Tapping in Ontario

[cheesegenie]

Got a nice little snow overnight, but forecast for this afternoon still on the freezing mark. But when the sun comes out and warms up a bit, that snow
will trigger the big sap flow.

[KenWP]

Snow here to today. My keeper has said for weeks that it could not be sugar season with no snow. I was wondering if the added moisture to the top of the tree was actually good for them.

[Maple Restoration]

Well it's been cold up here and sap has not ran since last Wednesday we had over 300 gallons collected we made 9 gallons of nice syrup all cleaned up and ready for the next round should start Wednesday! The new rear pan and float system we had custom built 3 weeks ago works wonders.

[Brent]

We had a good freeze here Friday night and a warm Saturday so we had a good run. But it did not freeze Saturday night/Sunday AM so the sap ran all night. We got a great collection Sunday about noon, but because there was no freeze, the pump didn't get primed and the flow diddle to a stop while we were collecting. Good freeze Sunday night but not warm enough today. Still ice in the bags and buckets. Only 70 US Gal from 300 or so bags and buckets.

Saturday's boil made darker syrup First time ever ( 5 years ) for Medium for us.

[Maple Restoration]

Back to a slow start this week it finaly started to run about 2pm yesterday, collected 55gal. we hope to have more tonight to start boiling again.

[KenWP]

Today looks good for a better run and the same for tomorrow so far. I would say the season is just starting here fianlly.

[Brent]

It flowed pretty good here. Got 150 US gal off the pipeline. Finally put the pressure guage in and the little sap sucker was drawing 16" vacuum.
Got another 130 gallons off the bags and buckets and did not finish the last round., Got two totes full of sap and 3 of the 18 gallons barrels with varying amounts of syrup in 2 different grades we gotta bottle before we can boil. Another day off the day job

[mtbguy]

I'm waiting patiently. Got 25 litres this weekend but it's shut down almost completly. Checked the buckets last night and there's only about an inch in the bottom. I put in 10 new spiles and they're flowing at the same rate as the 3 week old taps so I don't think my holes have dried up. Weather last 2 days should have produced something, it's going to warm up here tommorrow and friday with some rain, hopefully that will give it a kick start. I've only got 8.5 litres of finished syrup pretty dark too so I'm praying for another run.

[mtbguy]

Just got home from work, 1st bucket I checked was 2/3 full Yew Haw.........gotta go Boil:D

[Maple Restoration]

Collected 150gal of sap last night boiled for 5hrs after work will finish off this batch tonight, looks like it will be a busy weekend!

[Brent]

Never got the fire lit yesterday. Had to dump 3 day old sap from the gravity feeder in the top of the sugar shack. It was starting to ferment.

Collected until after midnight. Had about 150 gal in the pipeline tank. Brought in 140 from bags and buckets and that filled the tanks near the sugar shack.
Put another 80 into the pipeline tank. Got another 70 still in the tanks on the gator and we did not get around to 1/3 of the bags and buckets. Phhheeeew

But it had run out of steam as we were hitting the last buckets. Almost no dripping and without the freeze last night it will not run much today.

Gotta boil !!!!

[KenWP]

We got frost here last night again so today should be okay. The next three days call for no frost at night so probbably be back to nothing again. It will thaw out a lot more trees most likely so that the other half of my trees that do nothing will run a bit next week. My sap has ice in it still so will last till tomorrow when I boil and I have a bunch in the freezer for ice chunks if it need cooled off a bit. Still have big snow banks around the green house where the snow slid off all winter into big piles.

[Big_Eddy]

Updated summary - 99 trees on buckets, Belleville area.
Date.....6am...Morn....4pm...Aft....Wind.....Sap.. ....Boiled

07-Mar....-2....Sun......6.....Rain....Light.....Tapped.....N/A
08-Mar.....4....Sun......8.....Sun.....Med......25 Gals....N/A
09-Mar....-2....Frz Rain.0.....Sun.....Light.....25 Gals....N/A
10-Mar....-2....Clear.....2....Rain....Light......45 Gals....N/A
11-Mar.....7....Rain......1..Sun/Cld..Extrm.....50 Gals...30 gals
12-Mar.....-12..Clear...-4.....Sun.....Med......0 Frzn.....N/A
13 Mar.....-12..Clear....-5.....Sun.....Light.....0 Frzn.....N/A
14 Mar.....-5....Clear....4.....Sun.....Med......0...........4 5 gals
15 Mar.....-6....Clear....5......Sun....Light......75 gals....55 gals
16 Mar....-3.....Clear....8......Sun....Light......45 gals....75 gals
17 Mar....-3.....Clear....8......Sun....Light......35 gals....60 gals
18 Mar.....6.....Ovcst...8......Sun....Light.......10 gals...45 gals
19 Mar.....1.....Clear....8......Sun...Light........0 ..........N/A
20 Mar.....-6....Clear....2......Sun....Light.......30 gals...N/A
21 Mar.....-6....Clear....5......Sun....Light.......45 gals...45 gals
22 Mar.....-6....Snow...3.......Sun....Strng......25 gals...55 gals
23 Mar.....-6....Clear...-1.......Sun...Light.......0..........N/A
24 Mar.....-4....Clear...7........Sun...Med.......30 gals....N/A
25 Mar.....-2....Clear...8........Sun...Med.......75 gals....N/A
26 Mar.....11...Ovcst..

Tipped my trailer over in a rut with 75 gals in it last night - was down to 40 gals by the time I had it right side up again. :( Oh well - better than losing it after it's boiled.

[KenWP]

I get upset if I spill a couple of ounces of sap right now as it comes pretty scarce around here. I have no place that you could run a trailer here as walking is a challange. I have one place where I have to walk down a log carrying buckets to get through one patch of downfall. Has to be a thousand cords of wood on the ground out in the neighbours wood lot and he dosn't burn wood.

[ennismaple]

We had another big day yesterday. We're at 70% of last year's total (a bad year) and 50% of what an "average" year should be. Almost all our syrup so far has been light so hopefully we'll make a bunch more medium and then fill the rest of the drums with amber before calling it quits by the end of Easter weekend!

[mtbguy]

Another decent run last night, we're boiling the 150 litres I collected today. I fubar'd yesterday and left my feed tap on by accident, I had 6 inches in the pan before I caught it so I didn't draw any off. I should be able to get 1-2 gals out of the pan tonight though and be back on track. I've got 8.5 litres of finished syrup and with tonight and tommorrows boil I reheat and do a big bottling session on Sat.:D :D

[KenWP]

Today looks okay for sap for a change. Boil tomorrow all day it looks like. Finally getting some action but the fact there is no frost tonight will probbably toast things.

[Maple Restoration]

Well 2:45am and were 1/2 way done bottling 3 1/4 gallons of medium good thing work don't start till 8am may get a few zzz!:D

[Brent]

I thought I saw that faint glow on the northern horizion. Long day in Trout Creek.

We started yesterday with almost 400 US Gallons. Boiled 12 hours non-stop.
Then collected more. Total collection for the year is now near 2250 US gallons. The extra 150 trees on the new pipeline are eating into sleep time.

Got a light freeze last night. Should get a moderate flow today.

[cheesegenie]

Sap has stopped here, not freezing at night.

[Brent]

We had a light freeze here last night and it was enough to turn on the taps.
Pun intended.

We will end up hauling in between 475 and 500 US Gal. today. Got lots of it boiled already and with better sap management ie boiling it fresher, we made about 12 gal of light, after cleaning out a few gallons of med / dark at first boil this morning. Ran the little GE Merlins all night again and they had cut the 250 gallon tank in half by the time I started boiling today. Really starting to like these little guys.

[Brent]

The fat lady is singing.

Actually not the fat lady, but the little peeper frogs. And for the last few years it seems when they start to sing, the season is all but done. I hope not.

Today we collected about 170 US Gallons. Dripping was all but stopped by late afternoon and the trees tops had a slight redish hue to them. With the PLUS 6 forecast here tonight and real warm tomorrow, there will be no flow. If we get another frost, I'm guessing it will start flowing buddy. Been a good experience this year. Close to 12000 litres collected and no problems. The Merling RO's are still working great. Ran then all last night and they cut a 260 litre tote down to about 125 by the time I started boiling this morning.

[Jerome]

collected a great run yesterday 20 gallons off of 17 taps (two days worth) and it was running well yesterday. I looks Like I might be able to extend our season until next weekend here but not really holding my breath. Bottled 9 liters so far

[KenWP]

Never frozeh here last night so not a drop today anywheres that I can see. Have to walk over a half mile and see if anything is dribbling over there. Supposed to freeze Monday night maybe.

[mtbguy]

I did a boil yesterday which was my best and hotest of the season found out when I drew off that my thermometer is sticking and I was way over syrup. I saved the batch on the finishing pot but I've got stuff stuck on the pan both sides, it's only a one divider pan. After pushing my syrup out with fresh sap I used the heat of the sap and a spatula to scrape off the most of it. I haven't checked this morning to see if it loosened up overnight or not.

2 questions. How do I clean it up if it's still stuck on? Do I need to toss the sap in the pan or can I drain it out and filter out the guck that comes out the draw off then put it back in the cleaned pan?

Wow there's a lot to learn about this and it seems like every evaporator has it's own idiocyncracies.

I think our time is done here too. I've got about 20 litres of finished syrup to bottle and I think that'll be about it. It got up to 15 yesterday and didn't freeze last night, it's rained steady since 8 last night and I'm noticing the sapling maples are looking about ready to bud.:(

[mtbguy]

Forget the nitre question, I checked my pan this morning and it's all loosened up on the pan, so I'm just going to push it to the draw off and filter everything before my next boil.............if there is one.

