Tapped in Middlesex County 2025

[berkshires]

Most of my sugarbush and my evaporator are in the foothills of the Berkshires, but I live in Weston, and this year I'm tapping two of my yard trees.

Last year I tapped one, and it dried up well before my trees in the Berkshires did, so I figured maybe I should start earlier. I'm probably jumping the gun, but this warm day today got me too itchy, and I went ahead and pulled the trigger. Tapped one sugar maple, and one Norway maple. Never tapped a Norway maple before, but I noticed how much it runs sap, and how sweet the sap is, when a branch gets injured, so I figured I'd give it a try this year. Wish me luck!

Anyone else in this area tapping yet? Monday looks like it could be for real the start of the season here.

Cheers,

Gabe O

[Kmb]

It does look tempting. Last year first boil was Super Sunday. I may pull the trigger Sunday depending on ten day outlook then.

[berkshires]

It does look tempting. Last year first boil was Super Sunday. I may pull the trigger Sunday depending on ten day outlook then.

I'm going to hold off in Chester until Feb 8, I think, unless the looks extremely warm before then. And I may hold off for another week if things don't looks good then.

GO

[Aaron Stack]

I was looking at the 9th, but the forecast makes me think towards the 17th.

Gabe - The tree in my yard that got me started is a Norway. It is my best producer by volume and starts the season usually near 3% but the high sugar drops off fast as the season progresses.

[berkshires]

I was looking at the 9th, but the forecast makes me think towards the 17th.

Gabe - The tree in my yard that got me started is a Norway. It is my best producer by volume and starts the season usually near 3% but the high sugar drops off fast as the season progresses.

Nice! Mine is putting out 2.5%, which is awesome. We'll see how that progresses over the season.

Got a gallon and three quarters from the two yard trees since tapping Weds afternoon. And they started running again around lunchtime today. I expect them to continue to run overnight and right up until it gets cold again tomorrow night. Then Thursday, Friday, and Sunday all look like they have potential. We'll see.

GO

[jrm]

I'm in Acton and this weather has had me itchy to tap, too. Looking at the 10 day, I'm holding off for now as the just over freezing days I dint think I'll get much this early. I retain the right to change my mind ��

I'm mostly Norway, a few reds and a sugar. Changed to bags two years ago, made my clean-up faster and storage easier. This will be my 2nd year with a StarCat, still no shed.

Any thoughts re drought or if there are fire bans re?

Gabe, nice to see you're local. Seeing "Bershires" in Middlesex confused me to start as I've read your posts over the years. Curious, did you evaporate locally last year or bring west?

Happy sugarin'
Janet

[berkshires]

I'm in Acton and this weather has had me itchy to tap, too. Looking at the 10 day, I'm holding off for now as the just over freezing days I dint think I'll get much this early. I retain the right to change my mind ��

I'm mostly Norway, a few reds and a sugar. Changed to bags two years ago, made my clean-up faster and storage easier. This will be my 2nd year with a StarCat, still no shed.

Any thoughts re drought or if there are fire bans re?

Gabe, nice to see you're local. Seeing "Bershires" in Middlesex confused me to start as I've read your posts over the years. Curious, did you evaporate locally last year or bring west?

Happy sugarin'
Janet

Hi Janet, nice to "meet" someone just down the road from me. Only tapping one or two trees in my yard - it makes more sense to just bring the sap out to the Berkshires where I have another fifteen taps, and boil there.

How many taps do you do? Your signature looks like it's a bit outdated, from 2019! How do you like your StarCat? That's 16" x 30", right? I quite like my Mason 2x3 XL. I'm getting close to 12 GPH on it, but that's with a blower on it, and it really chews through wood fast.

Sap ran overnight last night, and will soon be picking up more steam as it warms up today. I expect my buckets on my two yard trees may be close to full by the end of the day. Then it looks like Friday will be the next real run. After that, the longer range forecast looks cold. But a week ago the longer range forecast for early to mid Feb looked warm. So who knows, maybe it'll change again. Right now my trees are flowing well, so I'm happy.

No idea how we're doing drought-wise. The fall was pretty brutal, but it seems like this winter has been more normal.

Good luck with your season Janet!

GO

[jrm]

I had wheeled my StarCat into the backyard last week while I was mostly snow free. Spent the afternoon cursing to myself getting my new stack attached. Finally had to retire my prior one, which I knew last season. Decided to go with a pre-formed using a 4', 2' and new elbow. They've been in their boxes ready to go and I figured it would be easy/peasy. The DuraVents all went together smoothly. Couldn't get the elbow into my StarCat. Decided to stop fighting that and put the old elbow back on, it has the corrugated end, and that went into the StarCat smoothly. But, then, couldn't get the new DuraVent's into it. Soo frustating. Either, I need someone to whisper the magic technique or I need to steal the hands of someone with great finger, thumb and wrist strength. So glad I wasn't doing it as my sap flowed!

Planning on 25 taps again this year; all bags. I'm often jealous of the quantity other's get from fewer taps. The most I've done is 1.5 gallons, and that was with 25 taps. I'm mostly Norway and Red. My Sugar is a great producer. Some trees really aren't good producers and I should make note and stop tapping them. I just keep being an optimist.

10 day forescast doesn't have great daytime temps, maybe it'll be two more weeks. Getting ready.

Have a good season, all.
Janet

ps. If I can get pictures to upload, I'll share my proper tapping technique from today.

