Anyone else still collecting

[Evella]

I know there might not be a lot of us in Rhode Island but just curious if people are still collecting. It’s my first year making maple syrup, it started as a little project with my kids. Now I’m obsessed. Started with 3 taps and a couple of buckets. I got 12 gallons of sap. Now I have 19 taps and in the last two days collected over 40 gallons of sap,which I have no idea how I will store or boil down any suggestions would be great. Good luck with the storm!

[BSD]

I know there might not be a lot of us in Rhode Island but just curious if people are still collecting. It’s my first year making maple syrup, it started as a little project with my kids. Now I’m obsessed. Started with 3 taps and a couple of buckets. I got 12 gallons of sap. Now I have 19 taps and in the last two days collected over 40 gallons of sap,which I have no idea how I will store or boil down any suggestions would be great. Good luck with the storm!the end closing in for RI, not far behind you in CT.

you can buy food grade buckets at Lowes (blue ones are FG, despite the fact they don't say it). Otherwise i've seen some guys use big Igloo coolers (after a good scrubbing)

[Evella]

Food grade buckets and coolers is what I have been doing. I guess I’ll jist have to get more

[BSD]

Food grade buckets and coolers is what I have been doing. I guess I’ll jist have to get morenext step up is a 55 gallon open top drum. then get a food grade liner.

[Evella]

The 55 gallon drum may be the way to go. I bought some more buckets and now have 80 gallons. I have no idea how I will boil it all down in a weekend in just a fire.

[5050racing]

Evella it's amazing how this addition starts and now you find yourself with all this sap and trying to find a way to make syrup it's fun we have experienced what your going thru! I've had to build a reverse osmosis machine that's how bad my addition as gotten! I started with a few trees now not sure but about 50 taps collected about 1300gal of sap this year.i went from buckets to drums now many 275gal tote tanks! Good luck and enjoy what's left of the season!

[thecabinguy]

Yup, your story sounds familiar. I now have a sugar shack, wood fired double pan boiler, and 160 taps. Started with 15 experimental taps and a big pot over an open fire. Took me all weekend to boil away 15 gallons. I have had pretty good luck with Sap Saks. I've used a few buckets and much prefer the bags. They are just easier to deal with. My bags have been filling this week. I tapped early and thought they were about done already. Nope. They woke up last weekend. They should run some more after this weekend's deep freeze. I'll boil again next weekend and that'll probably be the end. Good luck. I hope you can fight the urge to expand. It gets even the best of us.

[Evella]

Here we go!! So it was a great week for collecting sap this week, from last Sunday to this morning I have 84 gallons and the fire is already going at 6:30am. I’m sure I’ll be boiling well into the night and all day tomorrow. My best friends a welder and we are already making some plans for next year. Thanks for the encouragement and have a great weekend

[thecabinguy]

Looks like boiling is cancelled for this weekend. The extremely cold nights we have had, have frozen the sap solid. I have some giant sapcicles. I'm going to have to wait until they thaw out now. Looks like some warmer weather coming next week. I may have over 200 frozen gallons. Some of them were actually full and spilling over. Oh well. Freezing preserves it nicely. :mrgreen:

[Evella]

I’m running into the same thing. Do you find the sap will keep for another week. Or is it worth trying to bring some buckets in so you can still boil. I’m limited to the weekends so skipping a week I’m not sure I could boil it all down in a weekend.

[thecabinguy]

The last couple days have allowed some thawing. Still some ice, but I was able to start collecting last night. After today I should be mostly thawed out. Most of the trees I got to were running last night. I will be boiling this weekend after all. The sap won't go bad as long as there is ice. Next week is looking to get much warmer, so I'm glad I'll be able to collect it all this week. I too am limited to the weekends for boiling. The fire will be lit tonight.

[Evella]

So you boil at night? What are you boiling on and how long does it take you? Last week we boiled down about 80 gallons on our outdoor fire pit, which I expanded so we could put more pots. We ended up with about a gallon and a half of syrup. Trying to figure out a better set up for next year. A lot going on this year with getting bees in a couple weeks and our second flock of chickens

[thecabinguy]

Yes, I boil at night until I need to sleep. I just let the fire go out and start it back up early in the morning. I have a home made wood fired 2x6 arch with two connected pans. I boiled all weekend, shutting down at night. I ended up collecting a total of 280 gallons and ended up with about 5.5 gallons of syrup. Season total was over 600 gallons and about 12 gallons of syrup. A new record for me. I'm glad it's over now though. It's exhausting. �� Time to pull the taps for me.