When should I tap?

[huxta]

This is only my 2nd year tapping and the weather in southern Indian is warmer than last year. It appears that day temps will stay above freezing every day in the foreseeable forecast. We haven't had a long cold spell staying below freezing for more than a couple days.
Should I go ahead and tap soon?
Wait a few weeks?
Will the mild winter hurt the sap flow?

[asknupp]

Being a neighbor I would definitely wait. It's bound to get cold and stay that way for a while. Late Jan is the earliest I've tapped and I hit it right that year but be patient. We are all ready to go.lol

[TonyL]

I'm watching the weather, and think we might tap two weeks from now. Our weather is just too unstable, and it seems the last couple years when it starts to warm, it gets warm fast and stays that way. I am a believer in tapping early.

[Andrew Franklin]

I've also never tapped earlier than late January, and usually later than that. I honestly don't know if sap will be flowing tomorrow when it's going to get really warm, but I am sure we will have a solid prolonged freeze in our future and I prefer to wait for that first thaw to tap.

[DrTimPerkins]

Should I go ahead and tap soon?
Wait a few weeks?
Will the mild winter hurt the sap flow?

If you are on vacuum and are using good spout/drop sanitation practices, tapping fairly early has little negative impact on seasonal sap yield. Producers with thousands or tens of thousands of taps in this area (northern Vermont) often start tapping about this time of year in order to be fully tapped in at the time the sap starts to run (early March). Spouts (with good sanitation) on vacuum will remain viable for at least a couple of months or more.

However if you are on buckets, or if you aren't practicing good spout sanitation methods (new spouts annually or very well cleaned spouts), then tapping early typically results in premature taphole drying and significantly reduced yields. If you have a reasonable number of spouts (or have enough help) so you can tap in just a day or two, then waiting until closer to the "usual" tapping and sap run times will more likely result in better yields. Since they are open to the air (and thus open to microbial contamination and oxygen), spouts on buckets typically only run about a month or so before the sap run drops off.

Of course, in those really unusual years (sudden early warm weather without a return to cold temperatures), then all bets are off.

[TonyL]

Yeah...and it's those "really unusual years" that seem to be occurring more frequently here in our area.

[wnybassman]

Yeah...and it's those "really unusual years" that seem to be occurring more frequently here in our area.

And worse yet, you don't know it is a really unusual year until it is hindsight

[DrTimPerkins]

And worse yet, you don't know it is a really usual year until it is hindsight

Correct.....unfortunately.

[TonyL]

Been watching the forecast, thinking we will tap next weekend if it still looks good.

[asknupp]

I'm leaning towards next weekend as well.

[dsaw]

I'm regretting not tapping last weekend; but it was pretty cold out and I'm recovering from shoulder surgery and my family help made it pretty clear they weren't doing anything outside. Will try for this weekend. I had hoped to get some 3/16 pre-installed; but that didn't happen.

[TonyL]

Now the forecast looks warm.....maybe too warm. Crazy,crazy weather.

[dsaw]

Been watching the same weather, and I'm debating not tapping now also because it's not getting cold again in the next 10 days and I've missed the initial thaw by several days. May just go out and run some 3/16 line and set up a collection drum.

[dsaw]

Decided to hold off till next weekend to tap. Looks like perfect weather that next week; if the long range forecasts hold out. I did get out and run 3/16 tubing for 25 taps, a learning experiance for me as I'm new to any sort of tubing. I need to order more tubing. Now I need to get my RO working that I built last year but never actually got operational.

[TonyL]

Not tapping here, either. Hoping the long range holds for next weekend.

[JohnM]

I will be waiting until first week of Feb 2017 due to vacation plan. First boil last year was on 1/29. The long range temperature forecasts for central Indiana show freeze/thaw over 8 days out. Mom Nature holds all the cards. :-)

[dsaw]

Looks like the long range forecast keep changing and it's another week ahead above freezing. I'll keep watching, but may hold off another week.

[dsaw]

Now they're calling for freezing starting next Thursday; so I'm planning on tapping this weekend.

[Klonce]

Can't wait to tap, tomorrow is the day gonna tap 84 maple west, probably 12 taps gonna save 84 maple east based on the results of the west. Keep everyone posted. Feels like Christmas but sweeter!!

[Andrew Franklin]

Good luck to all. Since my taps are an hour and a half from home and I can't afford to have sap sit in warm weather I am still waiting. I'd love to tap in 60 degree weather, but I'm better served by waiting until the end of a cold snap. Plus, I'm reusing some taps so I want to make sure they don't go dry before the season is over.

[Wizbi]

Hey neighbor, We're in Indian Creek Township near Stanford. I too am eyeing temps to get onto tapping. Also have new RO DIY unit. Hoping to get started tapping in 7 days when temps start back down to more ideal. Lots of luck.

