out of steampan. Up in the air about adding another post to ro or will steam pan work . Plus make hot water

[blissville maples]

Blissville, thinking of getting a steam pan for my evaporater. Can i ask what u ro to and then what it is coming out of steampan. Up in the air about adding another post to ro or will steam pan work . Plus make hot water

So typically we will push around 10% to the evaporator. We don't always test it because really it is what it is and usually too busy to think of it, but when we have it does indeed bring it up to 15-16%. I will say not only is it a great investment for the time and fuel savings but the hot water is priceless to have in the sugarshack!! Alot of times I will half fill and pre sterilize my SS barrels before they are filled. You really can't go wrong as long as your not sticking your financial neck out too far.

[TapTapTap]

Hey Blissville,

I see you have two filter presses. Do you set them both up during a boil? What's your process?

I have a 7.5" clear leader 5 plate which has worked fine with the 1050 taps in the past couple of years. I'm stepping up the count to about 1700 with my current expansion. I'm concerned that I could be changing out the filter media and papers during a typical boil. Not a huge deal but could be an inconvenience just when we're getting in the groove. I'm not excited about upgrading this year after spending money on our expansion (plus I don't have the guts to tell my wife that I need yet another expensive upgrade!).

Ken

[blissville maples]

Hey Blissville,

I see you have two filter presses. Do you set them both up during a boil? What's your process?

I have a 7.5" clear leader 5 plate which has worked fine with the 1050 taps in the past couple of years. I'm stepping up the count to about 1700 with my current expansion. I'm concerned that I could be changing out the filter media and papers during a typical boil. Not a huge deal but could be an inconvenience just when we're getting in the groove. I'm not excited about upgrading this year after spending money on our expansion (plus I don't have the guts to tell my wife that I need yet another expensive upgrade!).

Ken

I actually don't, we finally upgraded to a ten inch years overdue. We were filtering up to 80/100 gallons a day with the 7" changing papers every 20-30 gallons!!! We had it down to about 2 minutes to change papers, but there's just too many other things going on to be changing papers and with the expansion we had to go with the 10 in. I cannot believe the filter capacity it posses! So no just haven't gotten rid of it, I'm wondering if it would ever be useful as a syrup pump if I had to transfer but the air drum dispenser is for that job. It needs to be sold if anyone looking!!!

I'm such a cheap sob the first couple times we got the 10-inch press going we filtered 40 gallons or so and it didn't even up the pressure, being me I said there's no way these papers are plugged and I'm not changing them yet. I left overnight the next Boil, ran hot water over it from the Steam Away for about 45 minutes fired it up and it started filtering!! I knew it would work if you can just heat it up. I have also successfully rinsed and reused filter papers, they jist tend to wrinkle a little which makes it slightly tougher to place them.

Anyways if you have the ability to save your draw offs until you get 20 gallons or whatever and you can get away with just flipping the filter press on once or twice maybe a third time that seems to work better for us then filtering every 5 to 6 gallon draw offs. As you are probably aware you could add a couple extra plates you may have to swap the rods out, but that does add some capacity. Of course do you really want to spend a hundred some odd dollars on just a couple plates! Always something to ponder....Valentine's Day is coming up maybe you can buy your way in with a $50 bouquet of flowers!! Haha

[DrTimPerkins]

Hey Blissville,

I see you have two filter presses. Do you set them both up during a boil? What's your process?

I'll toss in a comment...we've used two identical Dominion & Grimm 10" Extended filter presses the past few years. We're making 80-100+ gal syrup/hr, so can't have much of any downtime in filter press operation when we're running full blast. Normally we could get 3-3.5 barrels through, sometimes 4. Every now and then we would not be able to keep up with washing one press before the other filled up if filtering was especially hard, or a paper would blow and mess the process up, but most of the time it was very handy to have a ready-to-go press all set up. Would take only a minute to disconnect and roll the full press out and roll the new one in, charge it with DE, then right back to filtering. Then we'd have a few minutes to flush the old press with hot permeate to get out the sweet, break it down, wash, and reassemble it.

We normally start the day by drawing off 30-40 gal into a two-sided tank, standardize that side for Brix, add DE, then start the press while the other side of the drawoff tank fills. Once that side gets about half-filled we will standardize again, then add DE and open both sides. After that we just keep a close check of the density as it comes off the evaporator. Typically not a lot of change needed unless we get a lot of niter build-up. Once filtering starts, we keep the filter press running slowiy to match the drawoff rate of the evaporator, adding a scoop of DE to the drawoff tank occasionally. We use several barrel fill devices to chain 4-5 barrels together, so don't need to watch that process much.

For the 2021 season we've upgraded to a Lapierre 15" press, hoping we might get through an entire day of production, which for for us is generally 350-450 gal of syrup. We still have the two D&G 10" presses for now, so may keep one around in case we have just a little to finish.

