Ready For 2022?

[John-NJ]

I'm looking forward to a good season - with some luck and weather!

Spent the last few years on the sidelines due to a bunch of personal issues, but I have spent the last 4 weeks getting everything ready - tuned up the RO, replaced pump on the releaser, rebuilt vacuum pump, plus a bunch of work on the tubing and lines out in the woods. Watching the weather and thinking about tapping the end of this week. Local friend with buckets started a couple of weeks ago and has had a couple of days with decent production. Anyone else out there tapping yet?

Nice to be back!

[dcast99]

Still getting ready for the season. All collection tanks are cleaned and put in their spots. Adding a 2nd membrane on the RO this year. Will do this right before we use it. Still have to plumb the new sap hauling trailer. Had to add a 3rd tank in order to get all of the sap to the sugar house. Repaired my lower sap runs this past weekend. The upper runs are almost impossible to get to with all of the ice on top of 5" of snow on the ground. I need ice cleats. Hopefully this week's warmer weather will soften it a bit.

[John-NJ]

And we're off!

I got antsy and tapped on Saturday thinking I might get some sap on Sunday. Turned on the vacuum and fixed some leaks on Sunday, but no flow till yesterday when I got maybe 20 gallons. Temp peaked today at 49 and is still in the high 30's at 10:30 pm, and still getting about 7 or 8 gallons per hour with about 125 gallons so far today. Gonna turn off the vacuum shortly, so I can clear out the releaser in case things do freeze tonight.

No ice here in Hopewell, just mud!

[John-NJ]

dcast did you get everything together and taps in? I had a personal best day for collection on Thursday with a total of 200 gallons of sap - almost 2 gallons per tap. Wednesday and Friday weren't shabby either. Down to 95 gallons yesterday. Lots of almost syrup to finish and bottle.

best-

[dcast99]

Didn't tap my place in Wantage. I put a nail in a small maple last weekend to hold up my main line and it is not weeping so I don't think the trees are running yet. Whole different world up there. I have a north west facing hillside. I still have 3 -4" of snow on the ground. Will tap on Saturday. The sugar house is in Denville and we will tap those 30 trees the beginning of this week. The sap is running there. My buddy always waits too long to tap

[John-NJ]

Dave

I am always interested and a little surprised how local conditions affect flow. I just finished a couple of gallons of syrup yesterday, and have maybe 3 or so more to do today, meanwhile resting up for the next big flow.

Have a great season!

[dcast99]

Did our first boil yesterday. Had 500 gal of sap to cook. By the time I got the 2nd post added to the RO and did all the startup washes it wasn't worth it to process any of the sap. At least it's ready to go for the next time. Made about 7 gal of syrup. We didn't bottle it like we normally do, it was getting late. Will filter and bottle it with the next batch.

[John-NJ]

Glad you're off and running! At that rate you should eclipse me in the next day or so! I've made about 19 gallons here in the south and working on another 200 gallons of sap right now. This is already a record year for me, so I am pretty pleased.

Worked with 5050racing's apprentice last week to get him started while Teddy is in Florida, so there are at least a few of us going here in the Garden State.

Are you getting good sugar content from your sap this year? I started off really high (for red maples) but it has dropped down quite a bit.

-j

[dcast99]

Still waiting for sap to collect in my tanks. Only boiled once so far. Got my buckets tapped on Sunday and the sap was barely flowing. Hopefully something will be in the tanks tomorrow.

[dcast99]

Had our 2nd boil of the year today. About 580 gal of sap. Year total for syrup is 15 gal. Part way thru the boil one of our pan mount thermometers started acting funny so mid stream had to reverse flow on the pan in order to use the other thermometer.

[John-NJ]

Spring peepers heard last night and this morning!!

Temp is forecast to be 75 today, cold front coming through later, but doesn't look like much freezing weather in the next week. Processing 155 gallons this am, which may be the last but we'll see.

If it is the end, I cant really complain - should come out of it with 28+ gallons of syrup, more than double my previous seasons high

[dcast99]

The frost is just coming out of the ground up here making everything a sloppy mess. Have about 550 gal to take care of today. Not worried about the peepers yet. Most years we get a warm spell then it turns back to sap weather. Let's hope it does.

[dcast99]

Made 9.5 gal of nice amber syrup today. Total for the year is only 25.5 gal. Hope to get to at least last year's total of 60 gal. Have to look around fog pint jugs to put it in. Our local supplier is out and can't get anymore.

[John-NJ]

I got 95 gallons of sap from yesterday, but now the calendar looks bad for the next week plus.

Did my last boil for the year - finished up with about 28 gallons of sap per tap, and what will be a total of almost 30 gallons of syrup. Really spectacular year for me, and now I need to spend the next few days washing everything and putting together the to-do list for next year.

Best to all

John

[dcast99]

We did our last real boil on the 17th with 660gal of sap. Did the evap cleanup boil on the 20th. We made a total of 58 gal of syrup for the year. Had one of my runs (90 taps) setup for vacuum but with the way the season and my time went I didn't get to run it much.