Tapped in Central Ohio

[GSCampChris]

We are an educational facility outside of Columbus. We got a grant to start a maple program, and last weekend tapped our trees with 50+ Girl Scout participants. We collected about 150 gallons this week and learned a lot about our evaporator when we sweetened our pans on Friday. We are ready for this adventure.

[Ed R]

That sounds like a lot of fun, and talking, and singing, etc.

[bowhunter]

Maple syrup making is a great activity for kids. Adds a little outdoor entertainment during the last half of winter. They can also learn a little about botany, chemistry and you can eat the project when it's finished.

[bowhunter]

Pretty good run this week end. Collected 175 gallons of sap on 125 taps Monday. The season seems to be off to a good start, but it does look like a 10 day cold snap before we get any more sap.

[emo]

My daughter is going to a Girl Scout campout this weekend and they are scheduled for Maple Syrup help from 11-1 on Sunday.

[bowhunter]

Hopefully you will have some sap you can get out of the buckets. It's supposed to be really, really cold over the week end.

[GSCampChris]

We have had some good runs so far- collected about 250 gallons before th cold snap! We spent the cold snap bottling and getting ready for our first ever syrup festival!
It's seems like things have finally thawed and everything is dripping today, so hopefully we will have a some boiling to do this weekend and early next week.

[bowhunter]

Today should be an awesome sap day here in Central Ohio.

[bowhunter]

Curious what others are seeing this year. My runs are ok but I probably haven't averaged more than 1/2 gallon a day for any days the sap ran. Sugar content is slightly below 2%. I've seen days in the past when my sugar content averaged 2.5%. I think the sugar content will increase in March, but I guess we'll see. I noticed guys in Maine seemed to be seeing lower sugar this year.

[bowhunter]

Looks like a run today and tomorrow and then too warm for 12-14 days. May be looking at the end soon. Next week with everyday in the 60's will make it difficult to keep buckets fresh.

[Marcus]

Looks like i will be done after this weekend. Next 2 weeks look to be warm.

[bowhunter]

I'm wondering the same thing. I only see 3 possible days for the sap to run through the end of March. I have to collect a small run from yesterday afternoon and last night today and I'm thinking it may be over here.

[Marcus]

I don't know if i am going to collect this morning or not. I f not i think i am done.

[GSCampChris]

Looks like we may be collecting today, and then pulling taps as well... We are happy with our first season, but wish it had been a bit longer :)

[WoodButcher]

Looks like we may be collecting today, and then pulling taps as well... We are happy with our first season, but wish it had been a bit longer :)

Glad you had a fun first season Chris. Ya, this has been the funkiest season i have ever seen.... we never really got that momentum of freezing nights to sunny days for longer than 3-4 days in a row. hey at least you tapped early and got that nice run in the beginning.

now its time to prepare for next year, let that 'maple bug' set in and upgrade equipment! :cool:

[GSCampChris]

Absolutely! We had our best boil of the season on the last day- we got 3 beautiful gallons of dark amber.

Now I am dreaming of a filter press- and putting tubing in at one of our camp in Mt. Gilead. Only 310 days to figure it all out.

[bowhunter]

I finished boiling and packaging last week. Pulled everything an started clean up. Another unusual year. Made almost all my syrup in February. I had one great run in March and then it warmed up. Made 24 1/4 gallons of syrup on 125 taps this year. RO ran great with the new NF3 membrane, but my little evaporator is really starting to dog it. Had to slow down the RO most of the time so the evaporator could keep up. Think I'll add a blower this coming year and then look at one of the Smoky Lake modified half pint pan in the future.

[ash10383]

Now I am dreaming of a filter press- and putting tubing in at one of our camp in Mt. Gilead. Only 310 days to figure it all out.

Seems like there should be some sort of syrup group to join where we can share a filter press..worked pretty good for us to put our syrup in a drink dispenser for about 3 days and the nitre settles to the bottom and then i can pull very clear syrup off from the top but but for every gallon of clear syrup, I have about a qt of really thick syrup / nitre that I need to filter