[TapTapTap]

...Valentine's Day is coming up maybe you can buy your way in with a $50 bouquet of flowers!! Haha

I'll just buy her the extra plates for Valentines Day!. HaHa

thanks for your response.

Ken

[Pdiamond]

Dr. Tim
I have seen this numerous times here on the trader about a filter paper blowing on a press. This year will be my first year with an actual plate type press. Can you explain what happens when the filter paper blows please.

[DrTimPerkins]

Generally papers blow when the pressure gets too high. When that happens, the pressure will drop immediately and the diaphragm pump will start pumping quickly and get noisy. If you catch it quickly enough then no DE will make it into the drum. If not, DE will pass into the drum and you'll need to refilter it or label it so you (and the packer) know there is DE in the barrel.

[Pdiamond]

Thank you Dr. Tim. I won't have to worry about the drum part being a small producer. Be a lot easier for me if it happens and I have to re-filter.

[DrTimPerkins]

Thank you Dr. Tim. I won't have to worry about the drum part being a small producer. Be a lot easier for me if it happens and I have to re-filter.

Yeah...really s**ks when it's the end of a long day boiling and you've only got a little syrup left to filter and you're trying to push the last little bit through the press and a paper blows and gets DE in a couple of barrels.

[PARKER MAPLE]

Any ideas as to when we get out of this ice box temp trend we are in??

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Any ideas as to when we get out of this ice box temp trend we are in??

Pretty sure a safe answer is "when it gets above freezing" but a more helpful answer is the 23 looks like a warming trend. But, that's to far out to be accurate.

[PARKER MAPLE]

Pretty sure a safe answer is "when it gets above freezing" but a more helpful answer is the 23 looks like a warming trend. But, that's to far out to be accurate.

Glad we are all on the same page.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Glad we are all on the same page.

I'm not shy about working at 0 degrees but that snowy wind at 10 degrees today was brutal. 🥴

[blissville maples]

Any ideas as to when we get out of this ice box temp trend we are in??

Follow Judah cohens blog, he's probably the best climatologist that's ever been. Has 30+ years at comparing sea ice, Siberian snow cover, Julian Madeleine oscillation.......I've followed for about 4 years now and he's usually pretty accurate at predicting the polar vortex. He predicted the current cold snap we are in since the 3rd week of January. If the Greenland jet stream ridge wasn't so strong we would be in on the -20/-40 the west is getting but that blocking kept it from coming east. Pretty interesting thing to follow, new updates every Monday. These climatologist are generally where the weather man gets his information from for his analysis of a 10 day forecast

Looking like cold for atleast next 2 weeks, then moderating but not to seasonable temps just yet. Cold snap may last Into first part of march...

[DrTimPerkins]

Any ideas as to when we get out of this ice box temp trend we are in??

When it gets warmer. :emb:

As far as the long-term forecast goes....I predict there is a high probability that it will eventually get warmer as we progress into spring. I haven't been wrong yet.

[blissville maples]

Well started drilling yesterday, sunny side had some liquid in the hole hard to believe how powerful the sun is this time of year. This is the first time I can remember in some time we haven't had a run during the 2-3rd week of February. With the snow on way and cold temps it seems more like January!!

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Blissville, come to think of it, it's the first time since I started sugaring that we haven't had a mid February thaw.

[blissville maples]

Seems to be a very traditional winter! Friday was supposed to be 34-35, now that's back down to 30. It will come eventually I suppose. Although I will say It's nice not having to rush because all of a sudden the 7 day forecast shows day 6 and 7 in the 40s all of a sudden- haha

[VT_K9]

Trouble jumped up for us late last week. We had a technician come out to tune our oil fire evaporator....when we filled...tried to fill the evaporator from the feed tank we found a seam burst in the preheater due to freezing. We have a CDL Deluxe. I know the last time we ran the evaporator we did not fill it from the feed tank, rather warmed the water to drain and rinse it. So I believe we did not open the drain valves on the preheater when we finished. Seems like condensation developed during the short boil and the water settled in the square box, at the low point.

We are in build mode to put the hood lift mechanism in (it about time as it is old cleaning the back pan through the observation ports). My shift at my full time job changed tomorrow to days so we worked get to work on it (hopefully finish it) until Tuesday. Then the weldor can come at his convenience (within a week) to do his magic. I have a welder which is capable, I am willing to admit I am lacking the experience to do the job myself for something this important.

Other than that I have been putting some drops together inside during the evening. Looks like we are going to hit 700 taps this year before we need to finish a few other projects to be ready for the season in a week and a half.

Good luck everyone.