[Brent]

I have not yet figured out why nitre sticks some times and flakes off at others. I think it is a thermal thing. The pan which was hot when it was deposited, shrinks as it cools, and the nitre does not shrink so much so it separates. Just the theory of the moment.

What I can tell you is do NOT start to use any kind of metal scraper. In the long run you will only create scratches and gouges in the stainless that make it harder to remove the next time.

This year I tried some plastic razor style scrappers from Lee Valley and they are better than anything I've tried yet.

You have to work away at the edges of the scale about 2-4 mm at at time. They get dull fast and you'll go through a few each cleaning. The best of a less than satisfying bunch of tools I've tried.

See
http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=1&p=53612&cat=2,42194,40727

Furthermore, if you already have scratches, Lee Valley has some MicroMesh sanding discs. I have used Micromesh patches to clean and polish the windshields (canopies ) of aircraft. They are so fine ( 12,000 grit ) that they polish to optical qualify. I have only done a quick test and it seems to look promising for the pans that I already scratched.

http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=62146&cat=1,42500
They also have the square patches. Try the kit with one of each grit because you have to go up scale in grit to get the effect.

Good luck

I'm starting to clean the sugar shack. Just finishing what I think will be the last boil.

[mtbguy]

Thanks Brent, I did use a spatula when the pan was hot but I don't think I did any scratching, I guess I'll see when I clean the pan. I have a lot of stuff to write down this year so I don't make as many mistakes next year. Now that I know I can handle more taps I'll probably increase to about 75 next year. I did add 10 2 weeks ago so I'm now at 48.

[Maple Restoration]

Another weekend gone and 6 more gallons packed April 15 2008 was our last boil last year will see if we can hold out till then!

[Jerome]

Well I had a good weekend 5 gals from 17 taps aprox 70 gals of sap. taps are still in hopefully til next weekend.

[Big_Eddy]

Don't give up yet guys - we have at least one more week if not 2 - there will be dry days for sure - like yesterday - but that just gives the trees time to recover. I ALMOST pulled my taps too early last year - was all set to go and had a last minute distraction. I made more syrup the week after than I had the 3 weeks before.

I'm further south than most of you- I'm sure I've got another 2 weeks to run.

[cheesegenie]

I hopefully agree with you. A couple years ago, I thought it was done; warm weather, moths, yellow sap and I was sick of working in the mud and water.
I pulled them out, washed them and put all my stuff away. Then there was a
heavy snow two days later and bang, I missed the best run of the year the
other guys said. They say a freeze tonight after the rain, clear tomorrow, and rain again on Wednesday.....

[ennismaple]

I think vacuumm is paying for itself right now. I got 1100 gallons of sap yesterday and 1400 gallons each of Saturday and Friday with no freeze-up to speak of. The pumps were on all night last night and we'll boil what we get tomorrow. I'm hoping to drag things out as long as possible but we're into amber syrup now and will need some snow to bring the colour back.

[Brent]

We cooked only amber on Sunday here too. All the bags and buckets were dry. I did not want to run the peristaltic pump for nothing on Sunday .. those hoses are expensive.

Got a little Gast pump the pulls 28" on the bench. We'll rig that next year for continuous running and use the peristaltic pump as a releaser pump.

[H. Walker]

I think it's over here, no frost last night. It could have been a better season but I filled all of my orders. I think I'll end up at .6 of a litre per tap.

[Harken]

Having a great year here in Northumberland County. We're over the 1 L/tap, and hope to get a final run today !!

[Brent]

Good freeze here, about -5. Should turn it on for one more hurrah

Talked with Dick O'Brian last night, who is NW of Shelbourne about 50 km and he has heard of nobody getting budy yet.

[ennismaple]

Hopefully last night's cold temps mean a couple more good days. I praying we can drag it out through the weekend so we can get close to 1L per tap.

For those of you who don't get the weekly OMAFRA updates here's the link to this week's info:

http://apps.omafra.gov.on.ca/scripts/english/crops/agriphone/article.asp?ID=1647

[Maple Restoration]

Brent all 10 of my soft maple's have full buds so i just move my taps all our hard maple have no sign of budding yet we just need the temps to work in our favor!

[cheesegenie]

Did not freeze here last , but JJ said it would. (JJ is our weatherman on CTV),
so no sap again. Not giving up quite yet, hang in there Harold.

[mtbguy]

Almost started to clean up but the temps went down to -5 last night and my buckets are 1/2 full today. It's probably about 100-150 litres out of 48 taps definately worth burning some more wood . I figure with this batch I should hit the 30 litre mark for finished syrup. I'm pretty happy with that as I was late getting the taps in (missed a 2-3 day run) and I only had 33 taps up until 2 weeks ago. Thanks for all the info folks it made it all a little easier and way more fun.

[Jerome]

Just collected 40 gals from Sunday till today.
Had a good look at the trees around here no sign of buds yet.

[KenWP]

Nothing here since saturday now. Was supposed to freeze last night and nothing happend as it stayed at 34 degrees and is supposed to freeze tonight but temp is holding at 38 degrees. Was fun while it lasted anyways. I really thought that I would have a different experience then what this year brought me but nothing I can do about it now.

[Maple Restoration]

I think the sap God's have arrived and blessed us with over 300 gallons! I feel a boiling marathon coming on! even with no freeze last night at 2pm today every thing just let go, so keep the faith guy's it looks like things are going to get fun!

[Brent]

The Caledon Hills got down to -5 last night and about +6 today. So far we've got 420 US Gal, and lit the fire. Still got another Gator load to bring in which will get us near enough to call it 500 on the day.

The first stuff we have drawn off is looking pretty dark. Might be Grade B. Never made any of that before.

All in so far this year 15,000 litres of sap. Beats last year by a H U G E margin. An the blessed little RO taught me how to use it and has saved 1/2 the boiling time.

Good fun. Loved every minute, except scraping the pans clean.

[ennismaple]

We ended up with 3,000 gallons of sap today. The syrup is quite dark but still has good flavour. Hopefully we can get a few more good days like today to push us over the top!

[Brent]

Ennis great stuff 3000 gal !

I was thrilled to bring in 490 today. Boiled some. It was pretty dark but tasted great.

Just looked at the 5 day forecast. Not one more freezing night till a week today. We're toast for the year.

[Maple Restoration]

Brent sorry to hear your near the end were hoping to hold out for 2 more weeks still sitting with 2' of snow in the bush good thing the hill side is facing north it has a slower melt but our fields are dry.

Ennis glad to hear you had a great run today we hope to see you at the summer tour.

[ennismaple]

Ennis great stuff 3000 gal !

I was thrilled to bring in 490 today. Boiled some. It was pretty dark but tasted great.

Just looked at the 5 day forecast. Not one more freezing night till a week today. We're toast for the year.

Thanks Brent. Total for the day was 75 gallons made so obviously the sugar content is still above 2%. It's amber but still has good flavour.

It froze last night and is supposed to freeze again tonight. I should have another big day ahead of me! I've still got a chance to get to 1L per tap if this keeps up.

Looking forward to meeting you in July.

Martin Ennis

[mtbguy]

Is it worth boiling cloudy sap? I collected today and got 200 litre of clear but I kept aside an additional 40 litres of cloudy sap. It's not as cloudy as I saw it at the end of last years run but I don't want to ruin the 200 and the concentrate I have in the pan. I did put the lines back in the pails though because I've been told the cloudy stuff is good enough to ferment in the pan to clean it.

[Brent]

Normally when it goes cloudy or milky the steam will start to smell and the syrup will taste like cr*& . Bin der, dun dat, more dan once.

We got lucky today. Don't think we should have had a run but we got 60 gallons from the bags and buckets (325) and 80 gallons on the new tubing (150 taps ) Does a little vac help ... I'm sold.

[ennismaple]

We gathered another 2800 gallons of sap yesterday from what ran on Wed and Thurs. Sugar content has dropped below 2% but we still made 2 more drums of amber. Hopefully this will drag on longer - I've got 5 empty drums left in the corner that are starting to feel lonely!

[Brent]

Those 5 empties may be lonely for 11 months. This warm rain is likely to screw us all up good. Sounds like you guys are in the groove on your own this year.

I pulled the buckets and bags last night and dumped 150 gallons that was a bit milky in the buckets. NOTE to self. ... clean buckets half way through the season next year.

This has been our best season ever. Just had to hammer out another order for several hundred more cans and bottles.

Reading between the lines ... and your name, I would guess your family is Mennonite. You're a long way from St Jacobs if that's the case.

[ennismaple]

Reading between the lines ... and your name, I would guess your family is Mennonite. You're a long way from St Jacobs if that's the case.

Nope - Irish, 5th generation in Canada. No plain black cars or horse drawn buggies for this farm boy! I went to the University of Waterloo and did a couple work terms in the area so I think you're thinking of the surname "Ens" or some variation thereof.

The one benefit we have is being on the eastern shore of a good sized lake. The predominant west wind blows cool air off the lake and when the forecast calls for anything close to zero we get a freeze up. Typically we get 2 C colder overnight than what the weather forecast calls for.

The syrup we made yesterday was halfway between the medium and amber samples in the colourimeter with good flavour. Surprisingly, it filtered fairly easily. With bulk prices as strong as they are we'll make every drop we can! A couple more good days and we can get to 1L per tap.

[Brent]

We got real good tasting stuff the last few days. Half way between medium and amber.

=============

We have a bunch of customers from the Mennonite community and almost all of them are Martins. So do you subscribe to the southern Ontario theory of tapping on St Patty's day or do you hit the taps ?

