Tapped 2-28-07

[rschoo]

I got all 75 of my taps in just in time to watch the mercury drop. Up from 50 taps last year. The weather man keeps pushing back the warmer temps. It looks like its going to be at least a week and a half from tapping until my first boil. Bummer.

[Greenthumb]

we tapped last wed. ended up collecting about 25 gallons of sap (3%)Friday and boiled it down over the weekend on the half pint to some of the lightest syrup I have made in a few years. Then woke up Monday and it was +2 outside. It does look like we might get chance at some runs next week.

[firetech]

I plan on setting the last 10 buckets tonite for 66 total. I've had 27 out before this cold spell they have sap in them but if I had dumped them my buckets would have been 1/2 way across the county. so I figure there is about 60 gals to pick up. Finally enough to start my 1st boil may even sneak in some fishing show this weekend. good luck to all

[rschoo]

I was really hoping that he cold snap we had the last couple weeks would start the sugars flowing again. Oh well. Some of them did start again but not enough to mess with. My production was up this year compared to last, primarily because I didn't run out of wood. 3/4 of the way through the season I was getting upset with my evaporation rate so I did a refit. I opened up the stack from 6" to 8", cut the floor out of the converted wood stove fire box and put in some 2-1/2" angle iron fire grates. It really made a difference. last year I figured my best evap rate was 7.5 gph with wet wood. This year before the refit my best was 9 gph with dry wood. After the refit I was getting 12-13 gph with almost dry wood. I ended up making 10 gals up from 7.5 off of 75 taps up from 50. I've been burning some cedar and had a couple interesting stack fires. Everything is a cleaned up now I just need to lay up some more wood. Hope everyone enjoyed the season as much as I did.