Tapping in Logan County

[William B]

We have not tapped yet maybe this next week. At least the vacuum woods. Still going around and fixing the tree rat damage to tubing.

[William B]

Well maybe Wednesday on will be Maple season. Know we will be tapping this week after Tuesday. May the rain Tuesday wash away the snow!!!

[RC Maple]

I put some buckets out on Saturday after studying the forecast for this week. By the time I got home they dropped the high for Wednesday 5 degrees. Either way if they run at all today it will be that much sap I didn't have before. I will finish tapping on Saturday.

[Eagle]

This thread seems to have died off a bit. I got my taps all done this past weekend (7 & 8 Mar), about 40 in all, as of yesterday had maybe 20 gal total. This year is getting a little depressing, but the long term weather looks somewhat promising so maybe it will end up being a decent harvest year. It finally got below freezing again last nite so maybe I will see a decent flow today. Interested to hear how others are doing in Logan/Hardin County areas.

2015 - 40 taps, decided not to do the woods this year, too swampy and the weather did not look like it was going to really make it worth the work. We built an evaporator from a 55 gal barrel and a couple of stainless pans from a steamer table, less surface area than our big kettle but hopefully is a little faster being able to control and concentrate our heat and able to be in a barn this year protecting us and our fire from rain/wind/cold, should make it easier all around.
2014 - 65 taps/5 gal syrup, cooking outside in a big stainless steel kettle on a rudimentary cinder block fire box and a tarp covering our head
2013 - 24 taps/1-1/2 gal syrup, our first year, started on a turkey fryer and ended up having an open fire pit built with rocks and a couple of steamer pans. This was our first year and were not very good but had a lot of fun with my sons and we figured a lot of things out. Literally burned our first batch up, we let it go too long without checking it often enough and the syrup caught fire. Was a sad event but we learned to watch things a little closer the rest of the season and we had a lot of fun and ended up with some good syrup in the end.

Gregg
Rushsylvania in northern Logan County

[William B]

Well we got 30 gal of light amber so far and it was all from the woods with vacuum. From the first run last week. What we hauled in from the woods with buckets and vacuum this week so far is dark amber. Hopefully the freeze tonight will help out. We have only tapped part of two woods on buckets and all of the one on vacuum. For a total of 2,000 taps. So not a good season so far.

[William B]

We are going to finish tapping one of the bigger woods Sunday then collect two more times. Said to say that will be all for us. We had a decent run on Thursday and collected 2,500 gals. of sap.

[Eagle]

We do not have nearly that many taps, just 40. We have finally collected enough to make aboutc1-1/2 gallons, far from what we did last year but better thwn nothing.

[William B]

I pulled spiles in the woods on vacuum 4/6/15. We had a decent year despite not tapping two of the woods we normally do. Made close to 350 gals.

[William B]

We tapped the woods on vacuum Sunday 2/05/17. Was not running much.

[bowhunter]

William good to see you on the forum again. I used to buy syrup from Ron and so I guess you guys kinda of got we started making syrup a few years ago. Hope things are going well. Going to tap today and tomorrow. Looks like a great weekend coming up....but we'll see. Was down in Tennessee earlier this week so I delayed tapping until after that trip.

[Marcus]

Bowhunter good to see you on the forum as well. I've got about 30 taps in going to tap some more today.

[William B]

Thank You for the comments! It is good to get someone hooked on making syrup!
We turned the buckets down last Sunday. If not for the vacuum we would not have much syrup. May we all have a good Maple season in March!!

[RC Maple]

I turned my buckets down too. Since all of my trees are still dripping and the buckets can't dry out I just turned them over at the base of the trees. They averaged about 20 oz per bucket in the last day but that will drop again today and it isn't worth gathering that or having the sap get nasty and drawing bugs. Every place I go people talk about how great the weather is...I just smile and keep my mouth shut. I would have rather it froze up for a week but I seem to be in the minority.

[ash10383]

Every place I go people talk about how great the weather is...I just smile and keep my mouth shut. I would have rather it froze up for a week but I seem to be in the minority.