[Jerome]

I still have no buds yet so with the forecast for next week below freezing every night I guess I know what I'll be doing Easter weekend :)

[Brent]

You may luck in up there.

I'll put osme buckets back out on Monday to see what happens.

[Maple Restoration]

Sounds like you guy's maybe back in the game next week and may get a few more run's we wish you all the best!

[Jerome]

-1 and snow squalls blowing in off the Bay, calling for snow Monday and Tuesday so keeping my fingers crossed. I cant boil today as I have no power so no lights and no blower. I could stretch so cords together for light but it is nasty around here right now there is always tomorrow.

[Maple Restoration]

I know how you feel Jerome in the last 3 hours we gotten 3" of snow and the wind is not letting up any and this is going to last till late tonight I have 320 gallons to boil I run a 12v blower so were going to go up into the bush and give it a try. It's just nasty out their! if the weather keeps this up we may just boil till the end of April!

[KenWP]

They are calling for a bit of snow here also. I could use a cold nippy night. For tonight I have 3 different forecasts and they all show different temps. One 32,one 30 and one 29. I pick the 29 one but for some reason it does not work that way.

[Maple Restoration]

Ken it's like the lottery, you buy in and take your chances!

[TapME]

Any of you think that the weather is this way because of the volcano in Alaska that is putting ash into the air? Our weather man for what it is worth said it would lower temps over us .

[Maple Restoration]

Not sure about that but we just ran off 4 gallons of medium and we still have 300 gallons of sap to go!

[cheesegenie]

Did not freeze again last night, but there is snow on the ground this morning. Let's hope it is that famous "sugar snow" and finally get the
big run that has not come yet.

[KenWP]

Not sure if it froze here or not. It could have just snowed a bit. I was up at 1 and it was still 36 then last night. But the car window had what looked like frost slumped at the bottom of it unless it was a bit of snow.

[Jerome]

*^%E#$*(^)&_^*#&#$()& I am under a snow fall warning we are to get 15-25 then squalls I think this is the first time I put the blower on the tractor in a t shirt. I did manage to get 60 gallons through the evaporator it is just finishing up now. oh well the season looks like it will be extended.

[Maple Restoration]

Way to go Jerome it dose look like the season will go on, well we made 10 & 3/4 gallons this weekend we went from amber back to medium almost back to light sap still running here and it's 930pm the gravity feed sure does work well. best of luck to you all and we will be boiling well after Easter !!!!!!!!!

[Jerome]

the Elmvale maple syrup festival is on the 25 there might be real sap in the evaporators this year.

[cheesegenie]

Even after the snow yesterday morning, the sun never came out, so no sap
again.There was a good freeze last night, but still dark and cloudy with rain
in the forecast today. But I will not give up, yet. Glad some guys are still getting good runs up west.

[KenWP]

Was suposed to freeze here last night and never went below 36 degrees so another sapless day. Maybe tuesday night now.

[Big_Eddy]

I've been out of the country for a week - just left the buckets up - came back to close to 100 gals of slightly hazy sap with only one or 2 cloudy enough to dump - my rule of thumb is - if you can see the bottom of the pail - it's fine.

Boiled 40 gals off yesterday, and today I awoke to 2" of snow (covering my wood pile !#@#! ) and strong winds. So much for boiling off the rest today. Hopefully it doesn't get to cloudy in the tank waiting till tomorrow.

Forecast now sounds like I might get more runs this week after all.

[ennismaple]

We had a big weekend and the 5 lonely drums in the corner is now down to 1 lonely drum, plus another that's only half full. I've never seen a year like this. It's barely frozen at night for the past 2 weeks but it keeps running! We'll have to shut down this week because once the last 1.5 drums are full we'll have nowhere to put syrup anymore. Ambition is also on the low side too...

[cheesegenie]

Cold with a few inches of snow is here, might get a few more days out of this
season, I knew it would come back.

[KenWP]

Snow here also. It is actually getting white on the ground. Now if it goes below freezeing it will help.

[rob1640]

We've got a foot and a half of the white stuff, if the sap starts flowing again it will be worth putting up with more snow!

[KenWP]

After finding the old sugar bush yesterday I wish I could get ahold of another 20 buckets and really push the sugar maples for the few days left of the season. I might have to boil 24-7 but what the hell it only comes once a year.

[Brent]

Officially we got 24 cm, about 10", but it blew like ... so we've got bare spots and then 3 or 4 feet. We've had more than 36 hours of freeze so something will start to flow tomorrow. I need to clean and re-hang buckets. Then try to get the new ( new to me ) extractor tank going. See post in vacuum.
Having a bit of fun trying to figure out how it was hooked up and how I should hook it up.

Something is going to flow tomorrow and Thursday. Maybe buddy, maybe good. Hmmmmm Anyone got any firewood ?

[Maple Restoration]

Brent we got lots of wood sap has not ran here in two day but thing just opened up at 4pm today collected at 9pm and picked up 320gallons of nice clear sap should be a great weekend!

[Brent]

Good to hear you got another flow. We had a flow here to but this morning I had a 4' drift right across the field between the house and the bush. I went to work in a funk. Came home a bit early and the strong sun had eaten way the drift enough to get back and there was a strong trickle into the tank on the pipeline, but the inside of the tank had gone mouldy ... and the wood that is left will not burn hot enough. D O N E
So I split some wood for next year and we spent the night bottling.

[argohauler]

I've been wiffle waffling for the past few days, ever since they said the weather was going to freeze nights again. I expected the temps at night to moderate, but this morning, they still have 5 nights of freezing forecasted. Last night wasn't a hard freeze though, -1. I think it pretty much took all night before it froze. Lake Erie goes against us sometimes I think.

I had finished off what was in the pans on Thursday. I didn't know if I wanted to start up again. I have some wood left. Dad's all gung-ho to do some more. I rebored some of the buckets on Monday the 30th of March. We dumped out the rain and old sap in the morning. I checked them around 8 last night and they had around an inch and a half in a 20 L pail. Some of them only a few drops. I rebored the buckets by the shanty and the 40 taps out at the front of the bush and they put 2.5 inches in the same pail in 4 hours.

I bleached the main lines yesterday morning. I got 3 of the 10 mainlines rebored. I'll do some more today. Hopefully I'll get enough out of this now. I know 2 years ago I rebored and got more syrup in April, than I did in March.

I don't like making syrup too far into April because then I get behind in all my farm work. (vegetables)

[Brent]

Hi Argohauler

I hope it doesn't go buddy on you before you get what you want.

We also have an Argo 8x8 magnum about the same age as yours but we don't use it for sap .... yet.

what tank did you put in and how did you mount it ?
any chance you have picture of it.

[Big_Eddy]

Dumped 40 gals of sap this morning - left over from Monday - weather all week was no good for boiling (outside) and by this morning it was well past usable. No flows during the week til yesterday afternoon, then the trees all opened up. A quick walk around this morning it looks like I have 40 gals at least sitting in the buckets to collect tonight and forecast for the weekend is for -5 nights and +5 days - so looking forward to at least another few runs. Will see how it turns out.

[ennismaple]

Going haaaard today. Ran one tank over, had to turn some other vacuum systems off until we caught up a bit. We'll be leaving sap in the sugar camp overnight because there's too much to boil today. Sugar content has dropped below 2%, which is normal for late in the season. Colour has come back a bit but would like to get more light stuff for retail but it`s not that critical. Bulk prices are the same for extra-light or amber so it really doesn`t matter much.

[argohauler]

Well I think I just wasted my time reboaring. Ice came out of the lines, but I only had little trickles. The buckets hardly dripped. The really good trees hardly produced. Me thinks I'm done. Now it's not supposed to freeze here tonight. I think I'll start pulling tomorrow. Took a tour around the bush, scoping out wood to cut and trees that should be removed. Got some firewood cut for next year.

Brent: The tank is made by Raven I believe. It's 100 US gal, 8" hole with lid and a strainer. It has a 1 inch drain. The people I got it from, put a hopper on top, which is good for transporting your gathering pails. It fits in just perfect widthways. It's not quite as long as the length of the back of the argo. I put a chunk of plywood on the back argo tray. Then I had some chunks of 2X4 and 6 to put on top of the plywood. That gets the drain up away from the centre of the argo where it comes in at the bottom, where the indent is on your argo tray. I then put a couple hunks of wood between the end of the tank and the back of the argo so it doesn't shift.

I use a 3/4 hp submersible with 1.5" hose to pump it out. Takes 5 mins to empty. How muddy is your bush. Our bush is a swamp, hence why I use an argo, BUT if you're travelling through many waterholes, you'll need to grease those seals every couple days if you can get the time. An argo won't chew out your trails as bad as a tractor or 4 wheeler. I'll try to find a picture to scan in.

[cheesegenie]

Great runs here the past few days at last. Sap not as sweet, I can't test
it, but we get about 4 litres syrup from each 45 gal. drum of sap. Looks
good again today, hard freeze and sun is bright already.

[argohauler]

ennismaple/Valleylad, did you get enough drums from Atkinson's? Looks like you could make a ton of syrup with your forecast. Are Atkinson's buying bulk syrup? I'll be taking my dark syrup, when I finished off the pans, to Jakeman's. Last year it paid for my supplies with a little left over.

cramadog2

[gunnergo4th]

Hello, This is my fist year making maple syrup and I'm HOOKED!! I've just done 7 tree's and I'm boiling on the BBQ in a steam table table pan. (not very cost efficient but a start) I had pulled the buckets a week and a half ago but seen the forecast so I put the pails back up on Wednesday and the sap is running awesome. So I was wondering when do you know it's time to stop? I'm in Perth county Stratford area. Of course for next year I'm going to build an evaporator as I have the bug!! This site has a wealth of knowledge. THANKS

[Brent]

gunnergo4th
I'm sorry to hear the bad news. This is a horrible addition. And it hits at a time of the year where there really isn't much else going on, so it gets worse and worse.

