Saratoga County

[ren46]

Just wondering if anybody has tapped and is doing much with all this cold weather. I might tap this coming weekend and see what
happens. We still have a good amount of snow in our woods here in Galway. Just need those warm days.

Good luck to all,
Ren

[Slick Willy]

Hi Ren,

I'm in Charlton and decided to wait on tapping the trees until next weekend. Last year was my first year making maple syrup and I've upgraded from (2) stock pots on an open fire to a 2x4 evaporator and I'm excited about using it. Good luck to you as well.

[Trevor5]

I am up in Greenfield Center. I put out 8 taps two weekends ago during the two day "heat wave" and collected about 15 gallons of sap, since then it has mostly been a few drips here and there. I have at least 3 more taps going in, but I will wait until I see which trees are producing and add taps to those trees. At least with the cold my stored sap is frozen solid and won't spoil. This season I upgraded to a 2x4' flat pan for this season on a block arch, so I am hoping for a lot of sap flow from my probably only 11 taps, just so I can fire it up.

Trevor

[ren46]

I also picked up a 2' x 4' pan (SmokyMaple) for this year so I'm excited about using it also. I modified my block arch from using 3 steam table pans the last few years to where it will now hold my 2 x 4 pan.

Ren:)

[stoweski]

Just south of all of you but... Put in 200 taps his past weekend because I don't have time during the week and long range looked like it may start running on Friday and again on Saturday. Just wondering how many warmer days it will take for the trees to thaw out. Not sure friday will deliver much sap. I suppose I could have waited but I really wanted to get some sap if it runs on Friday.

Good luck! I still need to finish my RO. No hurry or anything. :D

[sugarman3]

Ren
7 miles west of J'town in Ephratah,1850 taps out,will finish Sat,did make 10 gallons 2 weeks ago,sun getting stronger warming up the trees,GET READY-GOOD LUCK

[lpakiz]

Ren,
That's quite the arch modification you show. You modified a block arch to look like a factory made steel one. Most impressive!

[adk1]

Yup I am just outside of northville been tapped two weeks had a very small run over that warm weekend there

[super sappy]

Just to the east of you in Easton = starting to drill today hopefully boil by sunday if things loosen up -ss

[ren46]

Put in 70 taps today but only the trees with a little sun exposure were doing anything here in Galway. Most were locked up cold still (to many Hemlocks). Still have a few more to put in on Monday. Lets hope we get some cooperative weather.

Ren

[Wanabe1972]

Got home from work at 8 am and pump was running and pulling icy sap to the realeaser. This is a good sign as my trees have not given a drop before 2pm yet this yaer. Let er go I'm sick of waiting. Jeff

[ren46]

Collected my buckets for cleaning yesterday to get ready for the next run. Pretty much dumped ice from every one including a frozen/dead Flying Squirrel. Sorry Mr. Squirrel!! My wife suddenly lost the will to help gather the buckets. Looks like a warm up coming later in the week.

Ren

[Wanabe1972]

Ren. Have you gotten much sap yet?? I'm about 30 min north of you and still have not boiled. Everytime the sun comes out here and they start to run the wind picks up and shuts them off. Well I will be ready for next week and the temps look good for several days. Probably going to get all the sap at once and have to move in to the sugar shack.

[adk1]

Yeah I hear yeah. Looks like starting Thursday thru the weekend. Calling for 50's here for the day and low 30's at night. Hopefully that is enough at night to keep the flow going.

[Mapleridge]

Hello Slick Willy, we are also in Charlton on Jockey St 2 miles N of town. This is our 9 season making syrup. We have a Sugar house with a 2x4 drop flu evaporator and put in 122 taps this year. We make about 25-35 gallons per year.... in a normal year. We taped 3-22, collected 105 gallons, sugared the pan and only had a couple of small runs since. It's cold, still ice and snow. Still hoping for a season. Good luck with your new pan. Let us know if you want to compare notes. Hope for warming temps.

[ren46]

Hey Jeff I have only collected about 40 gallons so far that we could use to finally fire up our 2 x 4 evaporator and that was a week ago. We boiled on the 15th and made about a half gal. of light. Most of the time were not getting enough to boil. Like you were saying it just starts to get going then it gets cloudy or windy and cools the woods so they shut down. Do you still have a good snow pack up your way? Where abouts are you located in Corinth?

Ren

[Trevor5]

I was finally able to boil on my new 2x4 flat pan yesterday. Made just under 1 gallon of syrup. Half of what was boiled had to be chipped out of the storage container as it was a solid chunk of ice, I couldn't stand waiting for it to melt so I thawed it. My trees really seem ready to flow hard, seems even when it is cold that sun is enough to get them moving a little bit, if it would just warm up and be sunny at the same time I think they will really give.93849385

I did not filter the syrup yet, I think it should lighten up quite a bit when I do.

Trevor

[ren46]

Trevor, your set-up looks alot like mine. I put a tarp up overhead so I can still boil if its raining. I've got my buckets washed and ready to be hung back up for this next run which looks to get going Thursday. Close to 50 degrees for the coming weekend and hope the nights get below freezing. Good luck with your sugaring.

