Mid/southern Ohio 2023

[buckeye gold]

It's getting that time of year to start working on prep for syrup season. It has been early seasons for us southern Ohio guys the last couple years. I just finished installing a new air manifold in the firebox for A/O and A/U blower. Replaced some burnt out bricks and resurfaced with refractory. Will start line work soon and probably be ready to tap a few right after Christmas. What's everyone else doing?

[bmbmkr]

Busy busy down here in Lawrence County. I've upgraded my 4x40 RO to a single 8x40- got a recirculation pump from Leader. I've spent most of the last three months hunting down unicorn teeth, 1 1/2" Victaulic fittings. I've got it all plumbed up, waiting on a new pressure pump motor and a few frame modifications and she'll be ready for a test run with last years permeate.

I picked up a used steam away in June. As usual no plumbing or float included and the SA float box is on the opposite side of my flue pan float and head tank, so 10' of SS plumbing procured and installed. I fabbed the float and float inlet and float valve. My cousin gave me a used water heater to use for condensate "storage". I'm plumbing it into the wash sink. Will be nice not to have to use propane for the tankless water heater. and it'll be gravity fed. Hot water from the steam away, cold water from permeate tank. My sugar shack is an old sawmill shed. I finally have four walls and a door. The rafters won't hold the steam away, so I built a "gantry" out of 3" I beams to suspend the SA. boat winch with 1/4" cable to raise and lower it over the flue pan. I had to cut up and re work the steam hood we built a couple years ago. Now I have two steam hoods, one for SA and one for the syrup pan.

I decided to build an auto draw, have the PID, thermo couple and bellimo valve controller. Wired it all up and tested it with a voltage generator this past weekend. Just have to cut everything into the box and do some permanent wiring. My wife is welding a shaft extension to the buttery fly valve, hopefully this weekend. I'm looking forward to having time to filter and bottle while the auto draw keeps my pans happy.

Last year I only tapped 500 here at my place, this year I'm tapping my Dad's woods again, about 350 taps in up there. I'm starting cleanup in that woods tomorrow. Lots of limbs and a few trees down. Probably take a week. I MAY run a couple more laterals and pick up another 100 or so taps, I think I can manage 900 with the bigger RO and increase the steam away will provide.

Dad told me he nicked a box elder with his back hoe the other day and sap poured out of it. Looking forward to the season. I shoot for tapping the first week of January down here.

[buckeye gold]

I always tap an early sugar bush that's separate from my main bush. I tapped those 50 yesterday and the sap is running a full line in two 3/16 laterals today. I already had enough to start a fire and begin sweetening the pan. Hopefully tomorrow will be a full boil. I'm in Ross county. I anticipate my main tapping to be between January 20th and 31st. Good luck to all.

[bmbmkr]

Sounds good Buckeye. I'm still wrapping up the RO. I got my pump lines, mainlines and tubing flushed and most of the leaks fixed. I did a test boil last week with the steam away, got about 60 gph steady with tap water. I hope to squeeze a little more out of her with a bigger blower. I used my ol trusty 650 cfm the other night. The gate valve leaks like a sieve, it's made for wood shop dust collection, I used it to regulate the air in the steam away. I've been thinkin of a few ways to take off the gate valve and just restrict the 3" hose thats feeding it, neck it down to 1 1/2" maybe, I got the best bubble rate with the gate half shut. I traded your neighbor in Frankfort for a 1500 cfm blower back in August, just have to wire in another 220V outlet for it. Most of that increase will go to the AOF nozzles. Still have some work to do on my steam hood. I boiled the other night without the hood over the syrup pan and it quickly reminded me why we built a steam hood. I should be ready to tao here at the house by this weekend.

Walk

[buckeye gold]

Ben, This seems to be a hard year to decipher so far. I tapped these early taps sooner the last two years, but that's because it's been too warm. I have a sneaky suspicion we're going to get a good hard cold spell and the traditional tapping time may be true this year. The problem is those dang warm February days just make everything slimy. It makes for a bunch of extra cleaning and eventually kills the sap flow. Let's hope we don't see 70 degrees this February again.