"HE" will tell you when it's over.
The pronoucement comes gradually
The buds in the trees start to swell. Pull some down that you can reach. If they are small and dry keep going. When they swell and are moist and sticky inside, the end is near.
The sap will start to get a little cloudy
The sugar content will go down and you'll boil a lot longer to get less and less.
The syrup you make will get darker
In the very last stages you will start to detect a smell in the steam vapour that indicate the sap is going buddy. Then it will be over real fast.

Start to try to keep your batches small later in the season. You don't want to ruin some nearly finished good stuff with the 'buddy' foul stuff. This also means you should be keeping your sap collection segregated and use it in sequence.

You might want to trip up to visit Dick Obrien aka "Uncle Richard"
http://www.unclerichardsmaplesyrup.com/
He's a bit east of Hanover. He has a great little shop for all stuff maple and knows whereof he speaks ... he has over 3000 taps and has been at it a lot of years.

[gunnergo4th]

Thanks Brent, This a perfect usage of time between winter huntin and trapping and spring turkey. It's pretty hard to check the buds as the maples are over hundred years old but the buds have got bigger. The sap is as clear as water with the odd fly in it. As for the buddy smell or taste is it very obvious or is an experience thing? Just one more hobby (addiction) to fill in time!!

[argohauler]

gunnergoforth. I thought I recognized the handle. I can't remember which board though. OTB, OHL, CHC, or OOD?

I had a visitor come to the shanty 2 Saturdays ago. I was finishing up the boil for the night and letting the fire go out. I was listening to the Leaf game on the radio, when I heard something. It sounded like a gobble. So I went out the door and and turned the corner and there was mr. tom.

This afternoon I was bringing in the buckets with the argo. I saw around 5 deer in the hay field. My lab gave chase for a bit and they crossed the laneway to another hayfield. Started counting, there were 7 total. When I was coming up this evening with the syrup pan 4 deer were in the hay field. This time the dog wasn't with me. She got tired of running back and forth from the bush. These deer didn't even run away. Just watched me drive along.

Anyways ennismaple is Valleylad at the OHL and I'm cramadog2 at those 4 sites. Syrup makin is fun. But don't get too big or you won't have time for spring turkey like me, too much work to do. ;)

[Jerome]

I was out yesterday and checked the bud on my trees they are still dry and small and with a forecast like this, this season may never end.
Today
Sunny. High plus 5. UV index 5 or moderate.
Tonight
Clearing this evening. Low minus 8.
Sunday
Sunny. High plus 4.
Monday
Sunny. Low minus 8. High 10.
Tuesday
A mix of sun and cloud. Low minus 4. High 11.
Wednesday
Sunny. Low zero. High 13.
Thursday
Sunny. Low minus 1. High 13.
Friday
Sunny. Low minus 1. High 13.
Have a great aster everyone.

[KenWP]

With -5 temps last night me thinks my trees should rain forth great bounty today. Back aches already.

[Maple Restoration]

Well their is no end to the sap today made 6 gallons of syrup and still not at the end of the sap,

Now I am very confused, yesterday we made great amber nice and dark yet today we are back to light/medium and the temps. have remain and sap is still 2.3% and clear. :confused:

[Brent]

Your set up may be the reason for the change. If you're like me when you quit at night there is still a load of sap in the evap, so when you start the next day, you're still boiling "old" sap and if the weather gives you a good cold snap, like you got, it could take several hours to get it through the evap and some mixing would occur. Maybe on the end of day 2 or beginning of day 3 there is no trace of old sap from warmer weather and all your sap is fresh and bright and you eventually get that coming through and get light syrup.

I've seen it posted on the trader that something like this is pretty common after a good freeze.

Out trees are running fast and furious. Just no wood for the evap and the only folks that have wood want an arm and a leg for it and it's all cut short and chunky for woodstoves. Spent the day cutting down and splitting long
skinny peices for next season. New signs on the nearby roads are bringing a surprising number of shoppers up the driveway.

[Maple Restoration]

Thanks Brent for the explanation that maybe it but the sap was less than 24 hour old and I tear down the evaporator and wash it out before boiling each time, the nights have been getting colder. I due hope you find some wood soon to get the last of the runs!

[mtbguy]

I've got the wood woe's too Brent. I left the tarp off the woodpile, the wood was way over in moisture content to begin with but 6" of wet snow on top of it it's just not worth boiling. Too bad though as my pails and buckets are all overflowing. I already started to disassemble everything last week as I thought it was over then, I'll know better next year.....wait for the fat lady to sing (or the peepers).
I don't think I'd have time to boil anyway since I screwed up my first 23 litres. I used a kosher defoamer this year and got way too much in the batch, now my syrup (all in glass bottles of varying size) looks like cr..p. I'm going to heat and filter a litre to see if it clears up if it does I'll have to redo it all. I do have about 15 more litres to bottle in another batch so hopefully it's nice and clear. I will make sure I check it before I bottle.
I was hoping next year would be a little easier but reading everyone else's posts I know that even if I improve my evap rate I'll just tap more trees. The only saving grace will be I'll be able to take time off work and my health should be better.

Thanks again to all the maplers who've posted their knowledge and experiences it has helped us newbie's from making all the mistakes there are to make.

[gunnergo4th]

Hey Argo, I recognize those handlesas well I'm on the lodge and OOD. I bottled almost a gallon Sat night and seemed quite good. Had a bunch of taste testers yesterday at the in-laws Easter dinner and everyone loved it! So of course everyone got a bottle to enjoy. I have pulled the buckets now and I'm finishing up about 15 gallons of sap today on the BBQ. Can't wait for next year with a real evaporator. So it is now time to clean everything up and get ready for TURKEY season. I would like to thank everyone on this forum for the knowledge it really helps a newbie to get things right. Definitely my new addiction!!!

[Jerome]

went out to boil today and everything is frozen, and I can't light the fire to thaw it out as there is nothing in the pan.

[Big_Eddy]

After another LOOONG weekend of boiling, I'm had enough for this year. Course it was killing me to dump out about 40 gals of crystal clear sap yesterday as we pulled the buckets and taps, but I have no more time for boiling this season. Now it is time to finish up my flue pan for next year.

This year's record below.
Date.....6am...Morn....4pm...Aft....Wind.....Sap.. ....Boiled

07-Mar....-2....Sun......6.....Rain....Light.....Tapped.....N/A
08-Mar.....4....Sun......8.....Sun.....Med......25 Gals....N/A
09-Mar....-2....Frz Rain.0.....Sun.....Light.....25 Gals....N/A
10-Mar....-2....Clear.....2....Rain....Light......45 Gals....N/A
11-Mar.....7....Rain......1..Sun/Cld..Extrm.....50 Gals...30 gals
12-Mar.....-12..Clear...-4.....Sun.....Med......0 Frzn.....N/A
13 Mar.....-12..Clear....-5.....Sun.....Light.....0 Frzn.....N/A
14 Mar.....-5....Clear....4.....Sun.....Med......0...........4 5 gals
15 Mar.....-6....Clear....5......Sun....Light......75 gals....55 gals
16 Mar....-3.....Clear....8......Sun....Light......45 gals....75 gals
17 Mar....-3.....Clear....8......Sun....Light......35 gals....60 gals
18 Mar.....6.....Ovcst...8......Sun....Light.......10 gals...45 gals
19 Mar.....1.....Clear....8......Sun...Light........0 ..........N/A
20 Mar.....-6....Clear....2......Sun....Light.......30 gals...N/A
21 Mar.....-6....Clear....5......Sun....Light.......45 gals...45 gals
22 Mar.....-6....Snow...3.......Sun....Strng......25 gals...55 gals
23 Mar.....-6....Clear...-1.......Sun...Light.......0..........N/A
24 Mar.....-4....Clear...7........Sun...Med.......30 gals....N/A
25 Mar.....-2....Clear...8........Sun...Med.......75 gals....N/A
26 Mar.....11...Ovcst..9........Rain...Light......25 gals....N/A
27 Mar.....-2...Clear... 9........Sun...Light......10 gals....55 gals
28 Mar.....1....Clear....12......Sun...Light.......15 gals...55 gals
29 Mar ....1.....Rain....8........Sun...Light.......10 gals...65 gals
30 Mar - 4 April - Travel
5 April .....-2...Snow...4........Sun....Light......80 gals...45 gals
6 April - 8 April - No runs
9 April.....-4.....Sun.....8.......Sun.....Med......120 Gals..N/A
10 Apr.....-2....Sun.....6.......Sun.....Md...........0....... 65 Gals
11 Apr.....-1....Sun.....6.......Sun....Strong.....30 Gals...45 Gals
12 Apr.....-2....Sun.....8.......Sun....Med........25 Gals...65 Gals
13 Apr - Taps pulled and clean up.

Total for the year - Between 90 and 100 litres of syrup made.

[ennismaple]

Argohauler - Yup, that's me on OHL. We've got a nice tom running around our sugar bush that I hope to put in the oven and all kinds of deer. I even saw a bald eagle on the weekend.

