Too cold to tap

[tonka]

At what temp is too cold to tap? I thought I read somewhere that if its below 15 degrees out, it's too cold, to much risk of damaging the tree.

[Russell Lampron]

I don't tap below 15* because I don't want to freeze my fingers. There is more of a risk of splitting the trees too. When I've tapped when it's that cold I've had to go back and seat the taps again when it warmed up.

[DrTimPerkins]

With 5/16" spouts and good bits, there is less danger of wood splitting when it is cold. Below 15 deg F it is more of an issue of tappers keeping warm. If the windchill is less than 15 deg F, our crew does inside work.

[littleTapper]

Last year it was so **** cold right up until the 8th of March I had to tap when it was cold. Single digits. Keeping your core warm helps keep the hands warm. No gloves. Yeah, fingers get a little tingly but I had no problems with a good bit and CV spouts. No splits that I could tell. Shurflo and 3/16 gravity all pulled great vac.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

I prefer to tap around 20 degrees when the tree is not flowing. Was able to do that last year, not so much this year.

[wmick]

Kind of a silly notion, because I'd have missed out on some of the season, but I kind of like how tapping goes when the sap is already flowing... as it seems to clean the shavings out of the tap hole.... And they seem to seal up better.
You also notice, right away, if you accidentally tap an elm tree. :emb:

[maple flats]

I prefer to tap when the sap first starts to run, which now that I'm retired and have cut down to about 400-450 taps I can do.
Back when I had 2 leases and my only help was 3 college students who had to return to school from Christmas break about Jan 20, we started tapping Jan 2 and worked everyday the wind chill was at or above 10 F. Colder than that we generally either took off or split more firewood ahead. My wood processing yard is out of the wind with good woods around it on all sides.
Back then we hardly ever had a tap leak from a split bark at the tap. From freeze and thaw cycles until sap flow started we did need to check and reset taps but a light tap usually fixed it.
I think many tappers use too much hammer and hit it too hard. All of my help always was given a pair of 7" lineman's pliers, they were trained to use the flat jaw side and to just tap using their wrist not their whole forearm or worst their whole arm.

[DrTimPerkins]

I think many tappers use too much hammer and hit it too hard.

That is frequently the case. A small tapping hammer is a good investment to prevent over-seating the spout. The result of proper seating (as opposed to over-driving spouts) is considerably higher sap yields.

IMO, the two best things you can get for tapping are a real tapping hammer (as opposed to a framing or carpenters hammer) and a real maple tapping bit.