[bmbmkr]

Weather will always be weather, the one thing we cannot count on no matter what the calendar says. I guess we just have to use experience and a bit of judgement and get er done to the best of our ability. After my bust season in 2022, I'll take anything I can get as long as I don't tear up any joints like I did my shoulder while trying to fall off the earth walking my tubing on a steep muddy hill side. I have a few loose ends in the sugar house, a coupe new vapor proof LED lights, a little work on my front steam hood, plumbing my sink from the steam away condensation outflow. Maybe re arranging some of my furniture- an 8' SS counter I picked up in Waverly last year and some of my shelves/cabinets. Lookin at a couple days in the 50's this coming week, so I'm shooting for after that to get my first 500 taps in. I have another 400 at my Dad's place up the road, but not sure I'll even get those in this year. We'll see.

[buckeye gold]

I tapped my early 50 last Tuesday and Had a good run Wednesday and cooked off 75 gallons of sap Thursday. Made Just shy of a half gallon of syrup and left a bunch of sweet in the pan. Had another run over night and had 60 gallons today and boiled that this afternoon. Made 3 quarts of really nice syrup. I think this week will have a couple crazy runs. Good luck Ben and everyone else. I think I will put the 100 taps in my main woods in the last week of January.

[buckeye gold]

Update, THis cold spell shut things down for a while. To date I collected approx. 300 gallons off my early taps and made a little shy of 3.5 gallons of syrup. I have about 7 gallons of super sweet to start back with next week. Right now I plan to tap the main bush (100 taps) on Monday or Tuesday January 22/23, 2024. With this cold reset It should be game on late next week. In the mean time the pan and tanks get cleaned. I know one other producer in Ross county has tapped and boiled a couple times. I think next week should be our start in southern Ohio.

[buckeye gold]

Tapped all my remaining trees today. I had so much squirrel damage it took me most of the day to do. I bet I replaced half my new drops and probably 200 ft of tubing and 40 spouts out of 100 taps. I have never seen it this bad. I had over a thousand feet of new tubing up and a lot of it now has repair couplers in it and has never seen sap. I hate to just start killing them but I can't stand this damage. I think the pellet gun is going in the side by side. Sap was just starting to run so tonight I will let it flush and tomorrow chase leaks, I know there will be a bunch. It's enough to make a man want to quit. If I can keep my lines intact this week should provide some good runs. Have I ever mentioned I hate squirrels.

[Iwantsyrup]

Hey Buckeye Gold, I’ve got an itchy trigger finger to tap but am dealing with some rookie indecision. I’ve read that it’s imperative to get a freeze at night for flow so I’ve held off tapping my 12 trees so far, but you said you should get some decent runs this week (minus the dang squirrel issues). Are you getting any night time freezes this week or is there some other variable that I am missing? I really appreciate your posts by the way! I’m in southern Clermont county for reference. Thanks brother!

[buckeye gold]

Iwantsyrup, This cold week we just finished reset the trees and drove the sap down. It will Run for about 3 days when the trees thaw. Should be big runs. Then we'll need a freeze thaw cycle to keep them going. The warm weather forecast is not the best for sap flows. My personal opinion is it's time to tap, my gut feeling is we'll have more warm than cold in February. Your taps should be good for a month to six weeks. Get what sap you can at this point. I'm up in ross county, Bainbridge area. I'll help you out however I can.

[Iwantsyrup]

Iwantsyrup, This cold week we just finished reset the trees and drove the sap down. It will Run for about 3 days when the trees thaw. Should be big runs. Then we'll need a freeze thaw cycle to keep them going. The warm weather forecast is not the best for sap flows. My personal opinion is it's time to tap, my gut feeling is we'll have more warm than cold in February. Your taps should be good for a month to six weeks. Get what sap you can at this point. I'm up in ross county, Bainbridge area. I'll help you out however I can.

