Anyone tapping this week

[gibsonman]

Even though winter is still holding strong it looks like next weekend could give a big run. We are going to tap at the nature center the middle of this week and hope the forecast is right. I figured with all the sub freezing temps last week the trees should be ready to run on the next warmup. Anyone else tapping yet?

[asknupp]

Planning on running the rest of the tubing I have and tapping along the way. About 150 taps. Still have to get my roof jack and stove pipe up and test boil. Its crunch time.

[kiteflyingeek]

I'd love to boil but I have a business trip & a family ski trip to WI. So it'll be Feb 1 before I even think of tapping this year :(

--andrew

[TonyL]

Been watching the forecast, going to put taps out this coming weekend....fingers crossed.

[ahowes]

Hi Gibsonman-
I'm from near Princeton; always good to see fellow southwest Hoosiers on here, especially from Gibson County. I'm probably going to tap just a little this weekend. Due to business travel, I'll only tap maybe four or five trees this year. No big deal - when those heal over, I have many more trees available to move to since I won't have time to tap all of them. It sure sucks to have to leave the evaporator to go make a living. I want to be retired and get back to tapping all of them and maybe more. (660 days to go!)

[Sugarmaker]

No, a month away, unless mother nature decides its going to be a early spring.
Regards,
Chris

[ericjeeper]

I am going to hold off for a while.. Right now the trees are frozen deep.. I do not think that this weekend, will be warm enough, long enough for a run.

[sawyerkirk]

I think (hope) you are right about it being to cold leading up to this weekend temps. I'm not close to being ready. It won't take me but a couple hours to get my cooker and tanks ready.. I still havent decided how many I am putting out. Each year I say I'm not putting out as many as last year but then end up having to get more buckets. Last year I put most of my syrup in beer bottles. That worked great so I think I will do it again this year. How does one clean 500 beer bottles? They are clean aside from having beer in them. I think I can dish washer them and that will be sufficient.

[ahowes]

Let me clarify. If I didn't have far more trees than I will be tapping, I would not tap this weekend. I'm only going to tap because I'm not going all out this year and can simply move my taps to different trees if they heal over. But...I guess I am still technically a beginner, so don't base any decisions solely on what I say!

[ahowes]

Last year I put most of my syrup in beer bottles.
How in the world could you find any beer bottles in Haubstadt :lol:

[TonyL]

Accuweather shows a warmup for my area around the 12th of Feb, but the lows don't go below freezing then either. I need to be all wrapped up by March if possible, due to work constraints. I'm striving for 500 gallons of sap from 50 taps, got a couple test holes that have run a little also, even in the colder temps.

[TonyL]

38 degres and sunny right now, test taps are dripping. Just over 3% according to refractometer.

[Locust Farms]

Hi gibsonman,

Put in 100 taps yesterday. sap flowing great.

Dwight

[gibsonman]

We tapped 15 trees Wednesday but i haven't seen any sap yet. I figure with a high of 50 tomorrow they should run like crazy. It seems like these early runs are our best but to make much syrup.

[buckeye gold]

I put out an additional 20 today with the 40 I already had out from fall tapping. We have 4 days of sap weather forecast. I had a few trees with wet holes when I tapped, but most were dry. The old taps are slowing up, but I'm not ready to put out the full 100 new taps yet. I think around Feb 1st I will go all in. I had left the fall taps out to get some data for Dr Tim Perkins and figured I'd put 20 new out for comparison and so I'd get enough sap for a boil. Those 20 I'll leave for the regular season, but the 40 fall taps will be pulled soon as they significantly slow.

[TonyL]

Test taps dripping slow but steady, around 3%. We also hope to try Black Walnut this year, on an experimental basis. I tapped a couple of those this morning, and by noon they had begun to drip. One was at 3.5%, and the other at almost 6%. I couldn't believe it so I recalibrated the refractometer and checked again..yep. Now however, almost four hours later, they have dropped to 2% and 4%. Double checked refractometer again with distilled water, still on.

[TonyL]

Put 55 taps into maples and 10 into black walnuts yesterday afternoon. We collected 35 gallons of maple sap, and 5 gallons of walnut sap this morning, less than 24 hours after tapping in. Went ahead and boiled today, just to try out a couple changes we implemented this summer. Went well, and was awesome to smell the sap and listen to the boil again.

