Anyone in Michigan still going?

[Jolly Acres Farm]

Anyone in Michigan still going?

How are your buds/trees holding out? Are you tapping Sugars, Reds, and/or Silvers?

Where are you located?

[Hannah]

I'm in Clare, about an hour north of Lansing, and the Sugar Maples buds are still tight. Looks like mother nature is allowing for one more week.

[rjrude]

Still going here in Curtis (upper penninsula) , hoping for another good run, then by the forecast it warms up and is probably over for the season. 20 gallons of syrup so far, hoping for a bit more!!

[Cedar Eater]

Still going here in the NELP. My latitude is in my sig line. I'm about 45 minutes south of Alpena (the 45th parallel runs just south of there). I haven't had any flow in a week because it has been too cold. Days in the low thirties, nights in the teens. I hope I'll have flows until the sap turns buddy, just so I can learn the taste of buddy syrup from reds.

[Lethalbowman]

Still taped here in the Traverse City area. I did see a rather small amount of sap in the last 2 days but mostly from trees in the open. The trees back in the woods were not dripping at all. I will leave taps in until mid week to see what happens. My last batch was a very dark syrup that had a hint of a caramel flavor to it.

[mitten mapler]

Still going in st Helen this week will probably be our last buds on our trees still kinda tight

[woodey24]

I'm an hour south of Lansing. Pulled everything last Tuesday, sap was still trickling but cloudy. Thanks to everyone for any help this year. It was a Good first one and planning for next year already.

[U.P. Sapsucker]

Hoping for 1 good last run before bad sap starts to come in. Sat and Sun forecast is for 66 and 69 degrees. Bittersweet, love to have some real spring but would still like to more syrup!!

[Tweegs]

We had to give up.

Tap holes were drying up and we couldn’t pull in enough sap to fire the evaporator.
What we did get was cloudy, yellowish, 1.4% and a sample boil tasted slightly off…not buddy, not terrible, just off.

Threw in the towel.

[Cedar Eater]

Sap started flowing again finally. I'll probably boil some tomorrow night to see if it's buddy yet. Seemed clear.

[Lethalbowman]

1420814209
A few of my trees were dripping when I checked yesterday evening. I collected 10 gallons of descent looking sap and now have it packed in snow in the shade. I will collect whatever I can get tonight and then start a small micro batch to finish the season.

[regor0]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160412/b9aa738bc2d66f99055c40fb62f83ca3.jpg

This is what I was doing yesterday, hopefully it'll start running again tomorrow.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

We finally broke free of this deep freeze today.:lol: Collected 69 gallons of nice clear 1.9% sap off 117 taps after work tonight. Trees were still flowing as it was getting dark and Wednesday and Thursday looks good for a decent sap flow. Buds are nice and tight still as of tonight. With the weekend forecast I think Thursday will be out last collection day.

[U.P. Sapsucker]

Decent run yesterday. Sugar was only 1.3% but we had quite a bit. We'll keep going until sap is no good. Hopefully into Sat or Sunday, you never know the snow is pretty compacted on the ground right now.

[Lethalbowman]

Collected another 10 gallons tonight but could have gotten another 5 or more but no time to boil it down before the temps rise into the 60's. Sap was running 2% tonight! Way to end the season on a high note.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

Boiled down the 69 gallons that we collected last night. Went out tonight after dinner and collected 90 gallons of 2.0% of nice clear sap. Did a test boil of it, smelled and tasted delicious, will boil it down tomorrow. Hope the buds hold out for one more day before they start to swell, but I think its coming soon. Noticed a few sugars along the road on the way to my bush had started to swell tonight.

[Cedar Eater]

I made my first buddy syrup last night. I boiled down one gallon of sap because I suspected that what I had collected from one 3/16" sapline might be past the buddy point. When I was getting dark syrup, the steam smell was like cooking sweet corn. Last night it smelled less sweet, more like corn cobs. I sampled the sap all along and it tasted fine until it got to syrup density. Then it went horrible. I now know that there is a definite border between good dark syrup and bad buddy syrup. It could possibly be used to sweeten whiskey or maybe even coffee, but I won't even bother trying.

