There will be steam in the sugar house Tomorrow Dec 13th,2014

[buckeye gold]

Well all you saps I got everything ready and went ahead and put some taps out to try some fall/early winter tapping. I just checked and I have a sap run. I'm guessing I have 20-25 gallons off 27 taps and there's a steady drip off most taps. I'm hoping for 30-40 gallons by morning. I interested to see the sugar content. I completely rebuilt my arch with several modifications this fall so I'm excited to see how she runs. I will at least sweeten my pan. :D

if this looks promising I will go to 50 taps for this early try.

[bobsklarz]

Good for you! Good luck. Makes me wanna get going on last minute details!

[unc23win]

Good luck I was looking at the long term accuweather today for here and it actually looks half way decent for the next week or so. Not a typical December for us so far. My guess would be yours might be a tad bit better for sap.

[MapleMark753]

Hope you make some great syrup with the fall tapping. Just as a refresher, what did you modify?
take care, Mark

[buckeye gold]

well my trees never ran anymore over night. So I had 22 gallons at 1.3% sugar. Just enough to build a fire and sweeten my full pint pan.

Mark, I purchased one of Jim Shumacher's full pint hybrid pans last year and had a hard time getting enough heat on the front of the pan. so i extended the arch 8" and added a new air distribution manifold and repositioned nozzels. I also re-insulated with ceramic blanket. This morning I was anxious to see what she done and i was very pleased. Had a hard boil in the front syrup section once she came to heat. Matter of fact I only reloaded the arch twice and had to shut off the blower and kinda kill the fire. she went through the sap faster than I anticipated. Now I have to watch that too much doesn't steam off during cool down. I have tap water ready if needed.

[MapleMark753]

Yeah, that's nice that your modifications worked as you wanted them to. Good to hear. We have the problem as well with fall tapping of not quite enough sap. Just fire it up and its time to shut down almost. Same on the sugar content too. Ours is up this fall, to 1.9 percent average. But that's down from 2.5 regular season average too. We should be able to run the machines in the next couple days, been frozen for a couple days.

[maple flats]

I made just little steam myself today, as I ran the canner, but not much. It still smalls good anytime you can or boil.
Keep us updated on your fall tapping. While I don't think I'll ever fall tap, I have been known to re-evaluate things before. Besides, if new check valve taps or silver bearing taps or whatever prove to last from fall THRU spring, I might fall tap. (Last year I finished tapping 1/20 and they were still wet when we pulled taps late April.)

[psparr]

I put in an old aluminum bucket spile a couple years ago in the fall to show relatives how it worked. It was still going a little half way through our regular season!