2017 Western Wisconsin

[TradeRiver]

We put out about 225 bags today. Sap was running in almost every hole we drilled.

Luck, WI area.

[Cody]

Had our tree's all tapped by Friday 2/17 2017,the sap was running pretty good but not great .Collected just short of 3000 gallons before this last freeze up .Checked tree's yesterday afternoon and they were starting in again,but not enough to collect,see what today brings.

[Cody]

Tree's let lose Sunday afternoon,between Sunday and today collected just short of 5000 gallons of sap.

[motowbrowne]

That's GREAT Todd (Cody)!

I brought in 1150 gallons from 300 taps since 9:00 Sunday night. I cooked for the second time today and drew off for the first time. Made some very very light syrup. I'm glad to see the cold forecast. It'll be really nice to have a break from sap for a few days and be able to clean up after all this wind, plus get my shack tidied up and try to chase a few vacuum leaks. Overall, I'm very very pleased with how things are going so far. So much has come together in the last 3 weeks. If you'd told me when I broke my ankle that in three weeks I'd have most of my taps in, that I would have brought in 2000 gallons of sap and I'd already have 25 gallons cooked, it would have been tough to believe.

[markcasper]

Good for you Ryan! It was an amazing run from Sunday to Tuesday. I just got the last of the tubing tapped last Friday and all the vacuum leaks taken care of by 10 pm Sunday night and WOLLA! The strongest of the run occurred from Sunday night on into Monday morning. Sunday night into the wee hours Monday they ran a gallon per tap in 6 hours! I have 3000 gallons brought in and there is another 2500 out there yet and thats from only 900 taps. I was totally not ready for that. My staying up all night Sunday night to get the evaporator and RO ready turned into gathering and finding more storage space. Now I have 3 days off to figure out how to get this all handled. Its going to be a challenge now with keeping stuff from freezing. Good way to burn an evaporator up.

And this ....wind, what a PITA!

[motowbrowne]

Hey Mark, when we didn't hear from you for a couple days I figured you must be swimming in sap over there. Glad to hear you got tapped out right in the nick of time!

I know what you mean on everything freezing. I just checked the forecast, and they cooled it down AGAIN. Now they're giving us 5 degrees for the low tomorrow night. A week ago they were showing good sap weather all week. Crazy that they've changed it that much. Anyway, good luck getting all that sap dealt with; it's great that we're off to a good start and it's still so early. Let's hope we can get caught up during this break and then get another few great runs.

[Cody]

Great going guys.Its amazing what them trees will put out when conditions are right.Last night when collecting,just shut pump off heard a tree start to break,looked up the trail and a big dead elm come down about 100 feet from us and just missed the mainline running to tank,some branches did hit but no damage.

[markcasper]

I had south side taps running right now today and both those tanks are running over. Just got back from Fleet Farm buying electric cords and brooder lamps to keep tank valves from freezing. I'm going to have probably 6500 gallons sitting there. Looks like I'll be ok if I can get everything brought in before tomorrow night and a low of 2 above. Going to start the RO in the morning and hopefully by concentrating will be able to shove off the amount of ice developing in the tanks. I guess I'd rather cook with temps in the single digits than cook in this wind.

[markcasper]

Got 5500 gallons of sap from the run earlier in the week off 900 taps, on top of the 700 gallons from a week and a half ago. Unbelievable to say the least. It was a granddaddy of runs that for sure. I was able to get the RO going yesterday and concentrated about 1/2 of it. I was running it "tight" because I was out of storage space as I had to pick up 1200 gallon that was in the woods yet. The concentrate was coming out at 31 degrees as I had it going slow and extra long hose to reach an available tank. The extra long hose was allowing it to get that cold.

I was planning to cook, but with these temps, I think I am going to concentrate the rest today and let it until Monday as I have to work both Saturday and Sunday. I will avoid having to deal with the evaporator freezing this way.

I really don't know what kind of grade all of this is going to make, I am in unchartered territory with having concentrate sit for 3-4 days and the sap being more than that. The stuff is cold and have read on here of people making medium amber even after having concentrate held at freezing for a week.

I had some RO issues and they had to come out, so I am still behind the 8 ball. Going to finish putting evap. together and clean some drums.

[Trapper2]

Did anybody check what % the sap is running at?

[Cody]

Looks like we should be back into it by the end of the week.Tree's should be all charged up and ready to roll.Hopefully the deer and squirrels didn't cause to much damage.Got lucky from the wind storm,only had four lines that got knocked down.Got about 2" of fresh snow last night.

[motowbrowne]

Things are picking back up today. Got some good sap yesterday afternoon and evening. Slow to start today, but once the sun came out it sure got warm in a hurry. Sap is coming in good now. Got my buckets hung right around the shack yesterday too, which makes things look good. They are running really good also. Some have 2 gallons of sap in them, mostly from today.

I plan on cooking tomorrow afternoon. After that i should have about 30-35% of what I hope to make this year. It feels good to start seeing buckets full of syrup this early and have a good-looking forecast.

