Tapping Elk. Co.

[wlatrout]

Tapped 40 trees Wed. Finished my woods with 66 more taps. My trees are mostly small soft Maple Put in 27 more taps in yard large Sugar Maples yesterday. 1 1/2 % sap run through a homemade RO to anywhere between 5 to 9%. settled on 6%. 9% makes syrup in short order, but takes a lot of sap and a considerable amount of time to get enough to cook. 6-6.5 works nicely for me. I don't think the large Sugar Maples have thawed yet, not much of a run yet. The smaller maples ran good yesterday and today. Hope for a good season. Let you know at the end.

[wlatrout]

Shut everything down today. Still had clear sap but had slowed down ,then when tightening the draw off valve on the pan, the collar broke off. Considering I was getting weary of collecting and cooking sap I decided to call it quits for this season. 22 gal made, which is down from last yr. Strange thing was I had 12 big sugar maples I tap and only one of them gave any sap this year. Normally the produce very well. Go figure!