[TonyL]

Seriously considering going in today. The temps look pretty good next weekend, but it would be a lot more comfortable working in this 60 degree weather!

[dsaw]

Tapped 15 trees so far this morning. No flow, which is good for me because I can't come back till next weekend and hope they don't flow until it cools down later this week.

[TonyL]

Decided against it, will re-evaluate next weekend. Just too warm this upcoming week.

[Tapping Wolf]

Im all set, still waiting for the 1st or 2nd week of Feb...just too warm now for me.

[dsaw]

Ended up getting 30 taps on 2 separate tubing runs and 4 on buckets. Ran the line for a 3rd run with another 14 taps, but need more barrels. The taps I ran on Sat. Morning were still dry when I left this afternoon; hoping they stay dry till it finally freezes later this week. Hoping for 1st boil next weekend.

[Andrew Franklin]

dsaw, let me know what you find this weekend. I think I may tap this weekend as it looks like there will be 4 days with highs in the 39-40 degree range next week at my bush. To do list: put in 100 taps (3 runs on a 300' incline hill 800' deep), line and brick my arch, run all electric and hoses to my shack, split wood. Gonna make for a long day!

[dsaw]

I'll be out tomorrow and will report if I have any; but not holding my breath. Low of 26 Fri & Sat. nights have a better shot. Hopefully freezing every night this week will make next weekend successful. I'll probably quickly scout the 2 barrels I have out tomorrow; but mainly work on the arch. I need to install a new base stack, reinstall/stabilize the chimney, weld up the gaps around base stack, and paint up the rust spots (arch is outside). Sat. I'll put in new pan gasket and get the pan set-up. I doubt I'll have enough syrup this weekend to tryout the newly operational (I hope) RO. And somewhere in there, I need to get back to tapping.

[PoseyCoMark]

We were expected to get showers Wednesday so I set out to tap on Tuesday. I ended up with 19 taps with about 60 degree sunny weather, but it dropped down to low 30's that night. Checked last night and there was slight sap flow on 5 taps. Hope you all have a good season.

[dsaw]

Checked the two drums at the end of the two 3/16" runs, 15 taps each. About 1 quart/drum; so not running yet.

[Mitchell tapper.]

I collected 10 gallons two days ago and 20 gallons last night on 27 taps 3/16 tube and a small diaphragm pump.

[dsaw]

Put up another 23 on 3/16, up to 68 on tubing. The sap started running late afternoon.

[TonyL]

Tapped today also. Looks pretty good in a couple days, forecast wise.

[RBaker]

Tapped 20 today sure was cold with light snow.

[Andrew Franklin]

I put in 115 taps today - five lines going partway or all the way up a 300' hill. Burned up my drill so the last 35 went in at screwdriver speed. Fitbit says I climbed 90 stories - it feels like it. I noticed some nasty stuff in a few spots in a couple of lines from last year - I'll probably dump everything from this week then be ready to go.

[dsaw]

I ended up w/21 gal overnight, which I figured was barely enough for a test boil to get the equipment in line. I need to learn how to find tubing leaks, because one of my runs barely produced. I may have solved it, but we'll see next week. 3/16 definitely kills the sugar content; I was less then 1%. I just boiled it down to about 3 gal, threw it in a bucket, and brought it home to put in deep freezer till next weekend. Put in a few more buckets; but I wasn't near full strength on my slave labor force, so didn't get many buckets washed. Hopefully I'll get more out next weekend.

[Andrew Franklin]

RBaker, I'm guessing I'm about 25 - 30 miles northeast of you. It was chilly with the wind! I was out from 11:30 to 6:00 and that was more than enough! Hoping for below freezing and above 40 during the week and warm weekends from here on out!

[Gandolf]

Started putting out my taps this weekend. Got about 60 taps on tubing, 80 on sacks, and another 40 sap sacks left to do tonight. Charger on cordless drill went out so I wound up putting a small generator in the back of my mule and using my electric drill on 100' of extension cord. Really slowed things down. Andrew, I must have bigger hills than you, my fit bit came in at 120 flights Saturday.

[DougM]

I ended up w/21 gal overnight, which I figured was barely enough for a test boil to get the equipment in line. I need to learn how to find tubing leaks, because one of my runs barely produced. I may have solved it, but we'll see next week. 3/16 definitely kills the sugar content; I was less then 1%. I just boiled it down to about 3 gal, threw it in a bucket, and brought it home to put in deep freezer till next weekend. Put in a few more buckets; but I wasn't near full strength on my slave labor force, so didn't get many buckets washed. Hopefully I'll get more out next weekend.

What does the diameter of the tubing have to do with sugar content?

[Tapping Wolf]

Next week looks like a good time to all in up here...if the forecast holds.