[markcasper]

I was going to tap my buckets/bags today and ended up gathering instead. Trees on my south slopes ran hard after 2 pm Saturday. About a gallon per tap in 7 hours. Got it all hauled in and am heading to bed, I expect they will run crazy Sunday and all night Sunday night by the looks of things.

[Twisted Minds]

Trees finally let loose, had 40 bags that were near full or overflowing. Good clear sap.

16152

[Cody]

Cold again,had some great runs.Maybe with this warm up coming get a little rain to get frost out of woods.

[motowbrowne]

It'd sure be nice to get a couple more freezing nights. I'm not sure if that's gonna happen, but it'd make me very happy. So far I'm right around a third of a gallon of syrup per tap, so obviously I can't complain.

For me, putting most of my taps on vacuum this year has been the only reason that I had a successful season. After getting lured into putting out my buckets too early twice in the last five years and ending up with dry taps during great sap weather, I am certain that I would have missed the ideal tapping window this year. From the 50 buckets i hung near my shack I've only collected about 250 gallons of sap. The bucket sap was a little stronger, but still, that means that the remaining 5000+ gallons that I've processed came from the other 325 taps. That's about 3X the sap per tap. Maybe more. A good portion of that may be because i didn't tap my buckets early enough, but that's just it: because I knew I had new tubing with new spouts and it'd be under vacuum, I wasn't afraid to tap early.

Anyways, gonna cook tomorrow. Sap has been trickling in for the last couple days and really poured in this afternoon when the sun came out. I'll probably have about 700 gallons to cook tomorrow, maybe a little more. Maybe it'll be the last time we cook, but maybe not. We started making some really nice dark syrup when we cooked on Wednesday, so I hope that keeps up. Another 40-50 gallons would really make me smile.

[markcasper]

Yes the vacuum is sure a game changer isn't it?, but it also becomes a headache to "babysit" releasers, motors and the list goes on (had a float fall off a releaser today) (yesterday a farm animal unplugged the electric cord). You earn that extra syrup with all the time it takes to monitor everything, knowing well if you don't you won't be cooking the next day....especially this year.

My trees poured this afternoon AND must have ran good overnight last night. They also ran real well in the night Wednesday night. Syrup just got to dark amber on Thursday and Friday morning it was so very close to medium. Real happy with the quality this year. I have 1600 gallons sitting at the shack from today and will take care of it tomorrow as well. Probably with the heat will turn right around and gather again and cook a 2nd time tomorrow.

Sap is getting pretty cloudy but does not stink. My south sides really go to pot in a hurry when it gets in the 50's and sun, comes into the releaser looking like crap.

As of Friday morning not one eyota of bud or off taste yet. That will probably change. Considering all that I missed in February, I can't complain about my yield so far.

I also was checking intently tonight for frogs and nothing yet. I have always made syrup yet after I have heard the frogs by the creek.

[motowbrowne]

Hey Mark,

Nice to hear from you! Glad you've been getting sap. I'm also encouraged to hear that you think we'll be making syrup a while longer.

You are 100% right about earning that extra sap (though hauling buckets is hard work too). I've been fortunate in that I have had zero problems with my Shurflo pumps, mainline, power supply, ice strainer, etc. I have, however had a big issue with squirrels chewing up my lines. I finally got my cast off a week ago yesterday and was able to walk my lines myself instead of trying to explain how to find and fix leaks to other folks. When I started Sunday morning, the Shurflo was pulling 3" in the mainline, and I'm sure there was only 100 out of 265 taps hooked up. The other ones were running on the ground through squirrel holes. A few hours later, and the mainline was up to 20" and sap has been coming in good ever since. Gotta shoot me some squirrels...

[markcasper]

Glad you got your cast off I bet, that is good. Don't know how long we'll be making syrup....its on a day to day basis at this point. Gotta keep it gathered up and not let it sit around, especially today. All of the end of season nasty's are showing up in and around the releasers. As long as it doesn't go stringy, I'll cook it.

[motowbrowne]

We lucked out and got a surprise freeze last night. I haven't been to the tank since 9:00, but I think it's gonna run good today!

[Cody]

Pulling taps today.Sugar went south,sap cloudy.Our tree's did great 520 gallons of syrup out of 1100 taps.Hope everybody had a great season.

[Trapper2]

Pulling taps today.Sugar went south,sap cloudy.Our tree's did great 520 gallons of syrup out of 1100 taps.Hope everybody had a great season.

WOW! Over 25 gallons of sap per tree on a year like this? How did you accomplish that?

[motowbrowne]

WOW! Over 25 gallons of sap per tree on a year like this? How did you accomplish that?

At 40:1, 520 gallons of syrup from 1100 taps is 18.9 gallons of sap per tap.

[Trapper2]

At 40:1, 520 gallons of syrup from 1100 taps is 18.9 gallons of sap per tap.

Seeing that it was an early tap, I was figuring less than a 2% average for the season.