2014 syrup totals

[highlandcattle]

so how did everyone do this year? Weather just didn't cooperate. Ron had everything set with the new wet/dry lines. So ended with 40 gallons. Mostly dark amber. Half of last years. That 100 gallon goal keeps eluding us.

[bpmorris]

I made 20 gallons of mostly dark amber some medium. We made most of that in a two week time frame. It was a strange year did not make nearly as much as other years but I am very thankful for what I got. I have big plans for next year so I am hoping for a more normal season then. I miss making syrup already!!!!

[Shawn]

Almost thirty but no fancy ten short from last year and about only two weeks of good boiling here but glad what we got , could have gone a little longer but are sugar content had dropped to a near zip and decided to pull the plug, boil and boil and make a gallon and a half so burning the wood and pulled the plug. Take what we can and call it another year with mother nature in control:cool:

[lakeview maple]

30 gallons total , 24 gallons of dark amber and 6 gallons of B grade. The niter was really heavy this year , but when I washed out the evaporator the pans had hardly any niter build up which was good. Hopefully a better year to come , maybe see some of you at the open houses this weekend , Ill have my Lakeview Maple hat on , take care all ,Al

[Randy Brutkoski]

1920 gallons this year. No fancy made. My first 21 barrels last year were fancy. This season was a bust.this season i had my highest average vacuum and best sugar content this year compared to any other season. Doesnt make any sense.

[madmapler]

440 gallons. 120 Golden delicate, 120 Amber rich, 120 Dark robust, 80 darker with decent flavor. I was hoping for more but as things went this season I'm real happy with what I got. As late as the season was, I still did'nt get all my taps in until after the sap started flowing.

[tuckermtn]

777 gallons, but only 220ish from our own trees. 160+ medium, 210 dark, 240 B, 160 C (of which only 40 or so was buddy)
Good year for the operation, but bad year for our own trees.

[PerryW]

Should be 99 gallons when the pans are boiled now, about 80% crop.

All syrup made in 21 days from Apr 1 to Apr 21. No light amber this year. Last year we made 90 gallons of Light and 150 gal total.

[Sugar Warrior]

33 gallons for us this year, down about 20 gallons from last year. We had 25% Light Amber, 25 % Medium amber and the rest was dark amber.

[guples]

276 total for the season about 25 med 165 dark 60 grade B 26 grade C I don't know if this was bad or good but was about 70% of my goal as this was my first year on my own. hopefully next year I can beat my goal . but probably not because im sure ill raise it lol

[maple flats]

176.5 gal. Way down from 2013 season (334 gal). Same tap count 1250 all on 17-19" vacuum. Time to get a good vacuum pump for my bigger bush, to take it from 17" to 25+"
Walked lines more than ever before, fixing leaks.

[motowbrowne]

120 gallons, only about 400 taps this year, down from 450 over the last couple years. Was pretty nervous at the beginning, but things turned around for us. Happy not to have broken any records, good or bad, this year.

[maplerookie]

176.5 gal. Way down from 2013 season (334 gal). Same tap count 1250 all on 17-19" vacuum. Time to get a good vacuum pump for my bigger bush, to take it from 17" to 25+"
Walked lines more than ever before, fixing leaks. Dave I checked out your website. It looks like you and your wife have an operation anybody would be proud of! If ever I GET over Oneida way I will be sure to look you up and check things out. From what I have gathered on the forums everybody had 30 to 70% lower production totals than last year and most had mostly dark syrup. It was one weird winter/spring season is all I can say. I have nothing to compare my production to. I will say that my piddely 17 quarts of syrup sure taste good. My honey do list is long for the coming summer so not sure how much I will get done towards getting a small shack up and building a oil tank arch. The wife has other plans for me, but told me to build myself something permanent. Guess I will have to build at midnight ..lol

[opiejudd]

We made 82 gallons this year on 950 taps all dark amber. We learned a lot. But my plan it to have us above 200 gallons next year. Lots of tubing work on our new sugar bush. But in the end it was a good season to learn on.

[fishman]

17 gallons down from an all time high of 24 last year but quit a little early this year. Probably could have squeezed a few more gallons out but I'm happy and only doing it for fun anyway.

[GeneralStark]

170 total. 80 Golden Delicate, 65 Amber Rich and 25 Dark Robust. Started the season with 300 taps and ended with 550 so pretty satisfied with the results considering this was the first year tapping this woods with all new equipment and a new sugarhouse. There was nothing here last fall, and now we are up and running.

