Southwest PA Tapping 2023

[DRoseum]

2023 thread - considering tapping this weekend.

[SRM]

I am not ready yet, but it does look good for Sunday to start. I am trying a small RO this year. Hopefully it helps with less wood having to be burnt.

[DRoseum]

Best of luck on the RO and the season! ROs are game changers, you will love it. If I don't tap this weekend, perhaps next.

[DRoseum]

Tapped last night, sap was flowing nice. Have to find a leak in a line quick after work tonight and fire up the RO and evaporator. Its officially begun! Best of luck to everyone on their season!

[SRM]

Yesterday afternoon I was able to tap 1/3 of the total I want this year. First time using 5/16 gravity line and the two handed tubing tool. It took a few tries to figure out how to use the tool efficiently. Today I'll finish the rest. The low is 17 today and the high will be 37. Hopefully sap will be flowing. I have parts for a solar vacuum system coming in as well. I plan on testing it out on about 15 taps latter on next week. We will see how it goes.

[Polish Wizard]

As I travel between Allegheny and Mercer counties it is interesting on the different weather conditions, and not always with Mercer being the coldest or most snow covered.

Last year I set up and tried a new StarCat and RO Bucket systems and eventually tapped on February 16th, about a week late from my previous norm - making 9 gallons of finished syrup before I pulled the plug.
(My friends and family loved me -- kinda like hanging hot dogs around your neck to play with the dog.)
Really glad I made the transition from 3 buffet pans over a homemade arch.

With the weather jumping up from really cold temps these past couple days I plan to head north tomorrow and tap my 47 trees to start my season.
I'll take the rest of the day to clean all my equipment and get the RO out of summer storage.

A couple years back I found a man up north just over the Ohio border who has a commercial oil-fired set-up, rents additional bush and hauls the sap, works with neighboring farmers to process their sap, and also sells maple equipment.
This past week I noticed his rented bush has already been tapped - so by following his lead -- I'm already behind schedule.

[HowardR]

Whew! It's been a busy three days, but now I've got almost all my taps in, my evaporator boiling and my RO's humming. The sap is pouring in. This season is starting out with a big flow.

I'm in the middle of Armstrong County and following three different weather services -- weather.com, accuweather.com, and wunderground.com. Right now I'm hoping Weather Underground is right because they're the only one showing a couple of frosts between now and Saturday night. Without a frost, the sap would slow and stop flowing, but a couple of frosts would keep it pouring out and make this one of the fastest starts to a season ever.

[SRM]

I have collected 200 gallons of sap and was going to start the RO today and the 2x4 evaporator, but it's going to be 68 degrees with very high winds here so I thought I should wait until Friday Morning? I can keep the sap cold enough until then. My RO can process 24 gallons of sap an hour. That will take over 8 hours of running. We are expecting high winds and that means a chance of electricity going out. What do you think I should do, keep everything cold and wait out the "storm" or forge ahead and start the RO and try to make it through. This will be my first time running the RO so I'm not sure how that will go.

[HowardR]

SRM,

I'd process the sap right away. It's very hard to keep sap cool enough in that sort of heat. Besides, a power failure wouldn't wreck an RO. If the power goes out, I would just unplug the RO and turn off the sap entrance to the RO until the power failure is over. Then, as soon as the power comes back on, I would turn on the sap entrance to the RO and plug in the RO and resume.

[DRoseum]

Yep - agree with HowardR. Just don't let the concentrate sit in the warm weather very long either. It will spoil faster than the raw sap. As others have said, treat sap (and especially concentrate) like you would milk. Letting it sit for hours in 60+ degrees is a sure way to spoil it.

[HowardR]

D. Roseum,

Good point about the concentrate. I wasn't even thinking about it because I have a continuous process system: The sap flows flows right from my holding tanks into my RO's, and the concentrate flows right out of my RO's into my evaporator, so I never have any concentrate lying around.

[DRoseum]

D. Roseum,

Good point about the concentrate. I wasn't even thinking about it because I have a continuous process system: The sap flows flows right from my holding tanks into my RO's, and the concentrate flows right out of my RO's into my evaporator, so I never have any concentrate lying around.

Very nice, that's the way to do it! Nice and efficient! Similar here - try to keep it all continuous, straight thru and as automated as possible.

Hope the season is going well for you and everyone in SWPA so far!

[HowardR]

Forecast looks great for this week -- frosts tonight, Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday with highs well above freezing. The frost on Thursday is tenuous, but the others are supposed to be well below freezing. Good weather for maple syrup so far this season!