[ericjeeper]

Tony, is your ground frozen?

[TonyL]

Eric, I'm sorry to say I didn't check to see.....certainly not the first 3 inches or so, as the trails are an absolute swamp. I can tell you that I stood on 4.5" of ice while fishing yesterday morning early, and by tonight I have a lot of open water. I did see the ground heave while driving, so if it's frozen It must be deep.

Trees had pretty much shut down this evening. Would like to see some colder temps during the overnight hours.

[TonyL]

48 gallons from 55 taps yesterday. Another 5 from 11 taps on walnut.

[gibsonman]

We didn't get the run i thought we would. With 17 taps I've collected around 45 gallons int eh past 3 days. They just don't seem to be running well yet. The two best producing trees we have are hardly putting gout any sap. We have been boiling some for teh last two days but have only made around a pint so far.

[ericjeeper]

I had 120 tapped and only gathered 30 gallons yesterday. Not enough at 5 pm today to even bother.. We added another 32 taps.

[ahowes]

I only have eight taps out and have gotten about 14 gallons. I won't be adding any more taps until I add eight more when these heal over due to planned biz trips...

[DougM]

Not sure what we're going to do...my partner had Achilles surgery yesterday and can't put weight on his foot for four weeks, and my son that usually helps out is in a boot with a broken foot for another three weeks.

I'm hoping to round up some help and at least start getting things set up this weekend. It looks like it may be just cold enough next week to keep the trees from running, so maybe that will give us enough time to finish getting ready.

Too bad I have to work for a living...

[TonyL]

Finished off some concentrate from earlier in the week. Our first syrup of the season.

10437

[ericjeeper]

We now right at 250 taps out. If the weathermen would quit lying to us we could get some flowage.. Danged clouds came in til around 2 today. We were tapping and hanging bags 1t 6pm and the trees were really running hard. Calling for rain/snow tomorrow.. Hopefully we can gather and have enough for a good boil. So far we have only processed 1.5 gallons of nice light amber syrup.

[TonyL]

That's where we're at also, Eric...a gallon and a half so far.

[maplefarmer]

TonyL, I see you are tapping some walnut trees, how does walnut compare to sugar maples. Do you boil walnut separately, what is the taste and how is the flow on walnut trees ? I would like to try tapping walnut and maybe even few sycamores to try a little diff. approach to maple making. Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated.

[TonyL]

Hi maplefarmer, I wish I could give you the complete lowdown on tapping black walnuts, but the truth is this is only our third year tapping maples, and our first experience with the walnut. Still a newb where sugarmaking is concerned. So while I am happy to share what little info I have, please be aware that I may not know what I'm talking about..

Since this is our first year with the BW, I have no idea of the taste. We are tapping the walnuts on a limited basis, with a dozen taps out. We tapped in a week ago, and have collected almost 20 gallons of sap thus far. Our weather hasn't helped any (for both the walnuts and the maples), as temps have been pretty warm. I do think that the BW will still run a little after the maples have shut down, as our temp swings appear to demonstrate. Walnuts were still dripping this evening, while the maples had quit. However we haven't gotten any big amounts of sap from them either, with our best collection day yielding 5 gallons from those dozen taps. When we started I checked sugar levels with a refractometer and was shocked to see almost 6% from one tree....but that was fleeting. This evening's collection tested at 1.5%, while the cumulative BW sap we have in storage came in at an acceptable 2%. By way of comparison, the maple sap in storage tested a full 3% this evening.

We batch boil, and intend to use the same stainless equipment we utilize for maple. We do have a dedicated set of filters set aside for the BW. We will be happy with a gallon this first year, just to see what it tastes like and evaluate the process. Hope this little bit of info is useful, sorry I don't have more to give you. I will gladly post updates on our progress in this thread, if you or anyone else is interested.

[maplefarmer]

Hey TonyL, thanks for your info. please do stay in touch with reports especially with the bw. as that is my target this season. I haven't tapped yet, and probably won't until mar 1, I usually tap around feb 20-24, but last couple years I don't really get good runs until into mar. Just want to mention it to you, and you may already know this, if someone is allergic to tree nuts, [my wife] we are not sure she could eat the bw syrup, and maybe that will not have the same effect as eating nuts. If you are not selling your syrup, or don't have anyone with nut allergies I wouldn't worry about. As for me, I'm going to def. have to keep maple separate of any bw that I do.