Ren

2014
2x4 on a block arch
73 taps w/ buckets
2013
3 steam table pans
on a block arch
44 taps w/ buckets

[Trevor5]

Ren, how do you like the set up? This was my first go around with that pan, I was pretty pleased with it, I wish I had more sap and sap that wasn't ice chunks. By the time we got it really going all we had left was ice so we had to slow it way down to chip the ice out and get it thawed with out running out of liquid in the pans. Definitely a huge upgrade from my steam pan from last year. Frustrated with the weather just like everyone else, tripled my taps and I don't know if I will reach last years total. Good luck.

Trevor

[ren46]

Trevor - so far I'm pleased with my new set-up and will get a better idea on how well it will work out once we get more sap and less ice. I picked up a dual burner propane stove for finishing on at the house since are evaporator setup is near Galway at our woodlot. Get ready for this next run and have fun!

Ren

IMG_20140315_142153_049

[Wanabe1972]

Finally getting some sap off the the vacuum lines but the gravity lines arent doing anything . I think because they still have 2 feet of snow around them. Boiled 2 nights in a row and todays haul should make some syrup auto draw popped off a few drops as I ran out of sap. Syrup is looking real light in the pan but already has a ton of niter. The weather looks good here for a week or so with no nights above freezing so maybe we will make a little. Good luck to all that have not given up.

[Mapleridge]

Thesday after a low of 27, temps warmed up to upper 40s and by 10:30 our sugar maples were dripping pretty good, and then about 1:00pm with temps near 50 the taps all but stopped. Half our trees never did run. Tried putting in a couple new taps, thinking maybe the holes had dried in the cold weather we had for about 19 days, but these did nothing. Never had the taps just stop before in mid day. Collected about 30 gallons of sap. Low last night was 35, and this am some of our sugar maples down in the valley are starting to drip very slow. Still more than 2/3 of our trees are bone dry. We are pulling taps tomorrow if we don't see signs of sap today. We have made about 10 gallons of medium by really tending to the sap, keeping it cold but not freezing up our ranks, and keeping the evaporator from freezing. Lots of exta work this year, from very litle sap. What happened to the trees that when we got the "perfect" syruping weather the trees don't want to drip?

[Wanabe1972]

Mapleridge. It sounds like it stayed too warm for you last night. I had ice on the puddles before I finished boiling last night. Do you still have snow around your trees? I did until today and my gravity lines ran. 0. Today the vacuum lines are running like mad and gravity lines are at about 1/4 gallon per tap not a great run but better than 0. I would give it couple more days before pulling.

[Mapleridge]

Our weather doesn't show any night temps below 30 for more than a week, and today just a few of the sugar maples ran veryyyyyy slow. Ran what sap we hade today, and started the clean up. Don't understand why the trees didn't run when the weather was perfect..... We finished with about 10-11 gallons of syrup, and we really worked had to get that. Hope your season finishes well. Good luck all.

[ren46]

Ray - I'm just up the road from you (Donnan Rd) and same thing happened with my taps. Thought it would run half way decent over the pass few days but very little to collect. Lots of taps dried up? The ones still doing anything were in the low shaded areas. I boiled 25 gallons yesterday and frustratedly pulled the buckets this morning. I tapped back on the 8th of March which makes it about 4 weeks that they were in. Is that to long for traditional spouts (5/16") with buckets? Hopefully next season is better.

Ren
2x4 pan on a block arch
74 taps on buckets

[Trevor5]

I tapped half of my taps on Feb 22 then slowly added taps up until this week. All of my taps are still flowing, though my trees that usually do the best of course I tapped in Feb are really starting to slow down a lot. I have some trees that didn't do anything last year are now starting to wake up and be a little more consistent. I have 18 taps total now, but only get 5 gallons total a day. Back when I tapped the first 8 I was got 7-8 gallons each of the first two days of tapping before the deep freeze set in again.

I am a little bit North of you guys but not that much further.

[Mapleridge]

We use tree saver taps and buckets and this year tapped Feb 22. We usually have our buckets up 6-8 weeks and I remember in the last 8 seasons we only had 1 or 2 taps go dry before we decided to pull the taps, so 4-5 weeks is not too long. Starting Monday only our sugar maples were running, and only for about 3 hours in a day. Our red maples have been bone dry since Monday.We pulled the taps this am. The ground is just now thawing out and the ice and snow just melted today. We don't understand what happened with the sap. This week's weather should have been perfect? Now it us too warm at night. Better luck next year for all.

[adk1]

I tapped about the same time, end of feb. My bucket trees are defiantly not producing like they should be, my line trees using cv spouts are doing ok

[stoweski]

What are you up to now, ADK? Weather hasn't been on our side. Down here the reds are popping - taps will be removed from them this weekend. I've hit the 1000 gallon mark finally... Only 1800 below where I wanted to be for the season.
Just awful!

[Trevor5]

Had my best single day sap flow of the season yesterday, 9 gallons from 18 taps. I am hoping to get a good day today and maybe one more day mid to end of the week and then I am assuming that will be about it. Hopefully make another half gallon, the sugar content from my boil this weekend must have been very good as I made about 1 gallon of syrup from just 27 gallons of sap.