Sugar Season Has Begun at Our Van Buren Co. Farm

[Michigan Maples]

Tapped several sugar maples on my parents Van Buren Co. farm yesterday, Wednesday 2/18. Weather was beautiful, in the mid 30's with bright sun. Many of the maples were flowing when tapped, but not the three walnuts we tapped. The walnuts are not in full sun like may of the maples. We put one tap in each of the three large walnuts, and 16 taps in 12 maple trees. Got 25 more spiels I ordered, so I think I'll get out a few more taps, depending on which trees are flowing the best. I REALLY hope the walnuts come through for us, if so I'll get another tap in each of them. And there are several more maples that need taps when I get more buckets ready. I'm having some trouble getting the pickling spice smell out of several buckets. I may just buy some more 5gal water bottles, they work well, and they have handles.
Since I don't have the time to boil at my folks place, I'll bring the sap home and boil in the cinder block arch I built. I'll boil the walnut sap in the stainless pot on the camping stove I used last year for the maple sap. I've already got tons of firewood cut and ready, so we are ready to go full out as soon as the trees get going. This morning started out @ 5 degrees but predicted to reach mid 30's again, then upper 30's tomorrow, and upper 40's on Saturday and Sunday. So, hopefully we'll have a busy weekend. I'm afraid I did not get photos yesterday, I did get several videos that are posted on my You-Tube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwMsn2xLYtiFqn5PwHeEylA

[Kbrooks80]

You can remove all of the pickle smell by filling the bucket with dirt. Leave it there for about 2 weeks. Dump it out and wash the bucket. All of the smell will be gone.

[Michigan Maples]

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that. I've gotten a lot of it out, it's ever so slight now, but don't want to take any chances with our precious sap. Dave

[Snappyssweets]

Michigan Maples, Next time or if you do go to a Meijer's store. Ask their bakery usually before 10 AM if they have any buckets. They have glaze and frosting buckets from donuts and cake decorating and they throw them away. I take them rinse them with hot water wash with hot soapy water and tada. You have food grade 5 gallon plastic buckets with lids.

[Michigan Maples]

Michigan Maples, Next time or if you do go to a Meijer's store. Ask their bakery usually before 10 AM if they have any buckets. They have glaze and frosting buckets from donuts and cake decorating and they throw them away. I take them rinse them with hot water wash with hot soapy water and tada. You have food grade 5 gallon plastic buckets with lids.

Funny you mention that.........I've been going through the interview process for a team leader position at Meijer. I was hoping that after getting the position I could go to the deli, or as you suggest the bakery and ask for some buckets. Thanks!

[Shirlsaw63]

Just watched your video - jealous of the snow you have on the ground yet. Northern Kent County we had very little and todays near 60 degrees it will be gone. Makes it harder for me to move my sap without it! Would love to see pictures of your cinder block arch.

[docsmaple]

I've picked up about 50 buckets at my local meijers and walmart. The donut glazing is a pain to get out. The inside of the bucket always feels greasy after washing it. You can buy square buckets from walmarts bakery and they have already been washed once. They only charge a dollar for the bucket and lid together. Much easier if you are doing a number of them. My entire last month has been nothing but washing buckets it seems like. Not fun. They still smell like cake frosting when you stick your nose in them. I'll have to try the dirt trick. Looking to start boiling tomarrow! Welcome to the season men!

[Michigan Maples]

Just watched your video - jealous of the snow you have on the ground yet. Northern Kent County we had very little and todays near 60 degrees it will be gone. Makes it harder for me to move my sap without it! Would love to see pictures of your cinder block arch.

Coming right up with the pictures. Working it right now, pans are just about to boil, I got all 10 gallons collected today into the pans. I'm glad no one has noticed, at least they've been kind enough not to say anything. I tapped a white oak yesterday by accident....DUH! It's in the video.

[Too Tall]

Speaking from experience...I would not use anything that even remotely smells of pickles. I thought my barrel last year was good to go after several bleach/wash sessions and airing it out in the garage for 3 months. As soon as i put the lid on it with my tubing running into it, the smell came back and ruined 50 gallons of sap. It's now my rain collection barrel at the sugar shack.

[Michigan Maples]

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Speaking from experience...I would not use anything that even remotely smells of pickles. I thought my barrel last year was good to go after several bleach/wash sessions and airing it out in the garage for 3 months. As soon as i put the lid on it with my tubing running into it, the smell came back and ruined 50 gallons of sap. It's now my rain collection barrel at the sugar shack.