[ericjeeper]

We had a great run overnight. We made 2 gallons of slightly darker than 2 days ago. Whenever we get some ideal flowing weather we can get a rolling.

[gibsonman]

Well i collected this morning and we got around 30 gallons from this weekend. Still not running as well as i hoped but we are getting there. Boiled some last week and made about half gallon of fairly light syrup. TonyL the black walnut sounds interesting. I didn't know you could make syrup from their sap.

[the old guy]

Well arnie, now you are a maple enthusist! I'm the old guy and i warned you that making maple syrup is a fever===it consumes you!!! But take heart, when you retire everyday is saturday--come over and see us some time--john w and i are just as happy as if we had our right minds. Now two other outdoor enthusiasts have joined us and we are tappin so many trees we can't keep up with the sap. Hey' good to know you are still in the sugar mood. Leo--the old guy

[TonyL]

Reduced almost 30 gallons of walnut sap down to 3 gallons of sweet today. Interesting smell, and the taste, while still very weak, is sweet and unusual. Looks like it will make a dark syrup, we need another 30 gallons (approx.) of sap to be able to finish.

[Gandolf]

I put out about 100 taps on 1/18 but really haven't seen much sap run yet. The syrup we have produced so far has been lighter than previous years.

The weather forecast is starting to look more favorable and I hope to put out another 50 taps this weekend.

[ericjeeper]

between yesterday and this afternoon we brought in about 250 gallons of syrup. Finished off 2.5 gallons of lighter than last weekends syrup. Have about 120 gallons in the storage tank to run tomorrow. Plus what is in the woods in the bags overnight. we have made 11 gallons so far this season

[Andrew Franklin]

I put in 50 taps this weekend in northern Monroe County on Lake Lemon. My property is on the lake, facing south, and is heavy woods going 300' uphill away from the lake. Not surprisingly, the trees near the lake being less obscured and getting sun from the lake were really running. The ones in the heart of the woods (especially the big ones 100' tall, which is most of them as it is virgin forest) were not flowing. I brought home the 9 gallons that flowed from the trees I tapped last near the lake had to do a turkey fryer boil to see what it was like. I got 40 ounces of syrup, much lighter than last year. Can't wait to see what the next few weeks bring!

[TonyL]

Finished off just over two gallons of syrup this weekend, bringing our total thus far to almost four gallons. Sap ran great, collected both morning and evening. Reduced the Black Walnut down further, getting exceptionally sweet with a distinct smoky(?) flavor.

[gibsonman]

We have been doing pretty well the last few days. I collected 17 gallons on both Friday and Saturday. I wasn't in on Sunday so i had one of the other naturalists check the buckets for me. She called me Sunday afternoon to tell me a left her too much work. She collected 46 gallons. We boiled yesterday and made a little over a gallon which brings us to around 3 gallons for the season. The weather this week looks good so hopefully we'll be getting some more big runs. Good luck everyone.

Tony, does the walnut syrup have a bitter taste? I'm thinking of walnut saw dust and it has a really bitter taste. This comes from the juglone present in the tree. Also do the trees run about the same as a maple?

[TonyL]

Gibsonman, I don't find it bitter, although I'm not real sure how to describe the taste. When I first started reducing the stuff I didn't care much for the taste at all, but that may be due to me judging it against maple....what I mean is, it gets color pretty quickly, and when maple gets that same color it's sweet....not so much with the walnut. Also has an unusual smell to it while boiling.

I can tell that it will make a dark syrup, which I kind of expected. And it doesn't have the sugar sand we would encounter in maple, but instead contains a very fine silt(?), that I fear might make filtering a real pain. The stuff doesn't settle out, but remains in suspension much longer than I'm used too.

I haven't painted a very attractive picture I know, but to be honest I'm not sure at this point what we will end up with. The flavor keeps changing with each further reduction, and it is starting to grow on me. My mother and father really like it at this stage, claiming it has an almost smoky taste about it. And it is getting sweet....real sweet, much more so than maple.

