U.P. Tapping 2020

[KitchiGumee]

Hey gang,
Where is everyone at with their plans? I’ve never tapped this early but I’m going to do my first three dozen today with highs scheduled near fifty over the weekend coming up.

Good luck!

[miohman]

I think we are going to tap this weekend as well. Looks good in the two week

[nasion]

I tapped earlier this week in anticipation of the great weekend and future outlook.

[UPventrure]

First boil of 2020 for us was quite the show. First set back we had a cold spell that froze all our buckets solid or near solid. After collecting 4 barrels of block sap were able to get enough to thaw to fill out pans. Then the plan was to circulate the sap through the pre-heater and thaw the rest. Our RO would just get by passed and we'll just run the transfer pump to circulate. Discovered we had a fitting failed, quickly changed it and then ran into the issue of trying to pump slush which turned out didn't agree with our pump. Trying our best to improvise on the fly with hot pans and struggling to get liquid sap to the pans we ended up using a 18v transfer pump to get by. In the end there was still a few Chuck's of ice that had to hit the pans to save from scorching. We pulled as much liquid we could out of the ice with a large amount of the sap remaining ice we tested the sugar and we're getting 6-8 brix. This was probably or most difficult boil since we started. Everything was fighting us but we still made over 3 gallons of syrup.

[nasion]

Great looking weather coming up for a lengthy sap run here in the Copper Country! Just in time for the statewide stay at home order. Looking forward to maintaining social distance by sitting in the sugar shack all day a few times in the next couple weeks. Good luck fellow yoopers!

[Northbound1]

First year here and I'm not sure when I should be calling it quits? I pulled my buckets today since im sick of that nonsense. But 10 day forecast looks good here in iron county. Any suggestions from you experienced guys?

[regor0]

Typically my best runs are around the 10th-15th, but I am a bit north of Iron County.

[nasion]

Based on the last five years I've boiled, I've called it quits somewhere in the early- to mid-April range. Depends on conditions of course. If the sap is still flowin' I'm game to keep boilin'. Still have snow up in the Copper Country which means spring hasn't gotten here quite yet!