I hear what you’re saying. I’m gonna pull the trigger on that note. I got my new evaporator all decked out and ready, and all my “mandatory” accessories organized, don’t want to wind up with no sap after all the research and prep work and suspense in my first year haha.

Thanks again buckeye gold, I’ll keep you posted and look forward to your posts too!

[buckeye gold]

If you got questions just ask there are a lot of people willing to help you out here. Trader has shortened the learning curve for a lot of us. Pm me if you want.

[Iwantsyrup]

Hey Buckeye! I tapped 5 trees close to the house this morning in the pouring rain haha. 2 of them starting dripping immediately. Other 3 were dry so far. So success in that I tapped my first maple trees! I drilled 2” deep, some at a slight maybe 10 degree angle down. I also tapped them gently in with a rubber mallet but not excessive I don’t think. I’ve since read maybe 1.5” might be better and horizontal as opposed to angled down slightly. Either way is ok I hope. I assume the 3 of the 5 that didnt flow is just the way it is and I hopefully don’t do anything wrong. But anyways, here we go! I’ve got another dozen or so trees left to tap this week! Thanks!

[buckeye gold]

Hey Buckeye! I tapped 5 trees close to the house this morning in the pouring rain haha. 2 of them starting dripping immediately. Other 3 were dry so far. So success in that I tapped my first maple trees! I drilled 2” deep, some at a slight maybe 10 degree angle down. I also tapped them gently in with a rubber mallet but not excessive I don’t think. I’ve since read maybe 1.5” might be better and horizontal as opposed to angled down slightly. Either way is ok I hope. I assume the 3 of the 5 that didnt flow is just the way it is and I hopefully don’t do anything wrong. But anyways, here we go! I’ve got another dozen or so trees left to tap this week! Thanks!

Your doing fine. I tap at 2" with only a very slight angle downward. Proctor Maple research center has a lot of tapping data linked through it's sight. Anything from 1.5 to 3" is ok, but I don't think there's much gain for 3" if any. My trees are very slowly waking up. I had 30 gallons of sap this morning from ~130 taps. They're still froze. The ones running are on field edges or more open woods. I look for them to gush sap in the next 24 hrs. You'll get the hang of setting the tap. Hit the spiles until you hear a sound change. I use just a light duty craft hammer and drive until it bounces off the tap and I'm usually good. With a mallet you'll hear a deadened thud when the tap is seated. LIsten and you'll pick it up pretty quick, it's fairly obvious once you've heard it a few times. Good luck and like I said, ask anything you don't know the answer to....no question is wrong or silly.

[DrTimPerkins]

Either way is ok I hope. I assume the 3 of the 5 that didnt flow is just the way it is and I hopefully don’t do anything wrong.

Warmer weather coming soon. Trees don't warm up as fast as air does. Can take them a while to thaw out before flow starts. Have a little patience and report back in a week.

[buckeye gold]

I want syrup, this is not too far from you. It's last minute and I don't know if you can still register, but I thought I'd post just in case

https://u.osu.edu/ohiomaple/upcoming-events/

[Iwantsyrup]

Man thanks that would have been sweet! I told my wife I was gonna try to go and she said no you aren’t because our youngest just started indoor soccer and it’s his second game ever at 6 years old so can’t miss it haha. Thanks for posting the link, good to know they do these events for beginners, I’ll keep an eye out for next year maybe.

I have 12 trees tapped now, 6 are flowing. Exciting! 2 of the morning buckets already have a gallon of sap each in them! Thanks again talk soon!

[Iwantsyrup]

Thanks dr Perkins, very much appreciated! 6 of 12 are flowing and excited to see the other 6 trees wake up! I’ve got a few more trees I can tap close to my side by side trail so I’ll tap them in the morning. I will definitely report back in, thanks for taking the time to post. It was very helpful.

[David Wayne]

I sure hope you're right, I only got 75 gallons from 160 taps today and the forecast is too much warm and no cold. Hope I'm wrong but this sure is starting to look just like last year.