As far as sap production, my take is that walnut will run a little sooner in the day than maple, and a little later after the maple has quit, due to temps. I don't believe they give as much sap, although like maples it is highly variable from tree to tree. Sugar content is currently running an average of 1.5%. I can tell that IF we attempt this next year, we will need to greatly increase our walnut tap count, to make it feasible for production.

[maplefarmer]

Tony, how many taps do you currently have on walnut, and how many do you think it would take to make a collection and boil, as not to have to hold it very long? Also, I was talking to a guy who has a friend that made some walnut last year and is planning to again this year, he says walnut has a pectin in it that stays suspended in the sap/syrup and is hard to filter out, he was talking about using some sort of a colander to strain it out. I haven't tapped anything yet and probably won't until at least feb 25 or so, unless forecast changes drastically. Keep reporting on your progress, especially with the walnut, I can't wait to try that.

[TonyL]

Maplefarmer, we have 11 walnut trees tapped. From what I'm seeing thus far, I think 25 would be the minimum for our operation....a 2 x 3 flat pan, batch processing. Maybe things will pick up soon and we will be happy with our 11 taps, but I kind of doubt it. By way of comparison, our 55 maple taps gave us 45 gallons tonight, while those 11 walnuts only yielded 4 gallons.

Thanks for sharing that info about the pectin. I wasn't sure if what I was seeing was the norm or not, sounds like it may be. I really think filtering will be a nightmare.

[kiteflyingeek]

I've put in about 35 taps so far (2/6-2/7). I have plans for around 100 so I need to get the drill busy.

Once I get near that 100 mark, I'll be nearly drowning in sap :cool:. I've collected around 160-170 gallons so far. Need to boil the 60 that I picked up tonight -- that might give me some syrup :D.

--andrew

[TonyL]

Not liking this current weather, and especially not happy with the extended forecast. I'm afraid the temps will break and do a complete 180, and in the space of 4-5 days it will become too warm during the nighttime hours. My plan for being all wrapped up by the end of Feb. is a bust, now I will be happy just to make another 4-5 gallons.

Hopefully, the extended forecast will moderate more as time goes along.

[maplefarmer]

We put out 80 taps yesterday on tubing, got another 400 to go with bags and buckets, and planning 100 on walnut. still to cold to run, possibly starting sat, getting to the 30 s and down to teens. Are you more south guys having the same cold or are you getting sap?

[TonyL]

Sap ran better today, but the snow is deep and the front differential on the mule went out....and two wheel drive in 14" of wet snow won't cut it. The wife and I broke out the 5 gallon buckets and the jet sled, and went from tree to tree. 55 sap buckets, 35 gallons, 1.5 hours, and a half mile of trudging later we finished up. Reasonably sure my cardiovascular system will recover in a week or two.

[sawyerkirk]

I put out 25 taps last weekend. Checked them this morn and actually had maybe 5 gallons between them not sure when it happened I have lids on everything. I'm going to have to get the log skidder out to get through the mud as soon as the juice really starts flowing. Looks like after Saturday. We may be flooded with sap. I have everything ready ( I think) last year I had junk firewood and it took forever to cook down this year I rebuilt my fire box. Come on sunshine

[maplefarmer]

Tapped more maples today, and did 4 walnut trees, question is for you guys that have tapped walnut. Does your drill seem to hit a hard spot at approx. 1 " in the tree, not sure if the tree is just frozen, maybe diff. than the maples, or am I hitting solid wood that close to the bark? I usually tap maple around 1 1/2" deep

[TonyL]

I don't recall hitting a denser layer? looking forward to your impressions regarding the walnuts!

[Andrew Franklin]

I've only done this for two years, so I follow the weather more closely now, but even so I don't recall going from two weeks of near 0 temps to a forecast of mid 50's and above freezing at night. If this holds true for the next 10 days how long before the sap turns - any thoughts?

[DougM]

Andrew,
We've been doing this since 2000, and we've been scratching our heads wondering what will happen too. If we have learned anything its that long-range forecasts aren't worth a whole lot. And lately we have been comparing forecasts from different sources; when there is a 4 or 5 degree difference in forecasts for the same day depending on where you look, it doesn't give you a whole lot of confidence in any of them.