[Mead Maple]

Sounds like some are waiting and some (like myself) are hoping for one more solid week of working weather before things let go. It’ll be a busy weekend for myself with the workload I’ve yet to do. Although you never know what the long term will do, we’ve got a decent snow pack and have had some very cold temps. Hopefully it’ll take a little for these trees to soften up, always down to the wire!

[PARKER MAPLE]

We started taping this past weekend. Really tuff going with all the snow and crust here in south central VT. Should have about 1800 in by tomorrow. Looks like I will turn the vac pump on this week as well and be chasing leaks.
Purchased a new to use Busch 1142, pretty excited to fire it up and watch the sap roll in.
New power service was dropped last week the the new pump house. Both tanks are plumbed in side by side for a total of a like over 2800 gallons. Not sure that will be enough but it’s what we have.
Still have two more lots to get into. Maybe we can get there this weekend. Looks like the warmer weather might start showing here shortly. No syrup for us this year in February, which I can’t remember never making syrup in February. Always had a barrel or two made by now.
Fingers crossed for a good season, I feel we have a little to make up for lost time.
PM

[TapTapTap]

We started taping this past weekend. Really tuff going with all the snow and crust here in south central VT.
PM

We have the same conditions up here. Really tuff and really slowing us down.

[VT_K9]

We had our preheater welded to fix a leak from the ice. While checking to make sure the weld was complete we found a small 3/8" joint which was not welded at the factory. There was a small seep. Just after wiping the water away a very fine well defined line was the point of the leak. That was welded as well. Need to drop some spin seals in and get to tapping.

We have the crust here too. Better bring you snowshoes out the same hole they went in or your going down.

Mike

[DrTimPerkins]

Crew finished tapping at UVM PMRC production/experimental bush on Friday. Experimental site was tapped on Saturday.

[tcross]

we got 95% of our taps in saturday... finished up sunday a.m. Be nice if today and tomorrow we get enough sap to flush the lines. we'll see.

[Mead Maple]

What did everyone see for sap movement yesterday into this morning? The wind blew so hard here in Middlesex I thought the roof was gonna come off

[PARKER MAPLE]

Same up here in Weston
South west wind but not sure how it did over night yet.
I will report back later. Between the hours of 12-3 it was coming in very hard. 150+gmp
We used it to flush out the lines etc and drained. Hoping for full tanks this morning but the wind has me second guessing that it didn’t happen.

[DrTimPerkins]

Just enough sap to tease in Underhill....murky and low sugar (1 Brix).

[VTfarmboy]

.33 gpt in the last 24 hours testing 1.5%

[drewlamb]

We got 100+/- gallons in each of our 4 tanks which we used to wash tanks then dumped. Plugged bungs, closed valves and are ready to rock. Don't expect much from Sat but overnight temp Sat night is supposed to be around 30, then mid to low 40s and sunny Sunday, so hoping for enough to do an RO wash and rinse and a pan sweetening boil.

[GeneralStark]

I finished tapping last week. Just in time for some action. Sap ran a bit yesterday afternoon, and I was surprised to see it run a bit better today. Amazing what that sun can do... I haven't collected any sap yet but did get the releaser put back together and the vacuum pump running. Spent a couple hours today repairing leaks and got the vac from 6" to 26". Still a few small leaks out there which I hope to get to Saturday.

Now that the lines are rinsed I'm ready to close the valve on the sap tank and officially start the season. Time to get everything else ready to be able to boil...

[PARKER MAPLE]

Hi guys
Quick question for you. I’m running a new to me Busch mink 1142 this year. Great pump builds nice vac.
My question is, when I shut it down it seems to slow down like normal with the VFD. But when it stops it sounds like it starts turning backwards. I’ve had this happen before on other pumps. Can’t remember what I did to cure the problem. I was thinking a check valve between pump and releaser?
Any insight?
Thank you
PM

[blissville maples]

Just enough sap to tease in Underhill....murky and low sugar (1 Brix).
I guess I don't feel top bad, starting at 1.3 -4 here- not impressed hoping it's not another one of those years, what's the deal with the low sugar lately?!?

Pulled some junk out of lines Tuesday and wensday let that go and started filling tanks. What a battle getting the vaccum up everywhere! Just about everywhere starting at 0, porcupines, squirrel and coyotes! The price for head of squirrel around here is up to 5$!

Finally managed to get up to 27-28 on all but one, still some Walking to do, more sap flow would help, and half the leaks are iced so that doesn't help.

But we managed to get around 3800 gallons of sap. Probably do a first boil Saturday. Ro is rinsed, washing that today and will ro either tonight or in the morning.
Can't wait.

Haven't hears from one of the regulars on here, no word from spud this season??

