Tapping Central Pa 2020

[Paddymountain]

It's just about time to tap here in central Pa. I hope everyone is ready.
I have all my tubing ready to go; just some minor adjustments here and there.
I'm not planning to tap until after the 1st of February.
Feel free to post your activity here!

[Chief103]

No taps in yet for me either. Will be watching temps for the end of next week myself and if extended forecast temps look favorable I guess we can put the kids to work and have some fun. Hope everything is going well for you Paddy and good luck!

[Paddymountain]

Well, I got 145 taps in tonight! Sap is flowing rather well.
They are all 5/16 gravity into 3/4 inch main line. I am going to let the sap run on the ground
until Monday morning before hooking up my tanks.
It looks like almost 50 degrees here on Mon, Tues, Wed.
Should have my first boil Thursday.
I need to get 100 3/16 taps plugged in, and put out about 50 buckets
as time allows.

[minehart gap]

Cleaned, sanitized all my laterals that were up last year then put about 80 taps in this afternoon to rinse. That will run on the ground while I finish tapping.
Still need to put the steam stack through the roof and connect my water line and I think it will be time to clean everything and start boiling. Maybe Sunday or Monday.

[Paddymountain]

I have 42 more taps in this morning on 3/16. Sap was literally running down the trees before
I got the tap pounded in. Also hooked up the 145 taps that I put in Friday night.
I'm going to keep tapping a little bit every day, and hope to be done by Saturday.
I have 50 buckets to get out yet. The last two years I tried to time them to the optimal weather.
I think that might have been a mistake; so this year out they go with all the rest of the taps on tubing!

[Paddymountain]

The 42 taps on 3/16 I put in yesterday morning almost filled a 55 gallon drum until this evening.
Last nigh I put in 30 and this morning another 35; all on 3/16.
I have 90 taps at the house that need plugged in yet.
Tonight I have the evaporator and all the tanks rinsed out.
Don't know how much sap I'll have tomorrow, but thinking I'll have
enough to boil.
Anybody else in central Pa. tapped yet?

[Paddymountain]

We had our second boil tonight and drew off about 3 1/2 gallons of syrup.
All taps on tubing are in , and also about 50 buckets.
We tapped our buckets yesterday at 1;00 and they ran really good!
Some trees giving maybe 4 gallons of sap on two taps.
3/16 tubing was running faster than I have ever seen.
Will probably get as much tomorrow as we got today!

[Billinpa]

Got all my tubing run (3/16) and will be tapping in tomorrow. Weather looks good until the weekend when it looks like it will slow down for a couple days then pick back up next week!

[Paddymountain]

Looks like we are in the deep freeze here until Sunday.
It was a pretty wild beginning to the week with a 2 gallon
per tap run! Monday I boiled until 1:00 am and couldn't get it all done,
and still had 150 gallons we didn't get to the sugar shack.
To date , I have boiled 1100 gallons. Sugar content has been fairly decent.
The evaporator was emptied this morning, and Sunday will get a good cleaning
in preparation for the next run.
Next week is looking good!

[minehart gap]

PA Dept of Ag called me yesterday when I was at work and said they were outside my sugar shack. Ran home quick and showed them all the paperwork. Passed with no comments. They seem to really want to work with us sugar makers lately. Russell Redding even went out of his way to get answer to some questions for me last year.

[minehart gap]

Finally finished tapping. Hoping for a great season for everyone.

[Paddymountain]

Well, the trees are just starting back up from the deep freeze.
Yesterdays run wasn't much to talk about. We boiled about 100 gallon of sap last night
and made 2 1/2 gallon of syrup. Pretty much caught up; all the syrup we made is
filtered and bottled. I think today and tomorrow will be good. A little freeze on Thursday
and then back into some good freeze/thaw cycles over the weekend.

[Paddymountain]

We are all caught up again. It's nice to get a good freeze now and then.
It gives you time to filter and bottle. Everything boiled so far is in a bottle or
5 gallon jug. If it warms up enough today, I'll rinse out all the tanks.
I learned something the other night I should have known.
I have AOF/AUF. Last year I replaced two sawdust waste gates with ball valves.
I just set them where I thought they ought to be, and hadn't touched them after that.
Well, I went from some rather wet wood to very dry wood. I couldn't keep the syrup in the pan
unless I fired sparingly. And then of course not much going on in the flue pan.
So, I decided it was time to tinker a little. I shut the under fire down just a little, and what a difference!
now you can run along without having to defoam the front pans so much. Yesterday I
boiled about 275 gallons and used defoamer only once. Anyway, I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks!
Hope everyone is having fun!

[Paddymountain]

Really great sap runs Saturday and Sunday. 28 degrees this morning so I expect more today.
Had a good boil last night, making probably 7-8 gallons of syrup.
Sugar content has been good. 2.4 on buckets, 2.0 on 5/16 tubing, and 1.4 on reds with vacuum.
It's shaping up to be a great season. I'm not near made enough syrup yet, but the cold nights
are helping keep things flowing. Long boil again tonight, and maybe a little break tomorrow night.
Weather looks to be cold next week.

[Paddymountain]

Almost recovered from the tsunami of sap from Sun/Mon. We gathered around 900 gallons
of mostly 2.2+ sap. We filled 8 kettles with syrup in 3 days. Boiled about 2800 gallons so far.
Weather looks like a freeze Friday and Saturday, hope to get everything filtered and bottled .then

[Paddymountain]

In the deep freeze, and all caught up with filtering and bottling.
Ended up with a little over 27 gallons of syrup from Sunday - Wednesday.
Evaporator is cleaned out and ready for the next run.

[umpwood1]

Hoping for another big run today. It's been a great year so far.

[Paddymountain]

Well, it looks like the end is in sight. We will probably be done on Sunday.
It has been a great year here in Union County. Tomorrow we will have boiled 4000 gallons of sap!
The last 3 Mondays were incredible with super sap flows. The wood pile has been decimated, and
ambition has dropped off dramatically. The season always starts with high hopes, and anticipation
for plenty of syrup. Usually the weather brings a death knell with sustained high temperatures.
We were in it since the beginning of February. In my earlier post I said I would put my buckets out
as soon as possible. That turned out to be a wise decision. 17 taps on 3/16 and 50 buckets brought us a tad
over 1200 gallons of sap that never went under 2.0 and mostly ran at 2.3-2.4!
This has turned out to be my second best year since making syrup.
The only year that was better was 2013, where we made syrup from the first week of February until the end of March.
We boiled 5100 gallons that year. I hope everyone has reached their goals, and still had fun!!!!

[Paddymountain]

It's Over!!!! We had our last boil today. It was barely enough to start up. We finished the year out
at a little over 4200 gallons of sap. I need to boil out the evaporator for a final tally,
but right now have 82 gallons of syrup filtered and bottled. Like I said in the previous post,
second best season after 2013 where we made 101 gallons of syrup.
Also did it on fewer taps. It turned out to be a great season here, even though it only
lasted 5 weeks!