[Redbean]

This year we have 126 taps. We tapped on 1/15/2024. It started to run last night by morning I had over 100 gallons. At noon we pumped up 100 gallons and left the rest about 30 gallons. At 530 we had another 100 gallons in the bottom tank. Later tonight I am going to pump up and see what we get tonight and in the morning. Probably will start cooking down tomorrow. Good luck to everyone. ✌️

[Iwantsyrup]

Hey Buckeye Gold, I got about 7 gallons from the dozen taps I have in, of which half of those were flowing. Yay! I tapped another three trees so 15 total now. If I can get up to 15 gallons or so by tomorrow I’m gonna give my little barrel evaporator an inaugural sap boil. Test run with water was awesome so I’m ready. If some of those other trees wake up I’ll hopefully get there. Pretty stoked. This hobby sort of feels like when I’m trapping. The morning excitement never gets old haha. Anyways, just wanted to give you an update.

[buckeye gold]

Good for you. I have a warning, this gets addictive and you'll just want to do more and more. Most of us started just like you and end up with shacks, bigger evaporators, ROs and many many more taps. I can see the trapping analogy. I ran a pretty large trap line up into the 90s and graded pelts at auctions for several years. Checking your sap in the morning is kind of the same way. My main bush still has not woke up yet. Those trees are barely running, but my early bush that is more open gave 60 gallons this morning from 50 taps that were set Jan 4th. Have fun.

[buckeye gold]

Next week looks like a good sap week for southern Ohio.

[Redbean]

We pump up 220 gallon the other night yesterday around 5 we pump up around 180 gallons. We cook it all down yesterday. That took about 11 hours. It’s all filtered just need to bottle it today. Have about 100 gallons in the bottom tanks. Probably will cook down what ever I have in the tank tonight.

[buckeye gold]

You’re doing pretty good redbean. I am a bit northwest of you and my trees are slowly getting going. I finally had enough run last night to flush the lines. My early taps are chugging right along. 50 gallons from them overnight. I look for everything to slow up and reset next week. Another local producer is seeing the same

[buckeye gold]

I am dumbfounded. My main woods (100 taps) still has not produced any usable sap. I got maybe 15 gallons for a flush then nothing. It went from 10 - 15 degrees for a week to 60 in two days and stayed 50 plus for 4 days. I knew that would not be good, but I expected a couple good runs. I have my early taps I put out January 4th and they are producing a gallon per tap /day and the two woods have the same exposure and are approx. 400 yards apart. What the heck is going on. Actually one lateral run the 15 gallons the other 4 have not run more than a few drips. In 15 years I never seen that woods not produce big runs.

[Iwantsyrup]

Hmmm, wonder if dr Perkins would have any feed back if he sees this. But yeah I got about 15 gallons from half dozen trees over a couple days, with another half dozen that haven’t flowed at all since I tapped last Tuesday. Now they’re all shut back down. But I was able to boil that 15 gallons down to a quart+ of tasty syrup and it was a lot of fun. Looking forward to more sap to boil hopefully!

[buckeye gold]

I heard from another producer about 20 miles east of me and they are seeing poor sap runs too. I guess it's just this crazy weather. Looks like some better conditions this week with some below freezing and 40+ daytime temps. I think we'll still see some good runs, but it may end early again this year. I am wondering if I should have went all in in early January.

Glad you got some syrup made Iwantsyrup.

[Iwantsyrup]

Thanks Buckeye it went pretty well, filtering into mason jars was a little clunky and lost a lot of syrup in the filters and the cloth filter, so might change some things up on that, but man it is delicious.

So, it’s gonna be chilly and cloudy again today, 30 tonight and finally 50 and partly sunny tomorrow; maybe see some sap flowin? It’s like a trap line that went cold, but man when it picks up you’re skinning in the evening like a madman. I’m sure the “tap line” will be the same if and when it turns on and starts flowing haha.

Have a great day guys!