We're done - FINALLY!!!! I boiled out the evaporator last night. Sugar content was down and the sap was so slimy I had a terrible time getting it through the RO. Here's what my "relaxing" long weekend entailed:

Friday - I arrived at the camp at noon to help finish washing the pans. There was 700+ gallons of concentrate and 900 gallons of raw sap waiting for me (leftovers from the 4500 gallon day my brother didn't finish). I boiled until almost 10 p.m. before there was enough room in the twin 800 gallon tanks for the 2000 gallons of sap we gathered. I managed to get the raw sap tank drained and washed and the concentrate tank half empty by 4:00 a.m. but was completely exhausted so I shut down.

Saturday - Fired up by noon. Gathered another 2000 gallons sap. Everything concentrated, boiled and concentrate tank washed by midnight.

Sunday - Easy day. Drained & washed evaporator. Gathered 1100 gallons sap. Done boiling and home by 10:00 p.m. Filled containers for orders and Perth Festival of the Maples until midnight.

Monday - Delivered drums to Springdale Farm (Don & Marion Dodds) for sale to LB Maple Treats. Showed my better half how to check and adjust density of syrup being reheated on stove to fill more orders. Gathered 1800 gallons sap. Concentrate tank empty by just after 7:00 and pushed water behind sap until 8:30 to boil out as much sugar as possible. Home to Toronto by 2:00 a.m.

I think I could sleep for 3 days straight. Coffee will have to keep me propped up for now!!! All that's left to do is wash 20 miles of tubing, the evaporator and 10 storage tanks. I don't plan on seeing the inside of the sugar camp for the entire month of May!!!

[cheesegenie]

Well I am going to wrap it up tomorrow. The past week was the best ,after
the snow. Got my one litre of syrup per tap, and that is just great for my little set-up.

[Brent]

That's book value per tree. Well done. Now you can start to concentrate on cheese balls !

[cheesegenie]

Thanks. If you or anybody here ever visits Upper Canada Village, come visit.

[Maple Restoration]

Well 10:15pm last night we had our last boil made 5 gallons total for the season is 51 gallons not bad for no time off from the full time job and a north facing hill. Time to clean up and start cutting wood for next year!

[ennismaple]

We rounded up as many guys as we could find to help wash tubing on the weekend and went HARD. In 2 days we managed to vacuum wash about 2850 taps and all the mainline for those systems. I figure it was about 20 km of tubing and mainline. I also removed the taps and dropped the lines for about 750 taps where the lines come down every year. One more good weekend should get the cleanup done, except the evaporator - that will be done at the start of June when you can't stand the smell of the fermented sap in the pans anymore!

We'll be at the Perth Festival of the Maples on the weekend. We've got some really good entries for the competitions in light & medium syrup plus maple sugar, granulated sugar and maple butter so hopefully we come home with some ribbons and not much syrup left!

[Maple Restoration]

Well another fall clean up has started, we washed the bush yesterday,not leak in the system no bear bits this year and no blow downs, it was one of the quickest wash's we ever done, just need to finish piling the wood and clean out the sugar shack. Another season is just around the corner,can't wait!;)

[Rockwood]

Well let it snow, let it snow. About a foot down last night and 2.5 more to come Sunday. Just wish I had the time to finish all the prep beforehand.

[rocnron]

Hello just getting started, Trying to figure out whether to go buckets or tubing. I am going to start with about 20 taps. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks In advance

[ennismaple]

Hello just getting started, Trying to figure out whether to go buckets or tubing. I am going to start with about 20 taps. Any suggestions would be welcome. Thanks In advance

That's like debating Ford vs Chev vs Dodge and you'll get different opinions from everyone. Gravity tubing will generally not produce as much sap as buckets, unless you have some long runs with lots of slope and many taps (say 30+ per line). For the number of taps you have I'd suggest starting with buckets. Thay take more time to gather but the difference won't be that great for a small operation.

Good luck!

[BryanEx]

Yep... what Ennis said. For 20 taps run buckets to get things figured out and have some fun and even 100 isn't too hard to handle... unless you are walking 3 km both directions, up hill, in deep snow. :D

[Yellzee]

ok, what are the plans for tapping out there.... looks like very end of feb or first weekend in March for me.. more because of travel schedule than anything else..

[ennismaple]

We'll get some of our CV taps in on the Family Day long weekend (Feb 19-21) so we've got a head start and don't miss the beginning like last year. If we get 1,000 or so in we'll be in decent shape no matter what the weather throws at us. If it doesn't start earlier we'll get the rest in March 5-6.

[Brent]

I'm planning to put in taps any time after Feb 1.

With the CVs I think we now have a lot of latitude and that can really take the pressure off. If we get one warm day and the sugar shack isn't ready, at least the tubing gets cleaned.

[Rockwood]

Buckets, spiles, storage tanks, evaporator all cleaned, and ready to go..

Nothing to do but wait.. and wait and wait.. is it spring yet?

Now we get a new dumping of snow :(

I think the hardest thing of this Maple Madness Disease is the waiting..

thoughts?

[crackher]

I'm planning to put in taps any time after Feb 1.

With the CVs I think we now have a lot of latitude and that can really take the pressure off. If we get one warm day and the sugar shack isn't ready, at least the tubing gets cleaned.

Hey Brent,
you are on Duffy's lane right? Right on! I ahve been tapping a property over on Homber Station for a couple of years now. maybe I'll come by and chat one day (hopefully before the rush)

[Brent]

You're welcome any time. I'm still working a day job so better call ahead.

[Brent]

oooops duplicated

[crackher]

Well I was thinking again this morning about hanging some 60 or so buckets out there this morning to get a jump on things. We probably will not tap for the tubing system for another 2 weeks

[Brent]

I think most folks would say that's backwards. The bucket taps will dry up before the tubing taps, so generally is would be better to do the tubing first ... especially if you're using check valves.

[crackher]

Maybe,
But I have noticed that around 90% of the taps with buckets stay good right up until mid/end of March and then I start getting a really cloudy sap from them. I wonder if this could be do to contamination in the spill bore hole (from being in that long)

[Brent]

Going cloudy is generally what happens as the tree starts to bud out in warmer weather. Not the same as holes drying up with bacterial coating inside. They shoud be yielding sap with the freeze thaw cycles but don't.

[markcasper]

I would not tap your buckets first unless you plan on reaming them later on. or move them to different trees later. I always do the tubing first, and now the check valves absolute first, then the non-check valve new adaptor, then buckets or bags last and usually when you already have gotten a good run out of the tubing, then its time to get to the buckets and to maximize production there.

[v. Deschenes]

Whats up every one im new to this haha idk how this works yet but i was woundering you guys tap your trees this month ? i live up near sault ste marie do you know when i should tap my trees ? i have reds and sugar maples im planing to have 21 taps ... i thought march was a good time to tap but this month was not the time yet..

[Maple Restoration]

First full day working in the sugar shack, the evaporator has been stripped, re-bricked, sanded, painted, new seals and gaskets and a new stack put in. and for tomorrow, all new plumbing form the tanks to the evaporator. Then house clean the shack, were on or way to another fun maple season

[butler]

does anyone have one of these plastic water totes with the steel cage for sale around the ottawa valley? or even any other type of storage unit that s plastic....

[Brent]

The only folks I know of that have them in stock is Atkinson .... just a 5 hour drive into the sunset for you.

PS and their's all seem to have been used by the local coke or pepsi bottler. The vanila smell is very strong but I never had it come out in syrup. We did a lot of venting and pressure washing but it still smelled strong. We've had about 7 of them. Three in the bush with releasers on top.

We cut a bigger hole in the top to make cleaning easier.

[Gary E]

does anyone have one of these plastic water totes with the steel cage for sale around the ottawa valley? or even any other type of storage unit that s plastic....

Just before Alfred Ont on the 17 about 45 minutes east of Ottawa, not sure of the buisness name but it is just before the Kubota dealer when headed east.

Cheers, Gary

[leaky bucket]

hi Butler i pm u with a guy near pembroke that has them

[DrewCP]

does anyone have one of these plastic water totes with the steel cage for sale around the ottawa valley? or even any other type of storage unit that s plastic....

Maybe you already have, but try TSC (Arnprior) or maybe Country Depot (Almonte).

[DrewCP]

Was looking at tapping last Sunday but decided not to. We are going to run 50 buckets this year so really it will only take a few hours one morning to get them all hung.
Other than this coming Saturday, all daytime highs are predicted to be in the -*C until essentially the 14th. I'll make my decision Friday.

Good luck to everyone this season.
Drew.

[Maple Jay]

i was thinking of tapping a few trees this weekend hoping to get some sap to start boiling down next weekend. the weather looks pretty good right now i hope it stays that way


9 taps in 2009
101 taps in 2010
10 x 20 shack
2x4 pan on a homemade evaporator (oil tank)
2002 polaris magnum 325

[crackher]

Ok well I have not tapped a thing yet...has anyone tapped yet? I keep looking at the longrange and nothin?

[ennismaple]

I got 400 in last weekend and we'll get the rest done this weekend. I can't risk missing the start because our volunteer help is only available on weekends. Wheelers got enough taps in to get some sap during the thaw 2 weeks ago. Not sure how much syrup they made - with their 3 evaporators in series it takes a lot of sap to sweeten the pans!

[Bruce L]

Thinking about tapping every day,then temps like this morning change that .It was -16 F here this morning!!!!

[Yellzee]

Tapping tomorrow, maple flu... looks like a few decent days in the next week.

[crackher]

I am tapping everything on Saturday, buckets and all. I can't wait any longer. too many volunteers

[Poplake]

Put out 34 today and maybe more tomorrow if it's not to wet.