So we have taken the usual approach: Get everything ready, hope for good sugaring weather, and make syrup as long as we can. We have had seasons as long as 7 weeks, and we were tired of it at the end. And a few years ago we had a season maybe two weeks long, but we only really boiled on about 5 days, we had to go 43 straight hours at one point just to keep from running out of storage.

Being hobbyists we're grateful for what we get, and hope the season is long enough that we can supply ourselves for the year. If we can make enough to sell some to support our sugaring addiction for another year it's that much better. :)

[clydefrog]

I've only done this for two years, so I follow the weather more closely now, but even so I don't recall going from two weeks of near 0 temps to a forecast of mid 50's and above freezing at night. If this holds true for the next 10 days how long before the sap turns - any thoughts?

its been a strange year. we tapped in the last week of january and have gotten about 60 gal of sap from 15 taps so far. I dont even know if the taps will still run after 3 weeks of being frozen solid but were going to cook this week till they turn or run out

[maplefarmer]

Tapped the rest of our walnut trees today, they were dripping when tapped, but not a good run yet, even our sugar maples are dripping, not running, did run our vac. line today, but didn't pull much either.Tomorrow should be better except tonight is only supposed to get down to 36 deg. maybe still frozen and will take off tom.

[Andrew Franklin]

Andrew,
We've been doing this since 2000, and we've been scratching our heads wondering what will happen too. If we have learned anything its that long-range forecasts aren't worth a whole lot. And lately we have been comparing forecasts from different sources; when there is a 4 or 5 degree difference in forecasts for the same day depending on where you look, it doesn't give you a whole lot of confidence in any of them.


Thanks Doug! On the topic of temps, it seems to me that the sap will turn on my trees that are on the lake that get direct sun before the trees up in the woods that get partial shade, right? I know they started running sooner, and with more volume, than the ones deep in the woods. Also, if you don't mind me asking another question, how long will the sap stay good outside with the temps in the 50's and 60's and lows just in the 40's? I didn't get my sugar shack finished at my lake property, so I have been bringing the sap home in 55 gallon barrels and boiling there...I'm assuming I need to go pick it up and boil every day or it will spoil on me, won't it?

[TonyL]

Nights are too warm here, afraid that instead of having spring "in it's entirety", we'll be joining it "already in progress". Winter ran over into spring. I'm hoping I'm wrong, but right now it appears tapping back during the warm spell in January might have been the best thing we did....we did get a couple pretty decent weeks then.

[maplefarmer]

Temps. seem right, except little warm at night, not sure if the trees just have;t let go yet, or we seem to be cloudy and foggy every day, maybe that's delaying things. However checking last night, we have 2 buckets on walnut that have a little sap in, I'm going to check sugar content on them today.

[gibsonman]

Well we are having a pretty good run here. We collected 18 gallons on Sunday and then another 45 gallons today. Some of our taps are healing up so they don't produce much. I expect the run to stop in the next day or two as the trees run out of sap. This looks to be a good last run for our season.

[maplefarmer]

Checked sap sugar in huge sugar maple in our yard it was 3%, then went back and checked walnut it was 1.5%, just not getting much of either.

[maplefarmer]

Finally got enough sap to boil over last weekend, got 850 gal sap, made 18 1/2 gal syrup so far. next few days may get a run. Also got 95 gal of walnut sap, from 100 taps, ran thru ro and got it down to 18 gal at 14%, put in the freezer as not enough to boil on the evap. at this point. Walnut tested 1.75 % out of trees, hopefully we'll get enough yet to run evap. I really don't want to have to cook it down on the turkey fryer.

[Andrew Franklin]

Being an optimist, and seeing a forecast of maybe some freezing temps, I went down to where my trees are on Wednesday and changed out a few buckets that had mold (in the sun) and pitched some green/yellow sap. I didn't expect anything but cleaning things out after the really warm days, but came home with 18 gallons of somewhat cloudy sap that boiled down to just under a half gallon of medium dark, very flavorful syrup. I prefer it to anything I've bottled yet this year. I'll go down tomorrow or Sunday and pull taps, but it has hit freezing the last two nights so hopefully I can do another small batch.

[Gandolf]

I did the same, collected around 40 gallons and cooked it down till it was almost syrup. But before pulling it off my pan and finishing on our propane stove we decided to taste it. I think I now know what buddy syrup tastes like........

Spent this weekend pulling and cleaning equipment.