[dsaw]

What does the diameter of the tubing have to do with sugar content?

I'm new to this, but from what I've read (and my 1st run seems to back it up), getting sap under vacuum is what drops the sugar content, not the size of the tubing.

[DougM]

Seems like there's an old sugarmaker's tale floating around out there.
According to this study uvm.edu/~pmrc/vacsap.pdf, (and the one from 1974 that it references) vacuum & tubing have no effect on sugar content.

[Andrew Franklin]

Nice, Phil - that's a workout! I went down today on my way to the IU game and things were flowing nicely! I collect in 3 different containers, so it was hard to tell, but it looked like I had about 80 gallons. I brought 15 home to test my homemade RO and left the rest. I was going to dump it because two of my lines had a bit of mold, but they were the last to start running so I only had to dump a little from one container - the lines cleaned out almost as soon as it started running. Looks like the next two days will be cold enough to keep what I have from spoiling...looking forward to boiling this weekend! If the forecast holds it should be a nice four or five day run.

[Mitchell tapper.]

I'm new to this, but from what I've read (and my 1st run seems to back it up), getting sap under vacuum is what drops the sugar content, not the size of the tubing.

Similar situation here dsaw. First two years on buckets sap was at 2%. Third year I started using 3/16 with a pump. Sap dropped to 1%. Using 3/16 this year as well. Last evening I boiled 82 gal to yield a hair over a gallon of syrup. Can't say if it's the tubing or what the reason for the drop is. That being said...I doubled my syrup last year because of the tubing. I only have 27 taps on the tubing so it's not a big deal.

[dsaw]

Checked 3 or my 4 3/16 runs, in the dark, not much sap. I was hoping to test the RO tomorrow, but not enough to fire it up. One of them has a leak; so I need to learn how to find those. Looks like I'll be putting up buckets tomorrow.

[TonyL]

First boil of the season tomorrow. Collected approx 85 gallons this week.

[TonyL]

Boil went well, should finish off on propane tomorrow. My wife got a cool shot through the refractometer:

http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u434/sprkplugphoto/Screenshot_2017-02-04-17-38-45_resized_zpsnq9wfmld.png (http://s1067.photobucket.com/user/sprkplugphoto/media/Screenshot_2017-02-04-17-38-45_resized_zpsnq9wfmld.png.html)

[TonyL]

Sugar content is not what I hoped for thus far. The 150 gallons boiled yesterday and today yielded 50:1.

[Andrew Franklin]

I have to admit it's a bit of s*%t show when I go down to boil. It starts out great with tracking gallons of sap and ro rate, then I get working on firing up the evaporator, pulling some sap out and putting it in a bucket heater to increase my ro rate, but then throwing some on the evap because I figured slightly preheated sap would get to boil faster, putting some ro sap with some raw sap into the evaporator when the boil gets ahead of my ro...oh, and it's 5:30 am and I've been up for 23 hours. Anyway, I think I worked my way from about 175 gallons of sap to 7 gallons of near syrup between 5:00 pm yesterday and 5:00 tonight. With time spent walking lines, talking to neighbors, hooking everything up, splitting wood, heating up (should have started fire in the evaporator early instead of waiting 5 hours) and cleanup, a three hour nap, etc. I was pretty pleased. It was so warm today (75) I could see a change in the sap I got to later today vs the first pulls. I am pretty sure it is ok, but I had to change my ro pre filter when I got to the later stuff. That's usually a sign that the end is in sight for me... plus I heard peepers last night. I hope we have another week or two!

[dsaw]

I had a learning, but frustrating weekend. On a good point, the 3/16" was really flowing. I collected about 300 gal of sap and one of the 55 gal drums was overflowing when I got there. Then I tried to fire up my RO for the 1st time, and I couldn't get my high pressure pump to stay on. It kept shutting it-self down, and I'm not sure why (although I'm leaning towards electrical imbalance from running a 110v 3/4 pump and a 220v 2hp off the same drop; that or I'm falling in a strange point on it's performance curve that it doesn't like). So I figured out I could run it just on the feed pump, I just couldn't get the thru-put I wanted and it really fell off after concentrating to 5%. But when you're starting with 1.5%, that's still a huge help. Once I resigned myself to a limited RO, I thought I was doing good. I had my little 2x3 pan ripping through 12+ gph with a very crude AUF and a preheater; when I drew off too much syrup and burned my pan. So I drew off about 1/2 gal of good syrup, but the rest is relegated to cooking duty. I finished the burnt syrup this morning in a finishing pan while cleaning the main pan and froze the remaining concentrate for next weekend. I also heard peepers this afternoon, and I'm wondering if the season is about done looking at the weather.