Now time to start getting ready for next year!

[heus]

329.5 gallons all grade A dark or B. Hit over half a gal per tap on our vac taps. 722 taps total. What looked like a potentially miserable season turned out pretty darn good for us. Most we've ever made (248.5 last year).

[jmayerl]

Worst. Season. Ever. .12 gallons per tap, 526 taps out. Tapped in snowshoes, 1st run to final pickup was 16 days and only collected 3 times. Thank goodness I bought a bunch if sap last weekend and made a drum just from that. Love the RO, made 85 gallons with 2 face cord, guess I can recoup some costs and sell firewood this summer.

[NTBugtraq]

For all of you whose season is over, did you pull taps when your trees budded? I'm still pulling sap from mine and no buds here...I'm no expert, but if there hasn't been enough sap pushed up to the canopy, how can the trees survive? How can a winter that put so much water on the ground (via snow) lead to trees dying? I mean, it only stands to reason there will be more sap for me...or I could have it all wrong. I have only had 6, maybe 7, good sap flowing days. I'm at just below half what I expected sap-wise.

Cheers,
Russ

[sapman]

900 gallons here, mostly medium with very little light, plus some commercial. New record for us. From all I've heard, warm bushes did better this year.

[Randy Brutkoski]

The sap was still running for most of us that called it quits. Metabolism set in when the warm weather came about 2 weeks ago. Crystal clear sap but could not be prossesed. The trees were not even budded.. When i turned off my pumps for the season , at 1 of my bushes i was getting 2 gallons per tap per day for that whole week and couldnt do anything with it. Very frustrating.

[Galena]

Got a record 402l of sap and made 19l syrup, 1 light gold, 3 medium amber and 3 red amber. Very happy!

[GeneralStark]

For all of you whose season is over, did you pull taps when your trees budded? I'm still pulling sap from mine and no buds here...I'm no expert, but if there hasn't been enough sap pushed up to the canopy, how can the trees survive? How can a winter that put so much water on the ground (via snow) lead to trees dying? I mean, it only stands to reason there will be more sap for me...or I could have it all wrong. I have only had 6, maybe 7, good sap flowing days. I'm at just below half what I expected sap-wise.

Cheers,
Russ

I quit when the sugar content went to 1 and the syrup flavor started to turn. Was still getting sap and as Randy said is was running very well, but couldn't do anything with it.

In terms of your concerns about tree health, first of all, the sap is not "pushed up to the canopy". It is pulled up by an internal vacuum created in the tissue of the tree when the tree freezes. Then the sap flows out the taphole under head pressure when the tree thaws. If using vacuum you can continue to extract sap under vacuum induced flow but your yields really have nothing to do with how much carbohydrate the tree has access to for leaf out.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

940 gallons on 2900 taps or 0.32 gallons per tap. we were 0.4 last year. I learned something at Leader yesterday about how quick 8% sap spoils that should help with a few extra barrels next year though.

[madmapler]

I learned something at Leader yesterday about how quick 8% sap spoils that should help with a few extra barrels next year though.

Care to share?

[NTBugtraq]

In terms of your concerns about tree health, first of all, the sap is not "pushed up to the canopy". It is pulled up by an internal vacuum created in the tissue of the tree when the tree freezes. Then the sap flows out the taphole under head pressure when the tree thaws. If using vacuum you can continue to extract sap under vacuum induced flow but your yields really have nothing to do with how much carbohydrate the tree has access to for leaf out.

Forgive me, but I don't understand.

Cheers,
Russ

[Randy Brutkoski]

You are pretty smart for a dog. just sayin...

[doocat]

Drove through Hubardton today on route 30 on the way home from the open houses. DId not see you..

[Randy Brutkoski]

Doocat, You were not far away from my sugarhouse from rt.30. Right before the hubbardton gulf there is a road on the left and i am about a 3 wood down the road. coming from the south, driving north.

