Started Tapping on 1/7 and 1/8 Monongalia County

[llew.williams]

Good flow today. Adding more trees at lunchtime. Sunshine. 44 degrees. Yay! Hope to fire evaporator this weekend. My Bender Releaser and Harbor Freight vacuum pump are working. Need some tweaks but I've got sap. Earliest ever in my life.

[themoonlighttapper]

Awesome! We're down here in Raleigh County. We were toying with the idea of putting in some taps early but opted against it. Mainly because we don't quite have everything in place yet, but also looking at the extended forecast we haven't seen a sub-32 degree temperature predicted until the 24-25th. Best of luck! Let us know how it goes.

[Edward Howell]

We put about 300 hundred around 1/10 also , but will hold off putting in all 700 till this warm patch is finished . The weather here has be windy, wet and no sunshine the trees don't like that at all . Tyler county here 3 miles from the ohio river .

[WVKeith]

Good luck all West Virginians. I am not quite ready yet. Still cleaning, running lines, etc., so I am not tapping yet. I will probably be ready by (and I am shooting for) the beginning of February for a run of the appropriate weather, although this warm weather certainly has me thinking

Keith.

[220 maple]

WVKeith sounds like your just like me not quite ready to tap yet, my goal was the third week in Jan. this year, the weather has turned very warm though, my weather app shows no freezing thru next Friday, I prefer to drill frozen trees, I just like the idea when they start running they all start at the same time. When they are running during tapping I always feel I'm losing sap because I can't get to the next tree fast enough. Dry Fork Maple started last Monday, I don't know how many tappers they have, they probably are boiling this weekend.

Mark 220 Maple

[superchunk]

I'm new to maple tapping and I'm also from Mon county. I ordered a dozen taps and tapped a tree yesterday just to try it out. I'll be interested to see if I have any sap tonight when I get home from work. I really don't have the proper equipment to boil it all down but suspect I'll try making a rocket stove out of cinder blocks and start boiling in a 20 qt stainless steel stock pot.

[WVKeith]

Hello Superchunk:

Welcome to WV Maple Syrup production. I am in Bruceton Mills, Preston county, but I work at WVU in Mon County. Did you get sap today? Seemed like good weather.

Your plan sounds reasonable, but you may get a lot of sap. On a good run, you may get 1/2 to 1 gallon sap per tap per day. You will probably be close to 1 gallon per hour boiling with a 20 quart pot.

Keith

[superchunk]

That's cool. I live just outside of Morgantown. When I got home yesterday I discovered my catch jug had tipped over and I lost the sap. Urghh! So I learned what not to do. I reset the jug and used a bungy strap to hold it in position. This morning I checked it before coming to work and I had almost an entire gallon! How cool is that! I transferred the sap to a bucket in the fridge and set it back out. Should be full again when I get home.

I was reading a little yesterday and I may try using cinder blocks and some stainless steel steam trays to make a DIY evaporator.