We May Get Our Chance

[backyardsugarer]

Forecast looks like a nice string of days starting Tuesday next week to get tapped. If the forecast holds true I am tapping Tuesday.

Chris

[jason loper]

I was wondering if anyone was planning on tapping this week. my woods seems to warm up slow but i sure hate to miss a run.

[sapman]

I wish I could think about tapping! Being in now-famous Oswego county, I've got awhile to wait until the snow goes down enough to be able to get to the trees. I actually have a fair amount of work left on my sugarshack remodelling project before I can boil, too.

I usually shoot for the 1st of March, give or take.

Good luck to all,
Tim

[danno]

Down here about a half hour south from Fulton I too was thinking of tapping this week. We are on the thruway corridor and thus warm up pretty quick. Hit 34 today when Syracuse only got up to 28. If it's gonna happen, Monday is the only day I can do it. Guess I'll decide tomorrow night. Give me a better chance to see weather this coming week.

[danno]

Tim, I was snowmobiling through your neighborhood the other day and was looking at some Fulton produced Syrup in the gas station/diner/convenience store in Granby. Is that you? I'm down in Elbridge and was taking our annual ride through Granby, Hannibal, Fairhaven and back home through Cato.

[Fred Henderson]

I don't think that I will tap today because It is -20 and colder 50 miles south of me.

[The Sappy Steamer]

We tapped about 150 trees yesterday. The snow was about thigh deep so we were sure happy about having the new tubing set up. It was tough going, but a piece of cake compared to lugging buckets and lids through that. I'm not overly confident about the upcoming weather, this weekend just fit our real job work schedules well. Hoping we get lucky with the warm up coming. We did,however, run a couple hundred feet of mainline down the hill, just in case we get wailed with more snow I don't have to drive up the hill to collect.I spent seven hours moving snow the other day and still barely got things under control.

[Fred Henderson]

MY tractor is going into sickbay tomorrow. Something went haywire with the left brake. Supposed to gone only a couple of days. The dealer knows that I need it for sugaring and if its more than a couple of days he will bring me something else to use. I finally get a new tractor with good bakes so now it is hard to get use to not having two good ones. Sometimes I need them for steering assist.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Hi, new here to this forum. I've been syruping for about 4 years started with 9 trees boiling inside and now up to 200+ and a 2x6 patrick Phaneuf Evaporator, and a RO machine that i got really cheap. Soon to expand. I tapped 100 trees yesterday 2/18/07 and was gonna tap the rest today but its only 16 degrees and i don't want to split the trees. Tuesday i will finish looks like it will be a great week of sap low 40's for highs and upper teens for lows. I reside in Clinton Corners, Ny in dutchess County.

[Fred Henderson]

Welcome to the Trader,, Pancakeman
. Thaks for telling use a bit about your self. I have a new 3X8 from Patrick also and this will be the first season for using it. Its got to faster than my old 2x6'6" flat pan.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Nice, Patrick's evaporators are pretty awesome. He did a great job on mine and brought it directly to my door and helped assemble it. Mine Boils approx 23gph with good wood sometimes as high as 25gph. I'm testing a RO machine this year hopefully its worth it, i put a new nano filter in it and my tanks all set up. I should be collecting wednesday and boiling thursday!

[Russell Lampron]

Pancake Man,

Welcome aboard, this is the place to find what you want to know about making maple syrup.

You are going to have to find more taps to keep that RO machine fed. I have one with a 2x6 evaporator and wouldn't be without one now.

Russ

[mountainvan]

welcome pcm, I'm not too far from you, just the other side of the river and through the woods. Good luck this year.

[MaplePancakeMan]

i have a household RO machine that does about 80gph. I contacted the company and had it retrofitted for maplesyrup production. i put the nano filter in and i think its pretty good for my size of operation. The night i collect, i'll run it through the RO machine and boil it the next day. I'm trying to get up to 300 trees this year but i feel i'll probably run out of trees around 240. Its really just a test year for me at this size of operation. I tapped 80 lastyear without a RO machine. Nice to know that others are Syruping around me! I feel like i'm the man out round here. I'm 21 and started syruping by myself 4 years ago. All my friends go to the bars, i wake up at 5am to collect sap.

[Russell Lampron]

You want to boil your sap as soon as you concentrate it. The bacteria grows in the concentrated sap faster. I start my RO machine and then light my evaporator and boil while the RO machine is running. You may want to give the RO a little head start so that you don't out boil it but you will make better syrup faster this way.

Russ

[MaplePancakeMan]

Really? so if i concentrate it the night before say around 9 and it finishes around midnight and i boil at 6am, i'll still run the chance of contamination? Even if the temps are cold enough?.....Good thing you pointed that out, i'd been pretty pissed if i condensed 400 gallons of sap only for it to spoil! Thanks! is there really a taste difference between raw boiled sap and RO condensed sap?

[HanginAround]

Good to see someone young getting involved pcm.

If it's only going to be half a night, I wouldn't worry about it too much, especially if you can keep it cool. I don't think your small RO will warm it up as much as a big one, but wouldn't hurt to see what the temps are.

Tell us more about this home RO you got... my dad has a small one for drinking water in his house, and a friend and I were debating the suitability of it for sap. His rate is way lower than you mention I think, but a pump that would go higher than his house pressure might improve it a lot.