[Andrew Franklin]

Dsaw, I learn a lot from your posts because we have had parallel growth and both have to travel to collect and boil. How are you preheating before evaporating? I use a bucket heater to warm some of the sap to boost the ro, but need to preheat before boiling...I'm only getting 2/3 to 3/4 of the pan boiling. You had double my volume of sap this weekend!...I was at 150 gallons or so (it comes into 3 containers and I am terrible about tracking it to the gallon). Granted, three of my 3/16 lines don't have 30' of fall from the last tap, and they crawl compared to the two that do. I want to try a vacuum on them next year. Boiling on Saturday I was in shorts and hot, 74 degrees...flies around the sap and peepers at night... not good sign. but I like next week's forecast. My stats: Help - none, Miles walked - 26, pounds lost - 5, hours of sleep Friday night - 2, gallons of sap - +/_ 150, homemade ro rate (with warmed sap) 5 gallons of water removal every 38 minutes, exactly 3 gallons of syrup bottled.

[dsaw]

Thanks for comments Andrew. My preheater is pretty simple right now; I managed to pick up a Leader finishing pan on e-bay cheap a few years ago that's about 18" x 28"? (one of my best syrup purchases it turns out, it came with a duel burner stand and I can bring it home to finish boiling there if I need to, a portable evaporator). Before finishing, I put that pan above my 2x3, but angle it with a 2x4 on one end and two thin pieces of plywood on each corner up front and it barely overhangs the main pan. So with the angle, condensate runs along the bottom of the pan and drips off in front. I'll try to get a pic up later. I had a portion of my slave labor force out there; but they didn't prove much help. They washed buckets; but a) I didn't have time to tap any more trees and b) don't think we have any season left now; but I had to have them do something. They did occasionally feed the fire, but they're not real reliable at it. The kids are off this coming Monday, so I'll have everyone out for a 3 day weekend. I just hope we have some sap.

[dsaw]

Looks like we're done here in S. IN. I checked 3 of my 5 barrels and I have less then 10 gal. Vs >100 last weekend. I froze about 10 gal of 6% sap, but doubt I'll have enough fresh sap to fire up the RO.

[dsaw]

Maybe not quite as bad as I thought, I found one full barrel and some fuller buckets; so should have enough to fire up the RO.

[Andrew Franklin]

This was one of those weekends that makes me wonder why I do it. Drove to my property yesterday to find only 30 gallons of cloudy sap. I had a hunch it was bad, but I had a few people coming out today to check out my operation, so I started boiling this morning. As I walked them around the property showing them the lines and storage tanks I could smell the woody sap from 100 yards away. So, a waste of time and wood. As soon as they left I dumped it all, rinsed my storage tanks, and went home. I left the lines on the ground with the taps in with hope for a freeze, but with the next week in the 60's every day I'll be shocked if the trees don't bud. To get just 3 gallons of syrup off of 115 taps is awful. I guess I tap in Jan. next year? I do have a terrible short term memory...hopefully I forget my frustration by next year! :(

[DougM]

We only got about 250 gallons yesterday, so we rinsed our tank & pulled the lines out; as well as bringing in all the bags & rinsing them out & hanging them to dry. If we're done they are already collected, if not we're hoping they won't be moldy next Saturday & we can re-hang them. If the trees don't bud we may be able to put out another 25 taps...hoping for the best.

So far we've finished about 22 gallons from 223 taps, plus whatever we can still get out of the evaporator.

[TonyL]

Saturday we boiled 20 gallons of sap collected this past week and kept in the fridge, and today we finished it off together with the sweet from last Sunday's boil. Made another 21 bottles (12 ounce). That brings us to almost 5.25 gallons of syrup, from 310 gallons of sap. Pretty sad, and the forecast doesn't look good. We left the buckets hanging on the trees, but cleaned all the stainless finish pans as well as the sap storage barrels. The tubing we let open to ground.... probably wishful thinking, but hopeful nonetheless. Terrible year. Spring peepers were singing around the ponds today.

[dsaw]

I dumped all my sap, it was bad.Left lines out. Boiled some concentrate I'd frozen from last week. Only good point was I fixed my RO. I'm ready for next year if we can have a season longer then 3 weeks.

[dsaw]

Went out to put the RO membranes in preservative, and 3 of my 5 3/16" runs were running syrup. If I'd dumped the bad syrup last week I probably could have had some.

[Andrew Franklin]

Dsaw, shat do you use as a preservative for your ro membranes?

[dsaw]

What I plan to use (every time I go out to do it, something comes up and I don't get around to it) is Sodium Metabisulfite, bought off Amazon. I researched the "advertised" preservatives, and this is all it is. I need to look up the concentration again, but I plan to use 4" pvc as holding chambers. It was on my to do list today; but planting apple trees took a lot longer then planned. Hopefully next weekend. I have cycled water through them post season to keep them wet.