Amherst, WI

[TR Hardwoods]

Getting things ready along the Tomorrow River. We have increased our tap count this year by switching some buckets to gravity tubing. Last year we had 150 buckets. This year we have 100 buckets and a 100 on gravity. The hope is that the workload is about the same with more sap. I might start putting some taps in this week but the weather has to warm a bit more. Looking at lots of snow on the ground, we had around 14" total over the last few days. Good luck to all sappers in WI!

[Brad W Wi]

Keep us posted TR. I hope to head up to Winter Wisc. for the duration of tapping after the first weekend of March unless things change quicker.

[ryan marquette]

TR how do you like your flat pan? I need to get something different to cook on. But how much money does a guy want to spend. How many gph do you get with your rig?

[markcasper]

Still plenty cold here after a foot of snow and more to come on wed, Thur, by the sounds of things. I am going to do an official frost check in the woods tomorrow. I don't see any tapping in the near future. Am going to continue to get things ready and set.

[TR Hardwoods]

Ryan,
Last year I cooked over an old water tank with my 2.5' x 8'. Very, very, inefficient as the sides of the "arch" would turn bright red. I lost lots of heat and to top it off I was burning fairly wet wood. That setup gave me about 10-15gph. One nice feature is that I would load up the arch with wood, flood the pan with 40gal. of sap and I wouldn't touch it again for 3hrs+. This year I have a concrete structure that I insulated with 2" thick fire bricks that came out of a ceramic kiln. I also built the arch up to drive the heat to the pan. I did a test boil and the concrete never even got warm. One down side to this is I will now need to fire much more frequently as I don't have as much firebox. I let you know how this new setup works. I think WVMapler said that he was doing up to 30gph with his old flat pan. That seems reasonable with some good engineering. I might have a $150 in my arch. The pan was built by a family member so I'm not sure of what that would have cost.

It looks like another 6"-12" of snow for late today and tomorrow. I'm thinking that I will set out some taps starting lthis weekend.

[ryan marquette]

TR,
That 3hr. burn time comes in handy when boiling around the clock on the weekends doesn't it. It sure does for me. Get them drills ready weatherman is talking 40 by next week.

[TR Hardwoods]

What a day. If you enjoy maple syruping then the weather in Amherst, Wisconsin was darn near perfect today. Lows last night were around 27F. and highs today were around 50F. I finished getting 110 buckets in today to go along with the 105 taps on tubing. I collected around 150 gallons of sap tonight. Weather looks good thru mid week and then a little cool down will hit. That will just help those trees build some cause for the next big run! I will more than likely start boiling on Tuesday. Good luck to all the sappers!

[TR Hardwoods]

We have been boiling since Tuesday evening and are thinking that we will finish up tomorrow morning. Have brought in around 400 gals. of sap so far. Haven't went out to see what is in the totes/buckets but hopefully it slows down to allow us some catch up time. I don't recall seeing the run start this heavy. Usually it slowy ramps up and ends in one big run. This year it went from nothing to everything overnight. Weather looks good for the rest of the week. Lows in the mid 20's and highs in the upper30's to near 40 for the weekend.

[markcasper]

Heavy run? I started tapping one week ago and maybe have 200 gallons as of yesterday. I don't know where Amherst is, but our ground is really dry from the drought last year. Combine that with the foot+ of frost in the woods and you know the rest of the story.

I think it will take a nice gentle overnight warm rain to kick it up.

[TR Hardwoods]

Finished up around 10gal. +- of syrup last night. Cold weather has shut the trees down for the last two days. Still lots of snow in this area. This is one of the biggest batches of syrup we have had for the first two runs of the year. So far everything is looking good! Mark, I can't speak for what you are seeing but this past Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday were very good days for sap flow. We froze on Sunday, and Monday nights. Our outdoor temp. gauge only got down to 35 +- but yet the ground was good and crusty. I think the large amount of snow in this area have led to better evening temps. I was up west of Wausau (Marathon City) and was surprised to see the fields with no snow and the woods with very little.

[TR Hardwoods]

Just got in from collecting another 80gal of sap. Lots of ice as it was only 20 degrees this AM. Everything was starting to run fairly well this afternoon. Temp is up to 38. I also started the up the flat pan again. Trying to keep ahead of the sap as it looks good for then next week. The syrup that we finished the other day was very light in color but it took a long time to filter as it had lots of sand. We usually don't have that much sand/niter in these early batchs. It looks like we were running about 35:1 for sap to syrup ratio.

[TR Hardwoods]

Went out just before dark last night and collected the remainder of yesterdays run. Brought in another 100gal. of sap. I'll fire up the cooker again this AM to hopefully stay ahead of the expected sap this week. There is a little more pressure on the flat pan this year with the increase in tap #'s. My guess is that 300 taps is all I want with a 2.5' x 8' flat pan. We'll see how things go when everything really breaks.

