Tapped Monongalia Today

[llew.williams]

I put in 72 taps today. Every hole I drilled was flowing immediately. The next couple of weeks is forecast to be warm. Too warm. My season has begun. :) I will be phasing in more sections in the next couple of weeks.

[Sugarmaker]

Good luck with your season!
Keep boiling!
Regards,
Chris

[canaanmaple]

I put in 72 taps today. Every hole I drilled was flowing immediately. The next couple of weeks is forecast to be warm. Too warm. My season has begun. :) I will be phasing in more sections in the next couple of weeks.

awesome! have a great season! should run some for you in the next 10 days with this cold spell coming

[llew.williams]

I canned my first run today. 9 pints with a little extra for my kitchen. A very light amber color. I've always been fond of the early syrup. Gotta try it out on some pancakes tomorrow. I collected roughly 100 gallons of sap in the first 24 hours. Then the weather stayed warm and the sap flow almost stopped. I had plenty of time so I ran the RO at a high pressure. I was getting 9-10% concentrate. I'm trying to be a little more gentle with the syrup this year. I want to see if I can make some that is lighter in color this year. I'm going to run the fire a little cooler with less air. Since I have been here I usually ran the evaporator as hard as it would go. Full air. On my previous farm I consistently made lighter syrup, but I was cooking on gas there (free gas well). I'm going to try to run the pan a little deeper too. See what happens. Tapping a few more trees today. Next week looks promising after this cold snap. Nice hard freeze here last night. I still have half of my trees untapped. Waiting a couple more weeks.