[BAP]

Hi guys
Quick question for you. I’m running a new to me Busch mink 1142 this year. Great pump builds nice vac.
My question is, when I shut it down it seems to slow down like normal with the VFD. But when it stops it sounds like it starts turning backwards. I’ve had this happen before on other pumps. Can’t remember what I did to cure the problem. I was thinking a check valve between pump and releaser?
Any insight?
Thank you
PM
All vacuum pumps need a check valve between pump and releaser to keep them from running backwards at shutdown. Some pumps can be damaged by running backwards too many times.

[blissville maples]

.33 gpt in the last 24 hours testing 1.5%
Vt farmboy- is that your new install over in Castleon by the orchard and the old depot there?

[GeneralStark]

All vacuum pumps need a check valve between pump and releaser to keep them from running backwards at shutdown. Some pumps can be damaged by running backwards too many times.

Yes what he said. The check valve will also prevent any oil from making it into the releaser when the pump runs backwards...

Spud moved to Hawaii...

[VTfarmboy]

.25 gpt in the last 24hr now testing 2%......Blissville not sure who has the new install in ellis orchard all my taps on here on the farm

[PARKER MAPLE]

Yes what he said. The check valve will also prevent any oil from making it into the releaser when the pump runs backwards...

Spud moved to Hawaii...

No oil on these dry claw pumps. I have a MES protection valve. Thought that by shutting off the valve/ closing that would do the job. But it dosnt

[blissville maples]

Sap ran really hard yesterday for a few hours. Hoping to be closer to 2% after the freeze. Ro'd 2600 gallons last night so all set to rock and roll this weekend.

Oh ok, I guess there are more in the area than I know! You'll have that, good season to ya. You must be up there by Brian on east Hubbardton rd at the farm there.

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Sap is just starting to drizzle on top of the mountain.

[Shirefisher]

I was planning to tap tomorrow or on Town Meeting Day which is the tradition. Well now I'm not sure with a temperature change of 40 degrees to 0 Monday night with 40- 50 mph winds and a -15 to -30 windchill on Tuesday Morning. That is not good.

[VTfarmboy]

picked almost 1gpt in the last 30 hours, was cranking and still running hard, testing right at 2%

[VTfarmboy]

blissville was that you on craigslist with 6 275g totes for sale? i need another one and dont want to drive to far

[blissville maples]

blissville was that you on craigslist with 6 275g totes for sale? i need another one and dont want to drive to far
Unfortunately it wasn't me. I get you there, seems everything on Craigslist is 2+ hrs away! If I see or hear of anything I'll let ya know.

[blissville maples]

Sugar did come up nicely 1.8-2.

Boiled Saturday and Sunday, sweetened pans and made 90 gallons of amber. Things are already idling down from the battle of getting up and running.

Hasn't run as hard as it did for the three hours it ran Friday afternoon with that sun, but certainly running well, probably 1 gpt since yesterday midday.

Nice freeze coming, hopefully that will take it to 2%+.

[drewlamb]

Super underwhelming here in Calais. Less than we hoped for but about what we expected. Cleared 0.3 gpt from yesterday through about noon today. Sugar at 1.5%. Enough to do a gentle boil for a couple hours and sweeten the pans some. Doesn't look like anything coming until early next week. Guess there's no excuse not to be ready.

[PARKER MAPLE]

We had our first boil this afternoon. We had pulled in a little over 1 gpt in last 24hrs. We don’t have every taped as of today but the 2400 gallons was a good start to get things going on. Ro and sweetened, and made around 15-16 gallons of Fancy.
I hope this freeze will bump up the sugar a bit. It tested at 1.5%, that was a bummer but it’s what we got.
Next week looks better. Nothing for a few days unless the weather is wrong again.

[Goatogether]

Hey there....I keep seeing the reference to “sweetening the pans” , which may have been what we did up here in West Charleston today. Pumped out our gathering tank, ran it through just the prefilter in our RO to check for leaks, then into the evaporator to see how that looked. We boiled for awhile to tune the floats, then shut her down (gas evaporator) and left the sap in there. Tomorrow we plan to bring it back up and run the sap through our homemade vacuum filter and see how that does. Is this what y’all are referring to?

[drewlamb]

Sweetening the pans is taking sap from raw sap or ROed sugar content to the higher sugar contents at the various gradients around the evaporator. Today we did our first boil but did not draw off any syrup, so just "sweetened the pans".

[GeneralStark]

Had my first boil today as well. Collected about 1400 gal. in 48 hours since closing the valve on Saturday. Sugar at about 1.4 and made over 10 gal. of amber/golden... literally right at 75 on the hanna checker. I'm impressed withe the syrup quality given not the cleanest sap.

Everything worked and it went pretty smooth overall. Looking as though I'll have some time to finish a few projects in the woods and sugarhouse before the sap runs again....