[TR Hardwoods]

Went out late this afternoon and gathered another 100 gallons of sap. I had to leave another 25 gal or so in the woods as my tank was full and time was running out. The trees were really going this afternoon. I'm not sure if the incoming storm was pushing them a little or not. Since last Sunday we have collected 640 gallons of sap. We finished canning today and ended up with 6.75 gallons, a little lighter on volume than we originally thought. That pushed up our ratio to over 50:1. Not good. Hopefully this next batch will better sugar content. Good luck to everyone!

[TR Hardwoods]

Biggest run this year happened today. We collected all the sap in 105 buckets but had run out of room in our collection tank so we topped off the totes in the woods and filled another 20 gal in 5 gal. buckets and left them next to the woods road. I'll head out first thing in the AM and get the rest. Tonight we brought in 100 gal. and have an estimated 200 gallons still in totes in the woods. The mud is starting to become more of an issue. Snow still hanging around but some areas are getting soupy. The 4 wheeler has plenty of power but when the frost goes down far enough and we loose our bottom the machine tends to hang up and there we sit, usually with a full load on the trailer as well. I'm hoping to utilize the AM freezes much more this year to partially avoid this problem.
We started the fire on the flat pan tonight and I plan on staying with it as long as I can. Then boil all day tomorrow. Hopefully we won't fall to far behind, but the weather looks good until mid-late week. We've also been experimenting with dampering the chimney and adding more air through a small exhaust fan. It is amazing. As soon as we damper the chimney about half way we develop twice the steam. To the point that you can't see across the pan. We have been able to push the boil all the way to the front of the arch, however we now will loose the boil at the chimney end.
Seems to be cooking at a much higher rate although I don't have a real good feel for it quite yet. Wood use has also dropped by doing this. My guess is we are keeping the fire very hot with the extra air and then keeping that heat a little longer with the damper. Flames still are coming out a foot or so above the chimney even with the damper.
Tomorrow looks like another good sap day. The ground was getting crusty as I came in the house a few minutes ago and we are supposed to be in the upper 40's tomorrow. Hopefully everyone is being overrun with sap!

[TR Hardwoods]

Still boiling. Going on 36 hours, although I have let the fire go down between 11:00PM and 5:00 AM. We brought in another 360 gal. of sap yesterday, some was still from the day before. The good news is that as of last night we have all the buckets and totes empty. Down to 200 gal. of sap left to boil. To date we have brought in 990 gallons of sap on 215 taps in 9 days. The weather looks a little on the warm side for the rest of the week. My guess is that we will have another good run today and then it may hold off for a while.

[TR Hardwoods]

Brought in another 300 gallons last night and this morning. This was from the Thursday run. Everything has stopped running for now. To warm. Still have another 100 gallons in totes left in the woods. I finished up around 17gallons of syrup this morning. We are sitting with around 24 gallons of syrup made and another 10gal. or so needing to be boiled. Lots of time spent boiling on the flat pan!

[TR Hardwoods]

Were still hanging in there. Hoping for colder weather this next week. So far we are at 65% of what I expected versus last years numbers. Of course we are way ahead of what we made in 2005, which was quite possibly the worst syrup year I have ever had ( 6 gallons off of 150 taps). Haven't had a run for the last week.

[TR Hardwoods]

I collected around 50 gallons yesterday from around 215 taps. This is the first collection in about 2 weeks. What was most interesting was the buckets had zero sap (I think one bucket was about 1/2 full). All the sap was comming from the tubing. There was only around 1/2 gallon per tap on the tubing but I thought that was o.k. considering that we have not collected in nearly two weeks. Sap looked great, very clear, almost like it was early in the season. Considering the ease of installing, the time savings in collecting, the cleanliness of the sap, no frozen buckets, the natural vacum, and now the late season preformance I will absolutely move to all tubing next year. A few buckets are good for tradition but this tubing to tote set up is just awsome! We currently have a couple of inches of fresh snow on the ground and the weather man is calling for a total of 4"-8". Very unusual for mid April. Hopeing for one more boil this weekend. We may make 40 gals. yet!

[TR Hardwoods]

Collected 300 gals. of sap over the last two days. This is the latest date that I have ever collected substantial amounts of sap. The buckets started to run again after not doing anything two days ago. We are boiling right now and will hopefully be all finished up this weekend. Looks like another run or two and that will be it for the season. Strange year as most sap came on in a short window and then a gigantic pause, to be finished up by a very late season boil. Looking forward to getting everything put away!

[TR Hardwoods]

I collected another 180 gallons last night and this morning so that will be a total of around 580 gallons of sap in the last 4 days. Hoping to get at least 10 gallons of syrup out of it. Still boiling but I should wrap that up later today. I was a little worried about the taste since it is so late in the year, however this batch seems to have an excellent flavor and nice color. This will more than likely be the last syrup of the year as the weather seems to be warming up quickly and the sap has went very cloudy in the last 24 hours. Should end up with 40+ gallons of syrup on the year. Ended up being a good year for us.

[TR Hardwoods]

Final tally: 41.5 gallons on a few less taps than I oringally thought (205 total). A good year for us.