[buckeye gold]

A piece of advice Iwantsyrup....Every new producer worries about losing syrup in the filters. It's part of the game, don't try and fix it you'll just make your filtering less efficient. If you want to recover some sugar then rinse the filters in some hot sap and save for the next boil. However, your just moving nitre forward too. Swallow real hard and move on. You will end up with cleaner syrup. I made up a simple filter system with a wire fryer basket and filters my wife sews up to fit. since I only filter small draws.2313123132

[Redbean]

Well it’s going ok this year, but I hope it gets colder real soon! Have made about 12.5 gallons. It’s already getting dark. The runs are slow and consistent. Get any where from 50-75 gallons of sap a day. No real big runs. Had to clean the tanks once already.

[buckeye gold]

I hear ya Redbean. I washed up once already and I need to do it again. I would be delighted to get 50 - 75 gallons a day. Right now I have one lateral that will drip about 10 gallons a day and the other 5 literally are not giving a drop. I am beyond frustrated and just in salvage mode now. I will leave taps in and boil what I can, but like you said it's all turning dark fast. If it doesn't change I'll just hang it up for the season. I wish I had went all in early January. Those runs on my early lines were really good. I made 6 gallons off those 50 taps, mostly the first 10 days of January. This is easily my worst and most puzzling season in 15 years of sugaring. This weather is dumbfounding. Like this morning it's 33 and bumps up to 35 off and on. Later today it will be 45-50. This has been a steady repeated pattern for 10 days. I go to bed every night hoping for at least a dip to 29, but no it's 34 again the next morning and 40-50 the next day. Then add 3.5 inches of rain and extreme mud and you have misery.

[spacetrance]

I have put in 151 taps this year, more than any other year.
I had 95 of them in by January 7th.
I probably only have 2.5 gallons of finished syrup.
It is very discouraging.
I am half tempted to put a vacuum and releaser on my mainlines, but after last year and a potential flop with year, I am not sure it is worth it...

For the record, the family and I only do syrup for fun and to give away.

[spacetrance]

I have put in 151 taps this year, more than any other year.
I had 95 of them in by January 7th.
I probably only have 2.5 gallons of finished syrup.
It is very discouraging.
I am half tempted to put a vacuum and releaser on my mainlines, but after last year and a potential flop with year, I am not sure it is worth it...

For the record, the family and I only do syrup for fun and to give away.

[buckeye gold]

Things still are not going well. My trees just will not produce sap. I have declared it my worse season ever and I am all but ready to call it quits for this spring. I have a Maple day with our Southern Ohio Forestland Association this Saturday and I will be lucky to have enough sap for an hour or two of boiling. After that I think I will just hang it up and get ready to work Gardens. The last few days have been lows in mid 20s over night and 50 degrees in the daytime and I get ~20 gallons of sap from 150 taps. It sucks.

[markcasper]

Things still are not going well. My trees just will not produce sap. I have declared it my worse season ever and I am all but ready to call it quits for this spring. I have a Maple day with our Southern Ohio Forestland Association this Saturday and I will be lucky to have enough sap for an hour or two of boiling. After that I think I will just hang it up and get ready to work Gardens. The last few days have been lows in mid 20s over night and 50 degrees in the daytime and I get ~20 gallons of sap from 150 taps. It sucks. I'd hang in there! Cold front and pattern change coming the end of this week.

[buckeye gold]

I hear you Markcasper, but I no longer do this as a business and I have enough for personal needs. I just won't be able to be as generous in what I give away. I have seen at least 3 favorable weather patterns come and go and still I do not get good runs. The next 4 days will be 60 plus degrees and that will reek havoc on lines, taps and tanks. I may stick it out next week, but that's about it. I am a one man crew and an old man at that. I am tired and ready to move on. I feel for those who are seeing the same poor production and are trying to make syrup to market.

[Iwantsyrup]

This has been and continues to be an educational and fun first season for sure! As for the 60 degree weather causing havoc, do you guys recommend any line and/or bucket cleaning for maintenance? I’m on buckets and drop tubes in the woods, and collect with buckets as well. I always rinse out my collection buckets that I bring back to the house but haven’t done anything with the buckets and lines and taps in the woods. Should I make this a priority today or soon?