Now if I could just stop spilling sap.... Today's big spill was caused by a junction that came apart in the main line -- due to the very cold weather last night. I thought that the sap wasn't running because the sap in the line was frozen, besides, I was busy with other things. Then, after losing about half of today's sap, I finally walked the line and found the break. We have a saying in our house -- "No use crying over spilled sap."

[SRM]

With the warmer weather, I've noticed slightly yellow sap and very yellow color sap in some of my sealed buckets and hanging hooded buckets. About 5 taps out of 115. I know it is not from any neighbors doing something they shouldn't. It seems to happen when it's warm and sometimes after a rain when it is warm outside. I'm thinking of using vacuum next year. If I do, I won't know if any of this yellow sap will be making it's way into my collection container. Can anyone tell me what causes this sap to look off color. The trees that had some slightly yellow sap and even darker yellow sap have produced clear sap afterwards. It just happens with a few trees when the temperature is above normal. The trees look healthy as far as I can see. Would the clear sap that they produce afterwards be okay to boil? Do any of you experienced this in the past?

[HowardR]

SRM,

I can see two possibilities as to the causes of the yellowed sap in 5 of your buckets: (1) rain got into your buckets despite their seals and hoods, or (2) you're were getting a bit of sap that is influenced by budding. Of the two, I think the most likely is the first.

[DRoseum]

Or more bacterial activity due to warm weather.

[Pdiamond]

I have had it happen to me, as you said, usually after a rain. It's from the rain running down the tree and into the bucket and it discolors the sap.

[SRM]

Thanks everyone for the information. Should I discard this sap? I have been tossing it, but not sure if I should. There isn't any smell to the lighter yellow sap so I'm not sure if its bad. Should I save it? The darker sap just looks real bad so there is no keeping that.
I already cleaned my buckets once this year because of bacteria growth on the bottoms after a few days of 60 and 70 degree weather. I don't like these two to three days of 60 to 70 degree weather we are having here this year. It just kills the sap that I'm getting. Is it different when using taps on a vacuum? The taps on gravity just all shut down. I'm going from 85 gallons per day to 20 if I'm lucky.

[DRoseum]

You arent alone! It's been a historically awful year for syrup season weather. 3 straight weeks in Feb over 70F in PGH region.

I'd toss sap that doesn't look right. Just had to do that with over 160 gallons from the hot weather last week that I couldnt boil immediately. Just 1 day of sitting at those temperatures will spoil the sap. It was kind of depressing.

Vacuum does help keep the sap flowing but it's still problematic. I am on vacuum, use new check valve spiles each season and fully clean all of my lines meticulously at the end of the season and take them down and store inside. All that to try to keep yields high and stretch the season as long as possible...but these temps are killing yields and the season quickly. I am cleaning out the vacuum pump strainers/tubes and every tank daily to combat the warm temperature effects.

I am at approximately 55 -60% of normal yield this year and hopeful to close that gap a bit over the coming week.

Best of luck finishing out the season!

[HowardR]

Sap is flowing well today. It's not pouring out, but it's not trickling. I haven't seen it flow well for more than a week.

[SRM]

Well I emptied my divided pan. No sense letting it sit there without sap to put in. With 115 gravity taps I only got 50 gallons of sap in two days. I am not pulling my taps yet, but I don't see any large runs happening soon. I think next year I'm going to tap twice as many trees,, boil like crazy until I get the gallons of syrup I want and then call it a season. I could possibly be done in 2 weeks. (I was getting 85 gallons/day in the first week this year). I'll use a solar vacuum and some long gravity runs down the hill. Less walking around and looking into empty buckets seems like a good idea.

[HowardR]

Well I emptied my divided pan. No sense letting it sit there without sap to put in. With 115 gravity taps I only got 50 gallons of sap in two days. I am not pulling my taps yet, but I don't see any large runs happening soon. I think next year I'm going to tap twice as many trees,, boil like crazy until I get the gallons of syrup I want and then call it a season. I could possibly be done in 2 weeks. (I was getting 85 gallons/day in the first week this year). I'll use a solar vacuum and some long gravity runs down the hill. Less walking around and looking into empty buckets seems like a good idea.

Sorry to hear that you are done so early. I'm still in the game, but I am about the same distance North of Pittsburgh that you are South of Pittsburgh. I'm actually expecting a big run tomorrow because the low tonight is supposed to be about 29 and the high tomorrow is supposed to be about 65. But, even if tomorrow's run pans out, I'll probably finish this year with only a little more than half of my usual amount of syrup.

[DRoseum]

I am pretty much exactly half way between you guys and got a half decent run overnight. Hopefully more today...and maybe a couple more days if it actually freezes tonight ...but the season is near over - tapholes and tree buds are definitely indicating we are close. Definitely a very odd year.