[Russell Lampron]

I concentrate my sap to 8% and have had my customers do the taste test and they all agree with me that the RO syrup taste just as good if not better than the raw sap syrup. Keeping everything clean and boiling the sap as soon as possible all help in making the best flavored and colored syrup.

Russ

[brookledge]

Definately the sap will not spoil over night the only thing is that concentated sap will deteriate your grade faster if it is kept for too long.
Keith

[blackstrapking]

Tapped 20 trees tonight after work, just had to scratch my itch. I feel much better now.

Fred how's your tractors "intensive care" coming along ?

[MaplePancakeMan]

hanger, my RO is made in arizona by a company called 'clearwater products' the guy goes by dr. osmosis. its a cwp100 and comes with a 330 gallon tank which would normally be used for house drinking water. However since i got it fitted with a nano filter which is used for sugaring my reject will be my concentrated sap. I have a pump that pumps 5000 gallons an hr pumping the sap into it. I haven't tried it yet since i haven't collected sap yet. Hopefully tomorrow i will get my chance I'm crossing my fingers. I got it as a left over during a fall sale for right around 1900 plus shipping. They are normally priced almost 1000 dollars higher i guess it was just good timing.

i just got the rest of my taps and tomorrow at 6am i'll be finishing my tapping i haven't a clue as to how many i've tapped or am going to tap. I'll take a count the first day i collect because as of now i've lost count.


I first got into sugaring when i was in 4th grade we did it as a project, i was really intrigued. However i was playing sports and did nothing with it i.e forcing my dad to do it with me. When i was 17 i was with my girlfriend up in adirondack park around lake placid and we saw tubing she asked me what it was and i told her. She wanted to make it since she works at a health foods store and people go crazy for it. Silly me i said yes so i bought buckets and such and boiled inside (not such a good idea). Turned from an US adventure to a me adventure... since has grown to a very fond time of my life. I set my college schedule up so i have 3 days off every syrup season. In the summer i wait for thunderstorms to knock trees down and i go around after the road crews clear things up and scoop up the wood into the sap hauler (1977 hi-boy F-250 flat bed stake body pickup) I really enjoy it, my grandfather used to make syrup he gave me taps that his grandfather had, not sure what they are made of but they didn't rust. Since i have mounted them in a case above the evaporator under the awning of our barn.


In the off time i garden which is another hobby going for the worlds largest watermelon this year hahaha.

Sorry for the book!

[HanginAround]

Don't be sorry at all, always enjoy ppl's stories. I will look at the RO info.

[Jim Brown]

I too would like to hear more about this home RO machine!

[MaplePancakeMan]

I emailed the company to get the specs for you, apparently it pumps at 2gallons a minute so 120gph. i'm probably gonna fire it up saturday since i haven't got any sap yet. This RO was considerably cheaper than the ones through leader etc. even at the regular price of 2900. i'd say 120 gallons an hr is very good for some small to medium producers... just get up early start it up, go inside and sleep a bit more by early am/noon your ready to boil your condensed syrup

[Fred Henderson]

Anything bought thru the maple syrup equipment dealers is going to cost more. This is a very short season not year around.

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

especially leader.

[danno]

Yes, let us know more about how your new RO works - I'm another interested small producer.

So, did anybody get sap this week? After slogging through waist deep snow with temps in the teens on Monday I decided not to pull the trigger and then could not get out tues-thur. Looks like Sunday may be the day for me.

[MaplePancakeMan]

i will let everyone know how i make out with it. Should be used this weekend weather providing as i boil outdoors no sugar shack for me lol. Not yet anyway i might build a small one over the summer. I did get sap this week, not collected yet but some buckets are half full that i tapped just yesterday. Others are very slow. i have noticed that trees between 18-24" diameters are better producers than the huge ones what gives? just my area or is that like that for everyone? I'm debating taking my largest one down because it doesn't produce so well and i could use the firewood. I only know of one large tree probably almost 4ft across that flows really well and i think its because its one solid trunk almost 40ft up before it even splits slightly, still a large crown though. I was getting almost 15 gallons of sap from it every 1.5-2days.

[HanginAround]

I've heard that the larger ones are usually a little later getting started.

[Ash Cat]

As a rule, the young studs have more vigor than those that are more mature, if you know what I mean. Sad but true.

[cncaboose]

Last year in March I was testing sap on several hundred trees in a woods that I bought later in the year. It became real obvious that the bigger the tree, the later it started both in the season and on any specific day. My understanding is that the bigger mass of the large trees doesn't thaw out as quickly, just like a big ice block takes longer to melt than a small ice cube. No thaw, no sap run. It's likely that the bigger tree will make up for that over the course of the season. I'll find out for sure on my trees in the next month or so, since they'll be on buckets where I can keep track of individual trees' sap flow.

[Russell Lampron]

Maple Pancake Man,

No sugarhouse! That explains the 23 to 25gph out of your 2x6. Put that baby in a sugarhouse and you could see 30gph or more. Keep us posted on the production of that RO machine. I hope you have that in a warm place. Letting it freeze will crack the membrane and possibly the pumps.

Russ

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Socialism is cheaper.

[MaplePancakeMan]

Yeah, the RO is in my barn, its not heated in there but it usually doesn't drop below 40 and if it does i'll have the heater in there. Currently its not a barn i could put the evaporator in. I'm thinking of doing a sugar house next year. If i can get around to doing that. i'd love not to have to take the cold north winds directly in the face while boiling.