Hoping things turn around Buckeye Gold!

[Iwantsyrup]

Well it’s running not too bad last couple days. Another good collection today hopefully and I’ll have one more boil for sure. Maybe 40 gallons to cook on my little barrel evaporator. My only 3 red maples pretty much bloomed so those taps got pulled. My original taps from Jan 24th on the sugar maples seem to be slowing and drying up. My more recents taps are carrying me now haha. First year has been fun. All the excitement and research this past year and I was certain sap processing would be the rate limiting factor and give me the most fits. Turns out my two only little boils went great, just couldn’t get a lot sap out of a couple dozen taps. But I’ll end up with a gallon or so of syrup so we’re calling it a win! I feel very blessed to be able to get out there and just participate in the fun. Hope you guys are doing good!

[buckeye gold]

This was a good learning season for you Iwantsyrup, YOu done fine. I still have taps in just to see if I get sap this week to do one last batch, but after this weekend I am done for sure. It's been about a 50% season. I hoped for better, but this is good enough. I think everyone in the south struggled this year.

[buckeye gold]

I left my taps out just in case there was a run after this cold snap and I am glad to see there is. All laterals are running good and I have about 40 gallons just since noonish. So I will get to make a bit more syrup afterall.

[RC Maple]

It seemed like we had great sap weather last week. Mid 20's at night and low 40's until it froze up Friday through Monday. Every day I only got about half gallon runs - I thought they would be better. When I went to gather today, I was disappointed when I lifted the first bucket. About 26 last night and low 50's this afternoon - just what we've been waiting for-and they still weren't running. I think though the trees were just thawing out. The taps on the south sides of the trees were running harder than the taps on the north sides. Another half-gallon run. Many trees were just getting going - finally. I haven't boiled since last Wednesday. I would have boiled last Friday or Saturday, but all the sap was frozen. Even my trees on tubing were not doing much today. My vacuum was down to 23 and not much going in the tank. Then I found I had an obstruction in the recirc line, removed it, and things got moving again. Should have some sap in the buckets tomorrow and I can get the sap boiled that I have... Can't wait!:cool:

[Iwantsyrup]

Untapped and cleaned up and organized for the year as of last night. Had two full day boils this weekend that all finished into 1.75ish gallons of syrup. So total we ended up with over 2 gallons this year yay! That big run we had last week for a couple days was the grand finale :). If it ran like it did for those two or three days all the time I would have been boiling 24/7 with just a couple dozen or so taps. Anyways, will look forward to next year for sure. Take care everybody!

[buckeye gold]

This was a good year to learn. No sap tsunamis to overwhelm you. I had a couple more boils and then I quit. I made about 60% of my goal. Everything is washed up except the pan which has fermenting sweet in it to clean. I disinfected tubing yesterday and capped off. No more Maple until next winter. The best part of this year was everything filtered easily and sugar sand was very low, while sugar content was good. The biggest problem was those dang furry demons of the woods. I am not kidding when I say I had hundreds of chews.

[Redbean]

Buckeye those tree rats got me too this year. Probably not as bad as you. But this year was the best year we ever had. Made over 50 gallons on 125 taps. We had a consistent flow for 4 weeks. My wood are south facing so they stay pretty cool even on warm days. This is probably why mine was better than other’s I know making syrup this year. It was really easy to filter. We stop this past Sunday. Even though I woke up to 200 gallons in the tank by morning we were done. The only problem I have is thermometers I seem to go through them. I used two this year and the second one is going. Have to tap on it to make sure it’s reading correctly. Time to clean and get ready for next year.

[maple marc]

Best run in several years here in Champaign County (mid-west Ohio) this past week. 340 gallons of sap on 140 taps but sugar not so good. Still way behind production rate of past years. Only up to about 18 gallons syrup so far. Redbean good for you. We should have a good run this weekend but then there is not another freeze in sight. Sad for early March.