Finished in Union County Ohio

[bowhunter]

Pulled buckets and bottled last of 2015 syrup yesterday. This was definitely a strange one....weather never really cooperated, but I did have a couple of good runs the last week of March that salvaged the year.

Summary

70 trees tapped
557 gallons sap
13.5 gallons finished syrup
41.2 gallons sap per gallon syrup
0.19 gallons sap per tap

[asknupp]

Hey bowhunter
When did you first start putting taps in? And were they still running when you decided to pull the plug? I put 128 taps in on Jan 18 and were still wet Mar 24 when I pulled them. That's 9 weeks so just wondering what your time frame was like. Just for me if I wouldn't have had them in early I wouldn't have had any light syrup and minus about 6-7 gallons.
Just curious
Andy

[bowhunter]

I put most of my taps in on January 20 and 21st and pulled them on April 2nd. About 50% of my taps were still running about 1/2 gallon a day when I pulled them. There was only one more good day over the next week and the reds were budding so I decided it was time to quit. Three of the taps I installed in mid February had already dried up when I pulled them. I don't really think I lost anything in March due to early tapping. It looks to me like when it's over it's over. They may have dried up earlier if we had more seasonable weather in February. Who knows.

[RC Maple]

I finished with 13.5 gal also. Like you said Bowhunter, the season never really cooperated until the last week. I could have brought home more sap from the best run we had - last Monday, but getting busy and had boiled 44 hrs in the last week just to keep up. The trees ran more after that too. Probably could have made 15 or so like last year. Only boiling off 6 gal and hour its hard to keep up when a third to a half of your seasons sap flow comes in one week. Uh-oh...may have to think of a bigger evaporator.

[bowhunter]

Everything except the pan is clean. I filled it with sap and I'm just waiting for mother nature to do her thing. I still need to pull the RO membrane and store in sodium metabisulfite solution for the season. I don't have any significant changes in mind next season. I was thinking about putting in a pump with tubing but our woods are so flat and the trees are pretty sparse making it very expensive to do. And I really don't want to leave the system up year round. I like to see the woods in their natural state. Since I have access to as many taps as I can handle with my rig I'll just tap enough trees to meet my needs.