Tapping in Stafford/Somers

[DaveB]

Despite freezing temperatures, I decided that this weekend was the best opportunity for me to get some of my taps in. I tapped about 150 trees so far. Temps will be too cold through the end of next week but I'm actually not picking up my new evaporator until next Saturday so I think the timing is pretty good. I should have some sap to boil next Sunday or Monday if everything works out. I'll finish up tapping then too because the long range weather pattern looks pretty good after that.

The bonus for me this year is that I'm adding a sap pulling in the form a ShurFlo 2088 so I'll be sure to report how well that works. That should arrive later next week, just in time. I'm putting that in an area that has about 75 taps on a nice slope and is pretty tight so it should work well. My main area uses a regular vacuum pump so it will be interesting to see the difference.

[DaveB]

I did some additional tapping today so I'm just about all set for the season. If the delays keep up, I may be adding some additional lines if things will extend into April to with good conditions. I've boiled the first weekend of April before with mixed results so we'll see.

I stopped by the areas that I tapped earlier and sap was dripping from the lines. The ShurFlo pump is not expected until later this week so I can't wait to hook that up. I tested the sap that was running and it was sweet so I can't wait for next weekend. Hopefully I'll have enough to boil next Sunday/Monday when I'll have everything in place. Next Monday I'll be putting up buckets at our church for the school and they will be collecting for me. I thought they might to see the process!

[DaveB]

My new ShurFlo pump arrived yesterday and I set it up last night in an area with about 80 taps. Despite being below zero this morning, temps should be in the mid-30s here by this afternoon so I have it running and we'll see what happens. I'll run it on days when the temps appear to be going above freezing and shut it down in the evening until I can automate that. Tomorrow is supposed to be in the mid 40s so I should get some decent flow.

I'm also leaving this afternoon for PA to pick up my new air-tight 2x6 from A&A. I can't wait to get that installed and try it out on Sunday or Monday. Monday we are tapping at our church's school and doing a demo for the students. Should be fun!

[DaveB]

Just got back from A&A in PA and picked up my new evaporator. I can't express how great these guys were and how impressed I am with everything. I checked one of my tanks and it looks like I have some sap with the nice warm temps today so once I get everything in place I should be able to do a test boil. In looking at the weather models, it looks like we'll have good sugaring weather through the end of the month. Time will tell if that includes a fourth week in April!

I also wanted to note that the owner of the other bush that I tapped and added the ShurFlo pump let me know that everything seemed to be OK and that there was only one minor leak. I can't believe that I setup and area with about 80 taps and only had one leak!

[DaveB]

I checked my tanks this morning and I thought I wouldn't have enough to run the evaporator so I spent the day setting up the new evaporator and cleaning up the sugar house. I'm really happy with the quality of A&A's work and the way they allowed me to customize it to my sugar house. My previous evaporator had a galvanized stack and this one is all stainless (including the arch sides) so it looks nicer. My brother and I were able to off-load it and it it in without too much of a hassle.

I'd like to get a vacuum gauge on the ShurFlo but it seemed to do well. I was concerned after reading some posts about not letting the pump freeze but it seemed to fine. It was pumping sap all afternoon. This section has about 80 taps and with the pump it produced about 40 gallons of sap. It's hard for me to compare because right now I just have my vacuum taps online. My previous pan was a Max pan and the arch was a little different and I was able to get between 40-50 GPH with that unit and I didn't want to put everything online and be over whelmed with sap. I do plan on adding a pre-heater and hood next year as well as forced air so I think I'll be alright.

[DaveB]

I finished up my tapping today by tapping the trees around our church. There's about 20 trees there and the students in our parish school will be emptying the buckets as part of a science project. We had a demonstration for the kids this morning so that they could see what they will be doing and they seem pretty enthusiastic. They will be doing all kinds of things with keeping track of the quantity of sap from each tree along with the sugar content and daily temperatures. Should be some good data! The sap was flowing very well in these trees with big open crowns.

The next week continues to look good and long range indications look good through the first few days of April.

[DaveB]

I had a pretty good weekend boiling about 400 gallons of sap collected the end of last week and produced my first syrup. Always good to taste that first syrup! My biggest issue today was ice. My feed lines were all frozen and I was only able to get going after I got them thawed out but even after I got all the liquid out there was still about an inch of ice all around the feed tank.

This was also my first full weekend with my new evaporator and I was very happy with the operation. No issues at all and one of things that I noticed off the bat without fulling bricking the inside was the response to the fire. I could immediately tell when the fire would die down, even just a little because there are no bricks to hold the heat up. I was averaging about 25-30gph but I could see it doing a little better. I play it conservative with a few inches in the pans but did lower it today to see how much better it could do and noticed more sap coming in through the float box. I had to slow down because I was running low on sap. Next weekend I'll see better...

[DaveB]

This weekend we made about 16 gallons of syrup off about 700 gallons of sap. The sap was flowing really well on Saturday and Sunday. Hopefully we get some good runs this week as well. The only unfortunate thing is that week will most likely be my last week so this will be one of the shortest seasons that I've had but it started three weeks late and is ending a week late! I wish it worked out different, but it is what it is. Also, I think one of the diaphragms failed on my ShurFlo 2088 pump so I've had to take that out of the picture because a replacement won't be here until after my season ends.

I'm really liking the auto drawoff device that I built. It's so convenient and I can also see how much more precise it is. It's probably one of the better investments I've made and it cost less then $125 including everything. Every time I add one of these efficiencies it makes life so much easier and I know that I'm making a better product.

[lafite]

that's great Dave! yes, it was a strange season but we still really liked the quality she offered this year!

[DaveB]

I've been lucky in that my temps have been in the mid-20s the past couple of mornings and I've collected about 300 hundred gallons of sap the past couple days. I wasn't sure what I would get and I'm glad that things turned out better than nothing at all.

I'll finish boiling on Saturday or Sunday and this year I'm going to try boiling the sap that is in my pans. I'm hoping to get an extra couple of gallons by doing that. I've tried letting it sit, pushing it out with water and even just draining it so I'm hopeful that this will work!