[Ren]

Hello everyone! I got 40 taps in yesterday and another 15 today. Today was a little slow, as I had my 3 year old son in tow with me. I think we spent more time looking at deer and turkey tracks then we did tapping trees! Still lots of fun! Anyway of the 40 taps I got in yesterday, all but 5 holes were wet and running a little. Today only a couple of the trees had wet holes. One of the five silver maples gave me 1.5 gal of sap yesterday. The sun shine sure does make a huge difference because it was only -4 C (24.8 F) here yesterday. I am going to try to get the rest of the buckets up this weekend.

[argohauler]

More cruddy weather coming. Could get 2 inches of rain and some freezing rain this weekend. And it looks like 2 nights it isn't going to freeze.

Got a good thousand in so far.

[ca2devri]

So does the flow stop with only 1 night above freezing? I have about 33 taps in, but from now until Sunday I think it will be above freezing.

[Brent]

It will stop overnight whenever it freezes. But there are exceptions. It has been documented that there can be a freeze at ground level and the tree tops are in a mild inversion, so it can keep going. Under some circumstances
you get what is called 'dark surface radiation' that will freeze the tree tops when the temp stays above freezing.

If you have a real hard freeze and just above freezing the next day, the tree may stay frozen all day.

In a nutshell ... it depends.

[Yellzee]

got in 78 today.. almost there... nothing really running until about 6pm when I noticed a couple of the lats had bubbles moving along... most of the holes were wet for the last part of the afternoon. I think maybe it warmed up a degree or two... we might get a good run tonight with the warm weather and rain moving in over night.

[can'twaitforabigrun]

Check out this link on the lang range temperature trend. If I lived north of HWY 7, I wouldn't be tapping until at least next weekend. I need to see at least 4 consecutive days over four above in the 7 day forecast forecast before I get think about getting the drill out of the draw. Has anyone in Ontario got over .5 gallon per tap this year?

[can'twaitforabigrun]

http://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/NCOMAGWEB/appcontroller?prevpage=Param&MainPage=index&image=&page=Param&cycle=03/05/2011+18UTC&rname=SURFACE+MEANSPRD&pname=2m_temp&model=NAEFS&area=NAMER&cat=&areaDesc=North+America+-+US,+Canada,+and+northern+Mexico&fcast=Loop+All

[Yellzee]

Got in 30 more so about 108 taps. Might have gotten 30 gallons of sap in the past 2 days total. Looks like cold is here for a while now, but at least I'm ready.

[crackher]

It will stop overnight whenever it freezes. But there are exceptions. It has been documented that there can be a freeze at ground level and the tree tops are in a mild inversion, so it can keep going. Under some circumstances
you get what is called 'dark surface radiation' that will freeze the tree tops when the temp stays above freezing.

If you have a real hard freeze and just above freezing the next day, the tree may stay frozen all day.

In a nutshell ... it depends.

Brent you guys tap yet? We tried on the weekend but we broke several tee's on the branches to the spils so we decided to stop (-9) on sunday we ended up tapping 165 buckets for the kids. I really want to get these lines in before the weekend but I am not sure that we are going to be able to do that.

[Brent]

We've had a bunch of bags and buckets out for a week or so and have not had enough to fill a 5 gallon pail. but I think all that changes this week.

Still working on the evaporator so I'm not unhappy about the delay in temperatures. Still looks like a traditional St Patty's day start.

[Big_Eddy]

I've been tapped for over a week now with less that 10 gals from 100 trees to show for it (and another 30 gals of ice in the pails) Maybe it will warm up enough by Wednesday. By this time last year, we were just about done.

[ca2devri]

I'm south of London (near Lake Erie)

I put 40 taps in between Wed and Friday and by Sunday I had about 10-15 gallons to boil down. I think I got maybe 1 litre finished syrup in the end. I did a lot of it in the kitchen as it wasn't enough sap for my 2X4 pan.

I think some of it may have been rain water as the buckets don't always sit straight under the lids. I'm thinking the smaller 2 gallon buckets are better than the 3 gallon (plastic) buckets for this reason.

I'm hoping for much more by next weekend!

Chris

[Ren]

Well I finally got the evaporator fired up yesterday. I managed to get 60 gal of sap out of my 55 taps on the weekend! Looks like we may have a couple of runs this week. But as we all no you can not trust the weather man!! And no it was not all rain!

[TylerMcT]

Got 160 in yesterday. The rest to come this week.

[argohauler]

There's a very real possibility that it's not going to freeze here for the next 5 nights. I say 3 for sure. There's a big rain system coming for 5 days.

It's getting very scary here in the banana belt along the north shore of Lake Erie. This is our prime maple time now.

We'll see what +3/37 degrees does with sun today.

[markcasper]

ennismaple, 100 Liters according to their facebook, 25 gallons?

[tylerj]

There's a very real possibility that it's not going to freeze here for the next 5 nights. I say 3 for sure. There's a big rain system coming for 5 days.

It's getting very scary here in the banana belt along the north shore of Lake Erie. This is our prime maple time now.

We'll see what +3/37 degrees does with sun today.

I believe it hit a high of -3C here yesterday and the sap was running really good with it being sunny on my roadside trees. Unfortunately my tubing was still frozen in the last foot into the buckets at 5:00 pm so all that sap oozed out and froze on the outside."sapsicles" everywhere!!! grrrrrr.... no more tubing for me next year.... buckets right on the spile to catch it when it runs!!

[Yellzee]

no sap here today worth mentioning... but my slope is north east so worst case for early sun

[Bruce L]

Have 300 of the cv adapters in so far,not much coming out at the tanks.Have to look on the sunny side of the tree to see anything at all.I will look at some of the old calendars tomorrow,as for several years my cousin would stop by on his way through from Toronto and help set up the vacuum pump on St Patrick's day,so majority of syrup would be late March and April.

[Brian66]

Taps going in today. The weather reports go all over the place. I dont want to miss a decent run.

[longbeard]

Finished last of the drilling yesterday (300+) and despite being a nice sunny day the south side holes were a little damp and rest were dry!!

Checked my journal for other years and over the last 15 years my average first boil was Mar. 16 - last 2 years were much earlier, so despite getting a little ansy this looks like a "normal" year (if there is such a thing?).

Going to look at a used 2 1/2 X 8 tomorrow and if price is reasonable the boiling days might be a little shorter next year.

[BryanEx]

I'm still on hold but tentatively planning on tapping this weekend... depends on the five day forecast at that point... - 30 next week and I won't bother... -2 and full sun and I will.

[argohauler]

Gathered in the rain today. The last of the buckets I hung on Monday ran pretty good, but later yesterday. There were a few overflowing ones.

Got 200 IMP gals. from them and got 140 from the lines out of the swamp tank.

Tomorrow morning will gather the rest of the buckets and then boil.

Figure I have 1100 + taps on buckets. Will have 700 taps on line when I get them done. About 125 to do.

I hate sappin in the rain.

My brother's boss has made 30 litres so far from about 200 taps.

Somebody's shanty burnt down in Fisherville this week. Brand new shanty and equipment I guess. The guy went home for lunch and left it boiling. The evaporator runs on Natural Gas. Somebody knocked on his house door and said they thought he had a problem in the bush. She was really goin and she burnt right to the ground.

[timbers]

Finished tapping yesterday in heavy rain. 375 on tubing and 289 on buckets. More work to finish on our new lines and get my vacuum pump oiler dripping as they seem to keep clogging. Thanks fellow traders for all the posts re tubing and vacuum.
Ian

[Quabbin Hill Farms]

Just finishing up tappping still no significant runs by this time last year we had made 20 gallons probally 1 1/2 behind in this part of Ontario

[Yellzee]

my sap collector tells me that there was only about 15 gallons back there about 5pm but that it was really running well. Things may finally be thawing out! (don't really have a sap collector but not around today so had someone check it for me!)

[Brent]

we're still running just 50 or buckets and bags and we still have ice discs in the bucket in the garage from a week ago.
There was some running today but all in all we're only up to about 50 gallons. I was hoping to get a tote full to clean the RO.

Soon cum boss.

[BryanEx]

I'll be tapping in Friday after work - half way between Ottawa & Montreal.

[SPM in King]

It appears to have started a bit here - just east of Brent - near King City. I took in about 200L today and it was still running. Looks like a boil over the weekend. 5 more taps to put in tomorrow, with the kids.

Steve.

[nas]

Gathered a good 300gal today, and sweetened the pans:) Even got to draw off a couple of gallons of light at the end of the day. Sap was still running this evening so I am hoping for at least a couple of hundred gallons tomorrow.

Nick

[argohauler]

Dad was fighting water in the basement so I had to gather by myself. Brought in 830 Imp. gals. today. Drew one load out of the line tank.

Started boiling just before seven. Stoked it for the last at 10. Boiled my feeder tank of 300 gals.

Still have 2 - 3 hundred gals in buckets and a couple hundred in line tank.

[Brookmaple]

Hoping to tap this weekend in Grey County. Haven't had much of a temperature gradient for any sustained period of time.

[halladaymaple]

Hi Greg:

I havent tapped yet, gotta find a dam canoe first! man there is a alot of water around. Hope to start this weekend, will have to portage from tree to tree.

Happy syruping

Darrell

[crackher]

We my lines were running, finally. and the buckets were a dripping we will be doing a collection as soon as we can get some of this rain to slow down a little. What a diaster on the road into the shack...pure Caledon Mud....Well this was not the start I envisioned but I'll take it.
Good to hear all the reports makes me feel like my bush is not the only one starting slow.

Sounds like milton is running fast huh?

