Northwest Ohio 2018

[RC Maple]

I am watching Accuweather and the Weather Channel page too much! I know after a colder day this Wednesday we get another warm-up for the end of the week into next weekend. The earliest I have tapped before is January 27th. When I have tapped early in previous years I have been glad I did. Anyone tapping this week or already making syrup?

[Greensprings sugar]

Hey r/c ,
We are producing syrup near green springs, tapped tubing but waiting on bags little longer. Sap running 2.5 - 3 for us so far

[ash10383]

It took a lot of will power not to put taps in this weekend given the 14 day but the whole month of Feb and most of March looks ideal at this point on time so going to preserve our taps for what are hopefully big runs at that time

[zimmermg]

I put out 90 on a shurflo this weekend. Only time will tell but it was hard looking at the two week forecast and seeing three solid looking runs and not tapping. Waiting on the buckets at this point.

[RC Maple]

There are some good looking days in the forecast. I think it would be a no-doubter if I wasn't all on buckets. I agreed to go out of town for a weekend (2/16-2/18) and I hoped that it would stay cold until after that but maybe I better start earlier if I can to make up for the lost weekend. If the first taps slow up I can move to another woods later. My sugar content dropped to below 2% last year for the first time. I was at 1.84%. Glad to see your sugar content doing well Greensprings!

[clw]

These warm days are tempting but I’m going to wait. Good luck to the early guys.

[Greensprings sugar]

Pushing the 30gal produced mark so far, 3/16 is no joke! Tapped jan 11th. Bags will be put up 1st thaw in Feb!

[RC Maple]

Pushing the 30gal produced mark so far, 3/16 is no joke! Tapped jan 11th. Bags will be put up 1st thaw in Feb!

Congrats! You're already off to a good start. If I was going to make some syrup in January I would have tapped today. It looks like starting in February it will be getting colder for a while. I figured I would keep the buckets in the shed. This weekend looks good for sap and the middle of next week too. Good luck!

[buckeyeboy]

RC been following you,it is sure hard not to tap with this weather. A fellow down the road is tapped,he is on all buckets.I have not talked to him,so don't know how he is doing.Let us all know when you tap.

[RC Maple]

I can't wait to be able to say that I'm all in but that won't be today. After this Wednesday I don't see another day where the temperature begins with a 4 until the last week of February. Hopefully that will change and this cold spell will only be a couple weeks. I know I could always move my taps if the first ones slow up later but those trees are farther away and I don't want to spend half the season doing that. Can't wait to make some steam!
17263

[ldick]

We tapped vacuum line. Approx 1100 taps. Got about 2000 gal sap this weekend. Based on weather forecast looks like 3rd or 4th week February before we will do buckets.

[Clearly Custom]

Looking for a used arch and pan if anyone in northwest Ohio has anything available2x6 or 2x8


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[Greensprings sugar]

Thinking about going all in Wednesday. Whats your plans?

[RC Maple]

Thinking about going all in Wednesday. Whats your plans?

Wednesday looks like a good day to start! I am going out of town for the weekend though so my start will have to wait until next week. I have been hoping since this trip was planned that I wouldn't miss any good weather next weekend while I was away. Until the last few days I thought that was going to be the case. Good luck!

[ash10383]

We tapped yesterday and going to finish tapping tonight or tomorrow in Seneca County. Hopefully have some good sap Wednesday and Thursday

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[RC Maple]

I got back from my weekend away and after a busy couple of days got 50 buckets out yesterday. I usually do 55 but I was trying to avoid getting that drowning in sap feeling...and also that's a few less gallons to carry out of the woods. It's great exercise though and I may add to my total - we'll see how it goes. I was hoping for 29 degrees last night but I think we only had 31. According to accuweather next Monday is the next night below freezing at 30 degrees but later in the week we get back to some colder temps.

[RC Maple]

Evidently the 31 degrees we had last week was enough to get a run though not a big one - we got a good Saturday boil from it. I was hoping for 31 or better Sunday night but only got 32. They did run enough over a couple days to boil last night. I am all caught up with sap and it looks like later this week after the rain goes through we will see some temps cold enough to reset things. Sugar content this year hasn't been very good. Most times when I check it it looks like 1.5%. Judging by the amount of syrup I have made that may be close.

[ash10383]

Sooo hoping for a cooler weekend, otherwise I'm afraid our taps will really dry up.

[zimmermg]

The next couple weeks look real good. Hoping my vacuum taps hold out for another couple weeks with a drill date of 1/20/18:confused:

[RC Maple]

The last few days have been pretty good for sap flow. I did skip boiling last night to get to a basketball game though. Got another 3 gal of syrup jugged up though and I needed to get that done. Looks like the next few days should be good as well.

[RC Maple]

Closing in on gathering the most sap I have had in my 7 years of sugaring. We haven't had any real big days either - no 2+gallon/tap runs. 2013 was my best year for making syrup. The sugar that year ended up being 2.2%. I don't think this year will end up with sugar being that high. We had a 1.84% average last year and that may be close for this year. Still have some good sapping weather ahead - it looks like we'll see what happens. When we're done I will figure what the sugar content was and would like to see how others sugar compared to previous years.

[ash10383]

We are definitely pleased with what we've been bringing back! looks like final couple of days, our season being nearly exactly 6 weeks. We did have a few good days when at least half had 2+ gallons in a day and then went on run all night / day for another 3+ gallon

[ash10383]

Pulled our taps yesterday, currently have 28.5 bottled so should cross 30 gallon of finished syrup from our 75 taps after finishing the last batch today from Monday & Yesterday's sap, about 90 gallon. Although we were probably only gathering off 50 trees this last week, many have dried up but at 6w2d, that's to be expected!

[RC Maple]

My season came to an end on the 25th of March when I came down with the flu. While still feeling good enough to be out, I took down buckets on Sunday and Monday. Many trees had stopped running completely which I hadn't experienced before the last two years. Still, it was a good season. I ended up averaging 14.5 gal sap/tap and I ended up with 0.31 gal syrup/tap. If my sugar content would have been higher I could have been pushing another record. This years sugar was like last year though at 1.84%. I have just about everything cleaned up now. We did a final cleaning on the buckets and lids last night. Now I have some more cleaning to do on the pan, clean and paint the evaporator, mop the floor, and wipe everything down. Not long after everything is put away I'll be looking forward to next year!