2018 One for the Record Books

[BAP]

I finished up boiling yesterday after gathering 100 gallons of sap. Got it all boiled in and the sweet pushed through the pans. I ended up with 108.75 gallons on 227 taps. That’s 0.479 gallons per tap. Not bad for not having high vacuum. I have 17 taps on 5/16” strictly gravity, 110 taps on a Shurflo pump pulling 20-23” of vacuum , and 100 taps on 5 lines of 3/16”. My sap never got above 1.8% this year and at the end was down to 1.1%. Lots of sap boiled and lots of wood used. Now the cleanup begins and time to start next year’s wood supply.

[spud]

Sounds like you had a great season. Enjoy your summer now.

Spud

[BAP]

Thanks Spud

[maple flats]

That is indeed a good production without being all high vacuum. If you have the elevation drop, most if not all of the 3/16 could be hi vacuum.

[Parker]

Great job BAP.....those are great numbers congratulations

[BAP]

Thanks guys. I live at about 1150 feet elevation. My 3/16” has about 75’ drop from top to bottom so I get 27-28” vacuum on the gauges at the top. Unfortunately, you only get the high vacuum when it’s running good. When it’s marginal weather wise, it tends not to get running enough to get the good vacuum. My Shurflo setup will out run it when it doesn’t freeze for 2-3 days, when it is first getting going in the day, or late in the season when you need vacuum to keep the trees running and so on. Overall, I get great production from the 3/16, but this year there was several times particularly at the end that I would have gotten more with some sort of mechanical vacuum added to it.

[n8hutch]

That's an awesome total, I can only dream my trees would give me that.