Early Tapping

[sbedilion]

This will be my second season. Looking at the 15 day forecast.....I might put out about 15-20 taps next Sunday. Its going to get cold this week with the highs in the 20s but that is only lasting a few days then its back to 40 Highs for about 10 days. I'm not tapping my 30-40 trees I plan to work once February rolls around. Thoughts? I'm hoping to get a couple batch boils done so I can work the kinks out of my setup for when the real season hits.

[buckeye gold]

You can get some sap, but you won't get the big runs like spring. Usually sugar will be lower as well. If you have some extra trees and want to work out some kinks and have some early syrup then go for it, but you will most likely be shut down completely the third week of January until mid February. If you wanted to do early taps you should have already had them out. I do this most years and make a little early syrup and I have all the bugs worked out for real sap season. I have had four boils since Christmas and thought I'd cook today, but my trees did not run at 55 degrees. They do that in the fall, they are more sporadic about when they run.

[Chickenman]

I'm in new York state dew north of you about 2 hours on NY/PA line. we have almost the same weather. Put out 4 taps just to see what happens. posted in tapping NY 2017. My game plan seems to parallel yours.

[sbedilion]

Thanks guys! I made up 2 pans at work (metal fab shop)....both 2x3. I only used 1 of them last year. Sooo nice. I'm itching to see how well 2 will work. Planning on using one more as a preheater and just keeping it full.

Temps are dropping today....things will be frozen down here for a few days.

[sbedilion]

Put out 10 taps this AM....and might do 10-20 more on Friday (day off). It's early but the 15day forecast looks like I might get enough sap to do a test run on my setup.

[unc23win]

Cool let us know how is turns out. I am hoping to start tapping February 1, but I'll keep checking the forecast. Usually never make much before February 20th, but I've never tapped in January.

[sbedilion]

Sap was flowing pretty good last night. I checked yesterday evening and it was just starting to drip. This morning....out of 10 taps I had about 4 gallons of sap. I had a lot of leaking around the taps too so I need to snug them up. I am testing out bags with homemade PVC bag holders. My holders need bigger holes to easily fit onto the taps without moving the taps. This is way I wanted to tap a few trees early....work the bugs out before February.