[UB29]

JRM,
Sometimes, the raw ductwork end just needs a few crimps to help it mate up. Available at Home Depot.

https://www.homedepot.com/s/ductwork%20crimper?NCNI-5

[berkshires]

I had wheeled my StarCat into the backyard last week while I was mostly snow free. Spent the afternoon cursing to myself getting my new stack attached. Finally had to retire my prior one, which I knew last season. Decided to go with a pre-formed using a 4', 2' and new elbow. They've been in their boxes ready to go and I figured it would be easy/peasy. The DuraVents all went together smoothly. Couldn't get the elbow into my StarCat. Decided to stop fighting that and put the old elbow back on, it has the corrugated end, and that went into the StarCat smoothly. But, then, couldn't get the new DuraVent's into it. Soo frustating. Either, I need someone to whisper the magic technique or I need to steal the hands of someone with great finger, thumb and wrist strength. So glad I wasn't doing it as my sap flowed!

Planning on 25 taps again this year; all bags. I'm often jealous of the quantity other's get from fewer taps. The most I've done is 1.5 gallons, and that was with 25 taps. I'm mostly Norway and Red. My Sugar is a great producer. Some trees really aren't good producers and I should make note and stop tapping them. I just keep being an optimist.

10 day forescast doesn't have great daytime temps, maybe it'll be two more weeks. Getting ready.

Have a good season, all.
Janet

ps. If I can get pictures to upload, I'll share my proper tapping technique from today.

Sorry to hear about your ductwork troubles. I think a little tighter crimping is a great idea.

Regarding more syrup from less taps - my second year of sugaring I went from 6 to 15 taps. I simply tapped all the trees in an area that was convenient to gather from. I tested their sugar content, and was horrified to discover that many were as low as 1.1% sugar. That year (and the next) my average sap was 1.5% sugar. From then on, I moved my taps around from year to year, and if a tree doesn't come in at over 1.7% most years, I simply won't tap it any more. I have plenty of trees, but I'd rather go out of my way to collect from better trees than have to deal with a ton of sap, spend twice as much time boiling, etc. I still have a few test trees every year, where I don't know for sure how well they'll do, but the vast bulk of my taps go into trees that I know are great producers. A few of those test trees turn out to be great, most do not. But now I typically average around 2% sugar.

I also started tracking how much sap each tree produces, and this actually varies a lot too, and is pretty consistent year over year. Some trees are gushers, and so even with slightly low sugar percent, they're totally worth it. Others are really miserly, and aren't worth the trouble.

Between these two factors, I have vastly improved my syrup per tap ratio from when I started (0.22 gallons per tap average over my first three seasons, to .38 gpt average over the last three seasons)

Good luck, and if you still can't get that stovepipe in there before the sap starts flowing, I'll take a road trip out when I can and give you a hand.

GO

[jrm]

JRM,
Sometimes, the raw ductwork end just needs a few crimps to help it mate up. Available at Home Depot.

https://www.homedepot.com/s/ductwork%20crimper?NCNI-5
There are tools for everything! I don't know why I didn't think of this. I'll be adding this to my tool kit!




Good luck, and if you still can't get that stovepipe in there before the sap starts flowing, I'll take a road trip out when I can and give you a hand.

GO
Thanks for the offer! My lineman's pliers finally allowed me to make crimp in my old elbow (not the best job, I in fact used a small hammer once it was seated to reduce the gapes I caused.) I'm pleased to say that even with the crazy, winds from yesterday and today that my stack, and guy wires have all held. The in hindsight amusing part, is when I purchased my other new duravent last year, I had purchased a straight connector smooth ended to match their pipe and crimped for connecting to source. Completely forgot that, and it wasn't with the other new items. Found it in the box with a rain cap I had bought, but didn't pull out when I was setting up. Since my guy wires have been under frozen snow for a week, I'm not changing out now, unless I have other stack issues. But, for next year, I'll be able to make the better go of it.

Points about tracking trees and tossing those low-producers either quantity or sugar content is quite the appropriate way. My very first year, we had 80 gals of sap (3 taps only!) didn't even get a gallon from it. A couple seasons later I finally bought a sap refractometer, which made worlds of difference. I tried tracking my trees/taps for a year or two but didn't stay disciplined to it. I really should, especially, as you know, toting sap isn't easy work.

Planning on tapping Friday or Saturday. Glad I don't have bags/buckets up for this windstorm.

Janet

[KiO]

Just tapped over the weekend in Billerica. Nothing flowing yet but I am ready.... Good luck everyone.

[KiO]

Just curious if anyone else in the area had much flow this week? I was hoping for a decent week but did not get much....

Mark

[berkshires]

Just curious if anyone else in the area had much flow this week? I was hoping for a decent week but did not get much....

Mark
I did okay. Three gallons from one tree, two from the other. No real freezes all week, so a lot at the beginning of the week, and then less and less each day.

GO

[KiO]

Finally got some good flow yesterday into today. Hopefully the weather will cooperate now. Hope others are doing well.

[Kmb]

Just curious if anyone else in the area had much flow this week? I was hoping for a decent week but did not get much....

MarkSeemed to let loose past 36 hours, at least 1/2 of the trees did.

[berkshires]

Seemed to let loose past 36 hours, at least 1/2 of the trees did.

Big time. Just in the last two days I've gotten almost 5 gallons off two taps. And they continued to flow overnight - I'd estimate I'll get at least another two gallons before the day is out. And if things go well, should be a light freeze tonight, then warm and sunny tomorrow. Should be a banner week! And the weekend through the start of next week looks promising too, though by mid-week it may be getting too warm. We'll see.

GO