Tapped In Hartland

[murferd]

Had the past week off, good temp couple of days & very cold 3 days & now it's great.Taps all in, adding a new line on our sap ladder, added a forced directed draft for the evaporator, water meter on the evaporator feed line & a siro filter press. Sap started running yesterday a little, ran better today, let it all run on ground because of all crap in the lines. Started saving sap a 5 PM, just turned vacuumed off a few minutes ago & sap was still trickling in, got around 75 imp gals.

[HanginAround]

Good start Murray, didn't run here today or yesterday, maybe a slight trickle from a few trees. Should run tomorrow though (Monday). I was at a friend's today, he gonna have 200 when he get them done, we set out on the fourwheeler, were stuck within 3 minutes and that was the end of the excursion. Man, it rained, there must be 6 inches of water under the snow in his field, so we didn't get far.

[murferd]

It has been an incredible year so far! We have bottled around 143 imp gals,have around 500 gal sap in tanks so we are easily going over the 150 max that was our high 2 years ago.Could possibly have 10 days or more left. We have never had sap so many continous days,it hasn't stopped for 14 days straight.It's starting to be very tiring,we have been boiling 300 to 500 gal a day on our 2x6.Getting around 35 to 40 gph,using kiln dried hardwood floor pieces,hood,preheater & blower.

[HanginAround]

Wow Murray, that's a lot of syrup for a 2x6.

Things are going pretty good here for some people, and not so good for others... Unc only has 35% made so far in the big woods, but he's later there normally anyway. The little woods is going okay. My friend Ed has about 17-18 gl made so far on 210 scraggly reds, and looks like the weather will be good for 2 more weeks.

[murferd]

All done, 225 imp gals, new record for us. Awesome & wierd year!

[HanginAround]

Murray, how come you quit already? I think most people in your area are still making, and people at higher elevations are still waiting for it to really start.

My friend Ed has almost 30 Imp gl made from his 210, so that's excellent. Most guys around Moncton are reporting a good yr, some have quit because they ran out of wood, so that's a good sign. Unc is at about 1000-1100 ft elev. down in Albert Co., so he'll probably keep going another week or maybe even two. Nothing below freezing in the forecast for here, so the end is near I think.

[murferd]

We are close to the Saint John river & it's warmer where we are.I saw you talking about Hargrove's a while back,they are out back away from the river & it's is quite a bit cooler out there.They also are around 185,000 taps this year,there was a story in the paper at the first of season & they said they are close to the largest in the world & will be next year.The pipes out there are unbelieveable.There are others out in that area to who do from 10,000 to 65,000.We just do it for fun & sell enough to pay for new toys for the syrup business.

[HanginAround]

Wow, 185,000, didn't know they were expanding that much. I've seen some of his woods, and his neighbor's, impressive setups.

Sounds like you had a good year.

[220 maple]

I know a couple producers here in the south with 10000 plus operations, and I recently heard of a producer in northern Pa. with 60000 taps, 185000 taps thats the big league, I looked for a web page on them but had no luck. Maybe you could answer some questions I've pondered about? When do they start opening that many holes? If they have super day and run two gallons to the tap hole that would be 370000 gallons of sap? RO-ed that would still leave over 11000 gallons to boil, how many evaporators do they have? How many gallons do they make in a season? Our they under the quota system?
Mark 220 Maple

[HanginAround]

I don't know too many answers for sure... but can make some guesses...

I would say they wouldn't start tapping until at least the first week of Feb, but possibly as late as the last week in Feb... they are in higher country there and the season goes into late April, and they would have a significant tapping crew, likely up to 10 ppl.

I think they have 3 big evaps, but can't remember for sure.

I would guess they make a lot of syrup, but typical yields here aren't what you guys are used to. No quota system here.

Their website:

http://canadianorganicmaple.com

Here's some more info I found, might be dated somewhat:

http://www.acornorganic.org/Canadianorganicmaple.html

[murferd]

I really don't know much about the Hargrove operation other than that they got a ot of taps.I just got back from a place in St.Quentin(French area) that has 70,000 taps,all go directly into sugar shack.They new section they got online this year is pumped underground for 5100 feet in a 2" line.What an impressive setup.I haven't spent as much time around a big operation before,really neat!They are shipping all there product across the pond,most to Denmark & some to China.They hope to get 400 barrels,& have to buy more to fill their orders.They are taking 2 to 3 barrels an hour,but their season hasn't been that good yet,just went over the 200 barrel mark today & think they may get another week.They start tapping the first of Febuary with 16 people.Wow!

[Dave Y]

220,
here is the web site for the 60,000 tap operation in northern Pa. www.pattersonmaple.com it dosen't have a lot of info though. I do nohe has a tapping crew, Ithink two ro's and maybe three evaporators.

[220 maple]

I discovered they have a video on YouTube. If you have high speed Internet it is amazing. ten 2300 gallon tanks that fill up every hour. 105000 trees tapped. 1000 kilometers of mainline. Very Impressive. Several years back one of my suppliers mentioned someone in Maine was planning on a 250 thousand tap operation. I never heard anymore about it. I did find a web page for Doles Pond Maple Syrup a 30000 tap operation located in Maine, also Very Impessive.
Mark 220 Maple

[maple flats]

Wow, did you notice the price in the Canadianorganicmaple ? 4 liter (135 oz) for $65.99 Canadian, but you can buy a case of 4 @ $58.00 /4liter. Now I've got to get organic cert.

[royalmaple]

In northern Somerset county right along the canadian border there are some super huge operations up there. Leased from the paper companies. 50K tap operation up there is small. 100K-150K operations up there too. I don't know the largest but there are very large producers up there on the Golden Road.