[PATheron]

10000 taps? 3965 gallons of syrup. No spectacular number but about what we normally do. Couple hundred gallons made with purchased sap. Last week was junk syrup. Considering the year I think we did really good. Our whole season is usually in March and we made virtually none in that month this year. Warm woods carried us though earlier and then the cold woods ran good later. Mostly all dark amber and B. Very interesting season with some spectacular runs. One day got 25000 gallons of sap just in the daytime. One woods did 9000 gallons on 3300 taps in daylight. Both pretty much records for us. Learned a lot with the evaporator and ro machines. This year just need another sap tank at the sugarhouse and tinkering on my ro machines. Always want to go faster. Theron

[doocat]

have to pay attention next time I'm through there.

Craig

[MillbrookMaple]

When we were sitting at 75 gallons for the season on March 22nd we were really worried. We ended our season a few years ago on March 25th. 2 weeks goes by and I'm happy to say we made just about 500 gallons on 2000 taps. Not great but since I was worried I was going to make less than 300 I'm delighted. Based on how everyone else did around me I'm sure glad we had the vacuum.

[RollinsOrchards]

We made 157.6 gallons on 1100 taps, which works out to 0.143 gallons per tap. Only 29 gallons of Amber, 71 Dark, and 48 Very Dark, with a few really black ones today from finishing the front pan labeled Commercial even though it has good flavor.

Early in the season the trees were running and the gravity tubing was frozen from the spiles on down. It was interesting going along on on snowshoes shoveling a foot to a foot and a half of snow off our mainlines to get them thawed out.

[Drew Pond Maple]

I made 25 gallons from 150 taps almost all red maples. Last year I made only 10 gallons on gravity. This year I added a guzzler pump and got 2.5 times more syrup. One day I got 250 gal of sap and some other times I left the pump on all night and got 40-50 gal of sap through the night.
Vacuum is awesome.
Sugar content was about 1.7% average
My season was only 2 weeks this year but had a blast.

[groomer_guy]

We made 3.28 gallons this year. Better than last year. We could have made around 4.5 gallons if I kept going. We had another run after Easter. We just didn't have a way to keep the sap cool. Season ended for us April 13th. Could have went to April 22nd. Next year hopefully is a better year. Everyone around our area had a bad year.

[ennismaple]

About 1200 USG on 4250± taps. Considering we'd only made 40 gallons prior to March 31st we'll take it!

We made very little light, some medium and the majority amber.

[Cabin]

I made a little over 3 gallons this year. Only had 3 boils this year lasting at most 10 hours. I had 45 taps in this year and only 25 last year. I did have a hydrometer this year and made 'real' syrup though.

[unc23win]

I made 306 gallons of syrup about 40 medium and all the rest was dark except the last 12 or so was C on 1340 taps .23 gallons of syrup per tap. I only ran about 600 taps on vacuum all season and the other 740 were only the last 2 weeks of the season pulling about 18" (lots of leaks on older tubing). I am happy with what I got as this was my first year boiling.

[WindyPoplars]

Spring happened two weeks faster then normal for us, so we ended up with only 3 gallons of syrup, over the 9 we got last time, from 34 trees. :cry:
We are moving to Michigan this year, so this will be our last birch season.
Praying we find a couple acres of Maples near where plan to settle.

[TunbridgeDave]

I made a record amount of syrup this year. 515 gallons on 1020 taps. Ratio was not quite as good as last year @ .505gal/tap. Mostly light syrup and no commercial grade because I quit on April 22 after filling all my drums. Others in central VT had quit the week b4. I did manage to make the first drum in March on the 30th. Having all the snow definitely helped keep things going and as of last weekend there was still one pile of snow left behind the sugarhouse.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Sean,

Regarding the 8% sap spoiling comment. Brad at the Leader RO seminar said that 2% sap can last 48 hours while 8% can spoil in 6. On April 14th we had a good run and boiled until midnight with no problems, it ran all night and we concentrated during the night and the next afternoon then started up the evaporator in the evening (I work out days) and the syrup was ropey and wouldn't go through the press. A nearby producer who has a bigger RO and can get it processed the same day was able to go another 4 days and I (now) think the difference was that our concentrate had spoiled. We had the same exact thing happen last year, and another 4 days for us would've been at least $4K more in sales. So I'm looking into a bigger RO to be able to process our sap the same day.

Brian

[dblact38]

We made about 2 1/2 gallons of that Golden Liquid, my two kids and I had lots of fun collecting and boiling down unfortunately we lost about 70 gallons of sap with the warm up at the end of the season. Now its time to sit back and enjoy our Golden Liquid

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Bascoms made 32,000 gallon on 82,000 taps.