I know! :/

[William B]

We put buckets back up on Saturday 2/25/17 and started up the vacuum system to make sure of no damage by tree rats.
If the syrup is not bad tasting we will be good to go for some more sap season! We will find out Monday!

[RC Maple]

I walked around and checked the 20 or so buckets close to my place yesterday. A couple of the biggest trees were hardly doing anything. The 11-14 inch trees were hit and miss. A couple were running well and most had an inch to two inches in the bucket. I did take a tour on Friday when it was 72 degrees to see if the taps had dried up after no freezing nights since the Thursday before...over a week earlier. Almost every tree was still dripping. Some were once a second and some were every five seconds but only 2 or 3 looked dry - I was surprised. I will gather today and see what I get.

[William B]

We only had 300 gal off vacuum since Saturday and it looked real cloudy and smelled spoiled. Ron boiled a small batch in the kettle to see the color and taste it.
It looked good but it tasted buddy. We turned down the buckets in one woods that were put back up on Saturday. Nothing in them worth talking about.
We are going to wait another week and try again. If the same results we will be done. Hard to believe having two short seasons in a row. Ron and Bob could not recall having this happen before. They have been doing it for over 30 years.

Ron has not even broke in his new filter press properly.

[fresh spout]

why shut the vacuum pumps off? keep them on during this warm spell to keep the trees stabilized. might also find that you will continue to pull in sap while others on buckets can't and when the next freeze happens there will be a better chance of pulling better quality sap out of the trees.

[William B]

why shut the vacuum pumps off? keep them on during this warm spell to keep the trees stabilized. might also find that you will continue to pull in sap while others on buckets can't and when the next freeze happens there will be a better chance of pulling better quality sap out of the trees.

I am just a helper. I would guess it is experience and economics of the owner.

[William B]

We are done here.:(
Pulling spiles on Monday.:(

[RC Maple]

I thought last Sundays weather would have made for a good run for sure...it had been cold for several days and the day started in the 20's and got up to 55. The trees were doing nothing. I was hoping for another cold snap like we have now so I thought I would move and tap another woods. I took down all my buckets and tapped fresh trees. When I gathered Monday all of those were full - the sap was clear and had maybe the best sugar content of the year - a strong 2%. Those trees ran for a couple more days and I hope they have a good run left in them after this freeze...or maybe two. We'll see.

[William B]

Hope you get more good sap. This next week looks good for sugar making. To bad our trees had the buddy taste to them.

[RC Maple]

Hope you get more good sap. This next week looks good for sugar making. To bad our trees had the buddy taste to them.

We'll see. I was hoping I would have something to gather today but when I checked my buckets around 5:00 the most any had in them was an inch or so. For these larger trees it might not be a couple days yet until they turn loose.

[William B]

Sorry about not reporting in on when we first tapped.http://mapletrader.com/community/images/smilies/confused.png

[William B]

Sorry about not reporting in on when we tapped.
We tapped woods on vacuum 2/14/18.
Have hauled every other day when the weather was right for sap to run. Have made close to 50 gals of syrup so far off of it.

Finally got to tap two more woods each having 1,000 taps on 3/2/18.
We hauled one of them yesterday and only got 750 gals. of water hoping for at least 1,000 gals.
Today we will haul the other woods.
If the sap is not buddy then it looks good for the rest of the week into next week for some good runs.

[William B]

Looks like we are in business for making some good syrup for the next 10 days weather wise.:D
We hauled sugar water and boiled down to a light amber! :o

[William B]

We hauled 1,700 gals. of fresh sugar water yesterday and Ron boiled it down to a very light amber!:D

[William B]

Monday will be the haul for us this season.:cry:
We have had a good season due to the weather in March.
Sure looked bleak in February with just the vacuum only thing running.
Ron has made over 300 gals. of light amber.:D

[bowhunter]

I quit around the same time as you. This was my worst year in 6 years. I got 0.14 gallons of syrup per tap. When I started making syrup in 2014 I made 0.25 gallons per tap and it's gone down every year. I only got about 7.75 gallons of sap per tap and my sugar concentration was down around 1.5.