[nas]

Gathered 250 gal this morning, and came in to dry off. need to gather about 70 more buckets yet. Sap was still running a little. -2c tonight, so we might get more tomorrow.

Nick

[Treetapper]

I am also tapping this Saturday (12'th). Little later than I wanted, but I guess I didn't missed a lot yet. This will be the latest I have ever tapped. Hopefully the season will run longer than last year. I am located between Simcoe and Brantford. Hoping for about 150 taps on buckets this year. Looking forward to getting the new (home built) evaporator cookin maybe Sunday. Good luck to all this season.

[Brookmaple]

if next week's forecast pans out, if you haven't tapped yet, you'll be wishing you had. We're heading out today and tomorrow to get ours in.

[Brent]

got the first 110 taps in this morning and getting a good
flow into the tank ... without the vacuum on yet. Trying for another 100 this afternoon. Should have enough sap to flush the RO system later today or tommorow.

Let the fun begin.

[longbeard]

Things are lookin' good in North Simcoe County and the sap is moving real good the past couple of days. Finally getting a chance to try the old Delavaal vacuum pump (first try last year didn't pan out due to poor run). Let the pump run all nite and day and she is bringing a goodly amount to the tank. Have some real light "near syrup" to finish off before we really get at 'er next week. Forecast looking good!

[Brent]

Finished off at about 240 CV taps in on the vac line. Now to get the vac turned on. There was about 50 gallons in the tote that just ran down under gravity while I was tapping.
By tommorow, enough to flush the new membranes.
Then flush the rest of the pipeline and put in another 350 - 400. Going to be easy to count this year.
Fresh new bags of CV's 100 to a bag.

[Bruce L]

500 of the new cv adapters in so far,hectic day today after the rain held us up.250 gallons of sap came in the tank by gravity,my wife and I spent all day yesterday stretching tubing,shortening lines,adding new taps.Today was fire up for first boil,then start up vacuum pump,tap some more(she tapped for the first time,will know later how she did.We went checking for leaks after shutting the rig down,found a lot of our new mainline manifolds were leaking around the 6 way stars even with teflon tape,also had to tighten the band clamps to stop the leaks.Biggest disappointment for the day was the kids waiting to get the first taste of fresh syrup,but 250 gallons of sap doesn't go very far in sweetening a 16' rig,maybe tomorrow.

[can'twaitforabigrun]

looks like we'll start tapping around Monday or Tuesday here in Pembroke, ON. From the forecast looks like there is the possibility of sap running from Tuesday the 15th, through to the 22nd, but after that the models show quite a cold spell through to at least the 26th. Just wondering is there any chance of the holes drying or freezing up if it gets real cold for a week? By the way, around here our start date is normally around the 18th.

[Treetapper]

Tapped 125 Saturday and about 35 more to go for Sunday. Its running good down here North of Waterford. Firing up the new home built 2.5 x 6 evaporator Sunday afternoon. Game on!

[argohauler]

Took off my first syrup yesterday. 43 litres of medium.

Froze some the night before and they ran a little and will gather that today. Barely froze last night, so I don't expect much of a run today.

Why do we have to get so much friggin rain? Now they've got rain forecasted for mid week and it looks like 3 nights aren't going to freeze. Looking like last year, but just not as hot.

[Buckshot]

Put in about 130 taps on Saturday. Excited to see the holes start to drip by the time the spiles were in!
Not happy about the foot of heavy wet snow that accumulated during the week- had to rebreak the 4 wheel trails. The winch got quite a work-out :(

Will hopefully get the evaporator fired up this weekend...in the meantime, it sure is nice to hear the tinking of sap drops hitting the buckets.

[nas]

Looks like perfect sap weather the next couple of days. Gathered over 400gal today. My tanks are full and I can't boil till tomorrow afternoon:o:o. Looks like it will be a long night tomorrow:D:rolleyes:

Nick

[Yellzee]

duplicate seem to have lost my message

[argohauler]

Took off 52 litres today. Didn't hardly run a drop today. Gathered this afternoon and my help didn't show. Should of gathered first and then boiled I guess. Got in 330 gals., so I've got around 400 to boil tomorrow.

Doesn't feel like it's going down to -5 tonight. I'll be surprised if it freezes with this cloud cover.

[Yellzee]

not sure where the heck my post went.. but I'll do this again..

No sap today or yesterday really. Too warm at night. Supposed to freeze tonight but still very warm out.

probably collect 70 gallons this week total... 1st batch of almost syrup in the finishing pot but \i'll wait until the next boil to finish it off.

debating adding another 20 or so taps to the party.

[Brent]

We got the vac going on the first 240 taps today.:) All in all about 200 gallons.

Going to use most of that to flush the RO. :(

Going to be real cold tonight, minus 10 locally, and only plus 3 tomorrow. Maybe a small run will start.

Edit 9:00 PM and it's minus 5 already.

[crackher]

I collected between saturday and sunday around 1100Litres. it was a good start and I sugared the pans in. unfortunately we had a late start due to some problems with the evap but we got them sorted and we are rocking away. I hope to get some finished in a day or two

[argohauler]

Froze around -2 here. Hopefully enough to power the trees again.

Supposed to freeze tonight and then not till the weekend. That sucks!

And Environment Canada says we could have almost T-shirt weather this week. Up to 57 a couple days!

[SPM in King]

Started the day with 340L and figured I'd get another 200, at least, from today's run. So, I started to boil. All my valves were frozen along with some of the sap in my barrels. What a pain. I ended up boiling just what I started with. No real run of any sort today. But what a beautiful day (I boil outside). Here's hoping for a good run tomorrow.

Steve.

[Brent]

Got about 100 gallons today from 240 on vac (with some startup leaks -~ 20") and 50 or so buckets. The releaser was still tripping regularly when we left. Just shut the vac of now, 9:00PM. I'll bet theres another 25 to 50 gallons out there.

Did we do a dumb thing. It was time to re-seed the hay field so we ploughed last fall. Now we have no stability in the mud. We may be in deep ka ka until the frost is out of the ground.

Got to get the evap finished. Warm weather mid week will spoil the sap.

[MudnMaple]

Well it really run today. From thursday night to saturday we collected about 30 gallons from 105 buckets. Just today we hit 55-60 gallons and we tapped another 25. Hoping tommorow turns out even better than today and we'll be busy boiling on our 2x5 all night.

[ennismaple]

Friday we got the vacuum up to 20" Hg on our 2 largest bushes. A lot of walking in 2 hours to check 2100 taps! We spent the evening getting the sugar camp organized and I plowed roads to our tanks for a few hours. There's so much ice at the bottom of the snow the only thing that's saving us are the tractor chains!

Saturday we got the remaining 1160 taps in, got the vacuum running and walked those bushes for leaks too. By the end of the day we were bagged. With 2 crews tapping we got the 700+ tap bush done in 2 hours!

Yesterday we gathered everything that had run Thursday to Sunday (about 2600 gallons), fired up the RO and lit an inferno in the Force 5. It took a few hours to get the pans sweetened but then the runoffs came pretty regular. We ended up with a 35 gallon drum of very nice light. By the end of the night I was getting tired and didn't care about efficiency so I poured the primary air to the fire and the entire arch was a massive ball of flames. I could hardly keep the foam beneath the drip rails and it's the only time I've seen sparks coming from the stack on the Force 5! It's nice to finally see some results from all our hard work over the past off-season.

The sap ran OK this afternoon once it warmed up. Should be a good week! There's gonna be a fog hanging over Bennett Lake even on sunny days!!!

[adk1]

even though I will never require a rig like yours, I do like going to the Lapierre video and watching that thing crank. it is impressive

[wino]

Hey MudnMaple,

I am just south of ya on Pleasant Lane. Got 30 Gal sap from 37 buckets today. Whats your location?

Wino

[ca2devri]

I'm south of St.Thomas (just north of Lake Erie). I now have 45 taps in.

I think my taps are generally running very slowly (slower than I would have expected, but it's my first year). I got maybe 10 gallons from 45 taps yesterday and it got up to 4 C. A couple of my trees gave me more than half of that!

I'm using 5/16" health spiles and I wonder if that has something to do with it? I have 5 of the 7/16" plastic spiles and they seem to be running much faster, but they're also in bigger trees. I also used a regular 5/16" bit and I don't know if I have a good hole and fit (there's some leaking). Maybe also it's because I'm on a NE slope and the major sap is yet to come?

Anyway, I boiled down about 7 litres of syrup on Sunday. Fun!

Hopefully today I get lots of sap and I can boil again tomorrow maybe.

Chris

[Brent]

Chris
Tests have shown that the smaller spouts have very little impact on sap flow. It is very difficult to measure. Tree size, crown developement, moisture in the soil, sunlight hitting the tree etc etc, not to mention that apparently otherwise identical trees, side by side in the middle of a field can have different flows and different sugar contents.

Just take what you get and have fun.

[v. Deschenes]

Sap is running here in northern ontario sault ste marie erea . put in 10 taps today but allready i tapped 6 taps 3 days ago , this is my fisr year and hope for a good one ,, lol i have 16 taps i ran out of buckets if i can get my hands on more ill tap up to 30 not much but great for a starter.. any of you guys having a good run ???

[Yellzee]

As a guy that grew up in Spring Valley (Murray Road)it's hard to believe there can be 2 other guys from that small an area on here.

I had a great run yesterday... about 80 gallons from the 108 taps. If you consider it was only above zero for a few hours.. .that seems pretty good. It was pouring out of the pipe when I was back there around 5.

Guessing today should be a BIGSAP warning for us, sun is shining... I'm thinking holding tanks are overflowing.