I agree! The last two stayed home, I'm not taking the chance. This stuff was actually pastrami curing spices, kind of a sweet smell. But I still don't want it in my syrup.Here's a few pictures from the sugar bush and the arch. Several new videos from yesterdays activities also. Dave

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwMsn2xLYtiFqn5PwHeEylA

[Michigan Maples]

Super tired today! But headed out to do some metal detecting now that the snow is gone. Yesterday we collected 34 gallons of sap, 44 total now for the first 4 days of the season. I've boiled everything down so far into 3.5 gal and stored in the fridge. Wife wants me to combine everything for the entire season into the finished product to get the flavor profile from each part of the season. I'm down with that only I'll need to cook it down a bit more in order to have the space for storage. Arch worked great as long as you keep it fed. Probably going to collect again this evening to stay ahead of the flow and not get backed up on the boil. Do not have the storage space for sap, need to boil it right away. Dave

[Michigan Maples]

Monday, 2/22 we collected 10 gallons of sap. Today 2/24 we collected another 40 gallons. Bringing the season total thus far to 94 gallons, with three trees not checked today because of the heavy snow. We worked for an hour and a half in the heavy wet snow, and after taking a break for some soup, I left some less productive trees until we go back on Sunday. Cold and cloudy for the next two days then sunny and low 40's Saturday, so we'll plan on collecting again on Sunday. That'll give me time to cook down what we have, and hopefully fill'em all up again. Good season so far, the large trees discovered in the swamp are very productive. There are several more out there, so I'll map them out after the season is over to plan on next years taps. Mostly red maples, with a few silver I think.

[Michigan Maples]

Heavy snow Wednesday, and Thursday, good sap flow on Saturday and Sunday. Collected 47 gallons on Sunday 2/28...... season totals at 141 gallons maple sap collected. Still only about 1.5 gallons of walnut sap.

[Michigan Maples]

After pulling all of the ice blocks out of the buckets yesterday we still took out around 15 gallons of sap.Season totals at this point are around 155 gallons of sap collected. Getting on top of the work to be done this week. The warm up has begun.......most of Lower Michigan will not see overnight lows below freezing this week. Looks like heavy sap flow for at least a few days, then we'll see what happens. No sign whatsoever of any budding, so I'm hoping this will not spell the end just yet. I currently have 6+ gallons of nearly finished syrup in the fridge. I found that last year it took a little less than 35 gallons of sap to generate 1 gallon of syrup. Our sugars seem to have a very high sugar content, but this year we're tapping two huge reds that are producing copious amounts of sap, and a double trunk silver that gives up about 3 gallons of sap every time we check it. So call it about 4-5 finished gallons of syrup so far. I'd really like to double that if we can this week. I do grow weary of standing out in the cold stoking the fire on the arch. I sense a real sugar shack in my not so distant future, and a more efficient evaporator some day.:cool:

[Michigan Maples]

Hauled out 55 gallons yesterday. With 5 of my buckets full to overflowing, it was very clear sap. Season total now up to 210 gallons. Boiled until I was too tired, still left with a few gallon jugs to cook down this morning. Just left 'em sitting out on the cool concrete patio overnight, should be fine. Might go out again today to see what we've gotten in the last 24 hours. Don't expect this to continue, but we've already had a very good season. Walnuts all had about a half gallon, those I expect will pick up now. Dave

[Michigan Maples]

Went to check the taps today, still running clear, but only collected 15 gallons. Season total now 225 gallons from 24 taps.

[Michigan Maples]

3-12. we collected another 15 gallons, but a couple of the buckets were looking a bit cloudy. Pulled everything and took it all home to clean up and finish the syrup. Very good season I feel.......240 gallons collected, there abouts. Finishing the boiling today, and hopefully finishing the syrup as well. Looks to be about 7 gallons finished from our 24 taps. Two of our taps were not very productive, so those buckets will head out to the swamp next year to the GIANT reds we found out there. We took a LOT of sap out of those trees, they're just a challenge to get to. Our trees seem to give us sap that'll boil down to about 33 gallon to one, same as last year. So our third year was a good one, we will certainly expand again next year. Especially since we discovered some GIANT red maples in our swamp. They were very productive.

[Michigan Maples]

BTW........ I've left the walnut taps in. I'm waiting to see if something I read was true. We haven't collected but only about 3 full gallons of sap from the walnuts. On several searches I did on the subject, folks had them tapped with the maples and gathering sap from both at the same time. But the very first thing I read about it said walnuts will run well after the maples. So I'll leave them out for a while and see what we get out of 'em. What we boiled to try out was very interesting. Very unique syrup, I like it, but will always love maple more.

[Michigan Maples]

Just wanted to follow up with one more post concerning the walnut taps. I left the taps in the walnut trees to see if we'd get any more sap. We have only collected about 3 gallons of sap from them through out the entire maple season. We put one tap in each of the three largest walnut trees near the sugar bush. I pulled them out today with little or no more sap collected. I'm not certain if it was something I've done wrong, we tapped them in the same way we tapped all of the maples. Going in between the ridges in the bark to make sure the spiels got deep enough into the trees.
The syrup we cooked down is quite good, about 1 and a half 1/2 pint jars. But frankly I'm not sure if I'd do it again, unless I can figure out why so little sap. It's just not worth the effort if that's all we're going to get. Delicious syrup, but I've got better things to do with our buckets and spiels.

[woodey24]

If you find anything more on the walnuts, please share the info with me. I have a good number of walnuts and was going to give them a shot next year. Did you use the same size parameters when choosing what ones to tap? I have quite a few in a row I could hook tubing up to lessen the labor.