But I'm still collecting from yard trees on gravity and from one 3/16" line on a north facing slope, just to see if it still produces good syrup at the tail end of the season. The buds still look tight on those trees.

[U.P. Sapsucker]

made about 30 gallons of darker syrup yesterday. It was delicious! maybe one more good day or maybe that was it?

[regor0]

10 gallons made today, about half way through the boil it started to smell like I was cooking crawfish, still tasted fine.
Tomorrows boil may be iffy????? Just looked at the clock,
I mean today's boil.

[fishman]

Ran good yesterday. Had four 5 gallon buckets overflowing. Most taps had 2.5-3 gal. Within 3 hours had another 3 inches in buckets. Today will be the end for me. Out of wood and time to go fishing.

[Cedar Eater]

I'm tapping out today. The yard trees on gravity produced buddy syrup. It's all over but the cleanup, then on to the next projects.

[Lethalbowman]

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I was pulling taps as I collected another 15 gallons of 2% sap from trees that still had tight buds. I have been "slowly" boiling down 15 gallons on the fish fryer and it looks, smells & tastes good so far. I will be firing up the evaporator one last time this weekend to finish off the 30 gallons that I have buried in the last remaining snow pile we have in our yard. It's been an interesting season to say the least. Now it's time for Turkey hunting & in a few weeks walleye fishing. Will be taking time to relax on a cruise ship with my wife of 25 years next month. I wonder if I could smuggle some of my syrup on board to have with pancakes and waffles? LOL!

[fishman]

Never taken any on a cruise but I have take mine into a few restaurants. Wife just shakes her head.

[UPMaple]

Started boiling again here after the freeze. Sap started running again yesterday.
Sugar Maples are still not budding, but will be soon. Red Maples, Beech, and Poplar are starting to bud.
Warm temps turn sap cloudy pretty quick in storage. Still coming out of the tree clear and tasty. Snow is melting fast.
Probably pulling taps next day or two.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

We finished up yesterday, tree buds have started to swell as of last night. Going to pull the taps Monday and Tuesday, its be a good learning curve this season.

[Hannah]

Pulled all my taps yesterday and collected 130 gallons. Hoping for a good yield out of this last push.

[regor0]

Still running clear and 2.5% here in the northern UP. Pulled the soft maple raps yesterday.

[U.P. Sapsucker]

made about 40 gallons yesterday with a slight cloudiness and a great taste still. Boiled twice in the day to keep things moving. Darker syrup than we have made all year and quite good. That might be the last of it for the year.

[zandstrafarms]

We pulled our soft maples several weeks ago and moved the taps to our sugar maples further back.

Located in Midwest michigsn, north of grand rapids. Hadn't any flow for 15 days to speak of, then one last hurrah last week. Collected 130 gallons from 150 taps (newest taps were solidly full (5 gal buckets), other taps half and others zero.

Curiously, our sugar has been at 1.5 to 2% all season (both sugar and soft maples in woods/swamps), but the last week shot up to nearly 4% on some trees!

COLOR WAS EXACTLY THE SAME EACH BURN.

no joke, I did a 3oz glass sampler each boil and every one was identical in color: very dark!

However, the flavor was different. First was slightly buttery and lighter, second more caramel flavor, 3rd and 4th a medium maple, and 5th a hint of cinnamon or chocolate (very slight) and 6th was a heavier maple with light floral notes (no none of my sap was flowered or budded).

Ran a 2x5 smokey lake hybrid with float box and auto draw into a smokey lake water jacketed bottler.

Gradient was dark in each level of the pan but varied in density.
I also did a test boil of some silver maple flowered sap into my electric water boiler and that also came out dark! Flavor was good though :) but I still dumped all flowering sap just to be safe!

[rjrude]

We boiled the last of our sap yesterday, pulling taps and washing everything up to put away for the season. Its been a long strung out season here in central Upper Peninnsula.