Stop collection when the buds burst, but when is that?

[adatesman]

It's an embarrassingly novice question, but Google has quite surprisingly been no help... At what point is a bud considered to have "burst"? Here's a pic of buds from my Norway Maple trees, which shows them just on the brink of the 2nd (or 3rd, depending on how you count) set of the petals that make up the bud splitting. There are 2 more sets of petals beyond that, so I'm unsure when to stop collecting...

Thoughts?

13236

Thanks!

[psparr]

You'll know when it's buddy. The steam will smell like your boiling your dirty socks.

[DrTimPerkins]

You'll know when it's buddy. The steam will smell like your boiling your dirty socks.

And the syrup will taste terrible.

[barnbc76]

I have a related question, a few weeks ago we had a good warm up where it stayed above freezing for a few days, one of them in the 60's. That day i had 1 tree that gave me about 5 gals off 3 taps and it was really dark and had no sweetness to it. I kept it seperate when boiling and after there was only 2.5 gals it still didnt taste sweet so i threw it away... this is my second year and last year when my trees started doing this it was april so i just stopped collecting. Is this common?

[adatesman]

And the syrup will taste terrible.

So the buds themselves don't give a visible indication?

Bummer. I guess it's a bunch of small runs then.

[DrTimPerkins]

So the buds themselves don't give a visible indication?

They can, but I can't tell you how many times we get contacted from producers who suddenly become extremely worried because in the spring they happended to look and lo and behold, their trees "have buds" already and it's only early March. If your tree is alive, it has buds. If it doesn't, it is likely dead. So until you get really used to the look of buds from particular trees, and the state of opening that indicates the season is done, the best way is to keep boiling until the syrup tastes bad, either due to excessive fermentation, buddy flavor, or it becomes ropey. If you have a whole evaporator full of sweet, then you might want to do a test boil of sap in a small pan on the stove first to avoid adding the bad stuff in with the good. You'll know fairly quickly once you start heating due to the smell. If that happens, don't add it to your evaporator.

On rare occasions people can experience very light buddy (some call it "bud lite") off-flavor, which can subsequently diminish with a couple of hard freezes, although once it gets warm it tends to come back again quickly.

[DrTimPerkins]

I have a related question, a few weeks ago we had a good warm up where it stayed above freezing for a few days, one of them in the 60's. That day i had 1 tree that gave me about 5 gals off 3 taps and it was really dark and had no sweetness to it. I kept it seperate when boiling and after there was only 2.5 gals it still didnt taste sweet so i threw it away... this is my second year and last year when my trees started doing this it was april so i just stopped collecting. Is this common?

Both in the early part of the season and the late part of the season the sugar content can be quite low. Perhaps that tree is just a poor performer (low sugar content), or perhaps it just hasn't quite "woken up" yet. A few more freeze-thaw cycles might get it going better. Similar to the way that freeze-thaw promotes the sap uptake and exudation process, it also promotes the conversion of starch into sugar.

[Sugarmaker]

Don't even look at the buds. It might drive you crazy?:) Just keep gathering sap until it either stops running or the finished syrup has a objectionable flavor. As a kid we made some buddy syrup at the end of the season due to the way trees were tapped back then. The buddy syrup has a lingering after taste on the tongue. Kind of bitter.
Regards,
Chris

[plabarr]

Usually the sap turns milky when it is turning. Whenever it gets cloudy you are done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[adatesman]

Usually the sap turns milky when it is turning. Whenever it gets cloudy you are done.

Ah! Just saw this, and perfect timing... I just checked the buckets and it's cloudy in a milk kind of way. Will boil a pot of it on the stove to see what it smells like.

[psparr]

Could have been just a warm spell that made it cloudy. If it smells ok your good. Keep on collecting and boilin.

[Andrew Franklin]

We hit 70 degrees last weekend and I had some sap that I couldn't get to until Monday get cloudy...boiled it anyway (separate from the rest just in case) and it is definitely different. Not bitter, but very woody or nutty. I may use it for cooking, like basting a slow smoked pork butt or on salmon. My thought is if it doesn't taste terrible or make me sick I'm going to use it.

On the subject of buds, a lot of the little trees I don't tap really popped this last week, but the trees I tap are too tall for me to tell (and bud later), so I just go off of the look, smell, and taste of the sap - that's what matters. Hoping for another run or two before I shut it down for the year!

[adatesman]

Could have been just a warm spell that made it cloudy. If it smells ok your good. Keep on collecting and boilin.

Looks like it went cloudy because of the storms that went through. Back to clear now, and tastes/smells fine! Flow has been non-existent since then, but started up again over the weekend. I've now got 35 gallons of maple and 15 gallons of walnut waiting to boil. Smells/tastes good, so woo-hoo! More syrup!

[lpakiz]

And the syrup will taste terrible.
Teo or three times in my 15 year career, I have boiled a sample of suspect sap. Sample was approximately a pint. The steam smelled OK for most of the test boil. I kept smelling the steam and later, tasting the sweet. All was perfect until the sample was nearly syrup. In just a few minutes the sample went from "OK" to "couldn't get to the sink fast enough to spit". And I mean it was BAD. So be careful when approving a sample just on the initial smell.

[adatesman]

So be careful when approving a sample just on the initial smell.

Thanks for the advice! I boiled a pint or two down to 70% (it went FAST at the end) and it tasted great, so am now happily boiling away. 15 gallons of black walnut taken down to 2 gallons for finishing later plus 45 gallons of maple now down to ~20 gallons.

[heus]

I have found that the taste of the syrup is the only sure way to tell. Many soft maples have "buds" in February. The smell of the sap boiling is not an indicator for me either. The beginning of the dirty sock smell when boiling tells me Im making my favorite dark syrup, formerly known as grade B.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Usually the sap turns milky when it is turning. Whenever it gets cloudy you are done.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Depends on what you define as cloudy as a lot of syrup is made from "cloudy" sap. We are making Light syrup today from slightly cloudy sap. If it looks like milk then its bad but if it is somewhat cloudy then boil it.