[Brian66]

First Boil today. Sweetened the pans with 400L of sap. Maybe boil again on Friday.

[adk1]

As a guy that grew up in Spring Valley (Murray Road)it's hard to believe there can be 2 other guys from that small an area on here.

I had a great run yesterday... about 80 gallons from the 108 taps. If you consider it was only above zero for a few hours.. .that seems pretty good. It was pouring out of the pipe when I was back there around 5.

Guessing today should be a BIGSAP warning for us, sun is shining... I'm thinking holding tanks are overflowing.

What are you using for a holding tank on that many taps?

[argohauler]

I was hoping for BIGSAP today, but it didn't come. They ran OK, but they didn't start till after 11. Yesterday was a small run. Trees were slowing down when I came up tonight.

Took off 39 litres yesterday and 32 today for 166 total.

Got around a thousand gallons to boil tomorrow.

The weather sucks now till Saturday night. Rain and cloud and more rain and cloud. Not what we need. Fast way to kill a season.

[crackher]

Well on our set up we are generally collecting around 5 barrels on the lines every 1.5 days and nearly 200 gallons on the buckets every 1.5 days. We are really happy the way things are going. a little bit better weather and I will get to spend some more time there..:D

[Yellzee]

What are you using for a holding tank on that many taps?

I have 2 45 gallon drums on their sides hooked to the main line. Main line goes in a hole I cut in the top and from one of the bung holes I ran a hose into the bung hole of the other drum... so when the first one fills up it overflows into the second one. I should really add a 3rd drum in the set up as this isn't really enough capacity for a huge day.

I had another decent day yesterday, got about 90 gallons of SAP.. it was still trickiling in about 9pm when I pumped out the last one.


Still haven't finished anything yet, but father in law boiled all day yesterday and will again today.

[SPM in King]

Adk1/Yellzee, something like this - see pic.

Run was terrible yesterday, but today it's great. Go figure. Just collected 350L+ from this rig and I have another 180 or so to get from another line....and it's still running well. Could be a really good boil tomorrow.

Steve.

[crackher]

SPM I like that setup I have being toying with the idea of doubling up the capacity as a single barrel is not enough and the 1000l totes are too big.
thanks for the idea.

[Yellzee]

that looks nice but I don't have the height I would need..

mine are both just sitting on their sides on ground with the top (bung) ends facing each other....

[cheesegenie]

Sap ran good here last two days, I don't have a sap tester, but it seems to take a lot of sap to make syrup. Might be just because it is early (i hope). Not 40 -1 more like 70-1.

[v. Deschenes]

not very good run today , only 1 and 1/2 gallon out of 18 trees haha , reds dod not run at all only the sugars did the work,, the weather was +10 c maybe a little too warm but last night was a freezing night so idk why it did not run too good .. rain for the next 2 days here with no freezing nights DANG!!! still good weather coming up in 4-5 days, that means i have to boil down only 2 gallons of sap :( it will spoil i think if i wait too long to boil..

any ways its still very fun i think i got bit by the sugar bug , im now an addict :lol: its my first year... HOPE U guys have good runs..

[nas]

Overflowing buckets was the standard for yesterday and today. Made 65 litres today, and my storage tanks are still full. Can't boil again till Saturday. Stoopid day job:mad: Can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm glad the sap has slowed down.:emb:

Nick

[Brent]

We got about 250 gallons yesterday. Hauled in 70 gallons from the buckets tonight. Some were overflowing. The sad news is that we could not get to the tote on the pipeline. There's 200 gallons of it that mostly came in today, without the vacuum on. We can't get to it for all the mud. So is is going to spoil before we find a way to get to it ... 2 or 3 more warm days coming.

[Ren]

Sap has been running good here since Sunday. I went to check on the buckets this evening at six and could not believe the run today. I collected 90 gal. and it did not even freeze here last night. I collected last night at 10 PM (in the rain) and collected 120 gal off 80 taps. That gives me 380 gal since Sunday! Looks like it will be a long night!!!

[argohauler]

Looks like it froze a bit last night. Hope it will produce something today.

Nothing ran here yesterday to speak of, trees ran out of power.

Took off 44 litres, for a total of 210.

[ca2devri]

I collected maybe 30 gallons from 45 taps yesterday.

Last night was supposed to go down to only 2 C, but I notice a bit of frost on the ground here and there. Maybe that will be enough to get things moving again today? We're getting very warm today (14C).

Chris

[Yellzee]

frost on the ground here last night around 11:30pm when I got home from hockey so hopefully trees re-charged here a bit. No sap yesterday really.

Finished off the first 7 litres of syrup yesterday... that was out of around 70 gallons of SAP so not that bad really. right about 40 to 1.

Finishing pot full again from the past couple days boiling, and about 60 gallons left to boil. Might have to save that for Saturday night if we don't get any more so I have an excuse to sit in the shack and watch hockey.

[ennismaple]

We gathered over 6,000 gallons of sap yesterday (hadn't gathered since Sunday night), got it run through the RO and boiled. Sugar content was poor at about 50:1. We ran into with the RO as the fitting for the temperature probe in the supply pump is leaking and electrical tape just doesn't do a good enough job on leaking pressure pumps! We should get it fixed today before I fire up again tomorrow. Sap's running well today so there should be lots in the tanks when I get to teh camp in the morning!

[v. Deschenes]

boiling today and adding some sap untill i have no more ,, hope to have good syrup for pancakes :)

[v. Deschenes]

finishing it inside haha my mom will not be happy lol but its the allmost done and not much steam coming up so lol..

[argohauler]

Yesterday's little freeze just made them drip a bit. Lines were just dripping as well.

Took off 40 litres yesterday fror a total of 250. 4 more litres and and I will tie last years dismal total.

Got between 7 and 800 gallons to boil today and then I'm caught up.

Supposed to freeze tonight and Saturday, then Tuesday, Wednesday.

Glad I packed the trails and holes this winter. I'm still running on some ice and still have a lot of frost in the trails as well. The snow is almost gone in the bush now.

See the neighbours are having trouble with their sap hauler. The have a Kubota RTV 900. When I came home last night I could see they had the loader tractor hoisting up the back end and all 4 back wheels were off and 2 guys underneath.

I went by the neighbours bush on the road Saturday and they didn't pack their trails and that RTV has ruts that look like the underside would be scraping the ground.

[Yellzee]

I had a bit of sap... probably about 15 gallons.


I did alot of work in the fall filling in the ruts I had with fence line rock, they are holding up pretty well... but a new section of trail I made to bypass the worst ruts from last is already breaking through the frost into mush... likely be some work this weekend to jam something in there. Better get the winch on the bike tuned up I suspect.

Looks like the next couple days might be good sap days!

[Treetapper]

Have had good sap run until today bringing in about 400 litres off of 160 taps on buckets. Looks good for this weekend too.

[Treetapper]

I am getting the imperial metric thing wrong. I am getting about 800 litres or 200 US gallons (last post said 400 litres). These late nights are catching up with me.

[cheesegenie]

@Treetapper, I still just hate that metric system, and it started changing when I was in school, 60/70s. Our family has been here a long time time also, although 70 acres is not enough to farm anymore, I still use it for wood, and keep a few draft horses. Sold my cattle
in 2008. You must have one of those green bicentenial plaques the Ontario Gov. gave out in 1984? The bush I tap is not mine, 2-3 miles up the road. The landowner is just great.
Happy tapping. Hope it runs today, finally froze last night.

[argohauler]

Didn't freeze here last night. Though the forecast looks fairly decent for next week.

Boiled the last 750 Imp. gals. I had yesterday. Took off 80 litres and now have a total of 330.

Got to grease the seals on the Argo today and have 3 tanks to get washed out.

[Rockwood]

Final froze last night but only going up to 2c sometime later in the day..
With no sap yesterday and only 15 the day before, this places me with only 100gals thus far this year. Hoping to double that by next weekend. :rolleyes:

[BryanEx]

Gorgeous day, everything is ready, off work for the weekend... and nothing to do. :mad: I've collected a total of 2 gallons of sap per tap so far this season and it's already boiled down. I'm starting to think I'll come up way short on my season totals but we'll see I guess.

[longbeard]

Things are looking good for this season. Have had a real good week and have made 3/4 of the total I made all last season! The old Delaval pump is getting a good workout and is producing real good and amazingly the 3 sap ladders I hooked up in tandem are actually working - they bring sap from the other side of the road, under a road culvert and back up to the sugar shack - this saves me hauling a trailer, pumping, etc.

This is the first day off in 7 from the shack (which is good) and catching up on 15 pages of New Posts. Next couple of days look good and then some real cold weather which should reset the trees for another go!

John

[DrewCP]

Collected close to 40 gal today. Puts us around 150 gal since last Sunday. Pretty poor run so far. Upcoming weather is looking much better.
We are going to boil what we have tomorrow. Just built a cinder block arch for one of our 2x4 pans. Should work well.
I must admit, I'm pretty psyched. Probably won't sleep too much tonight.

[argohauler]

Froze good last night. Should get a decent run today.

This coming week looks more like a freeze up week after we get rid of the rain tonight.

[argohauler]

Well I was disappointed with today's run. It was 44 today and I thought the buckets would of run better than they did. I'm thinking some are drying up with all these warm nights we've had so far. We haven't had a freeze since last Monday night and there has been a lot of rainy nights and days this March. I think we've had at least 10 nights it hasn't frozen and 2 more coming now.

Anyways I took a couple pics last week when we had snow. She's all gone now.

The swamp tank. A 400 USG or 330 Imp. gal. tank. 4 mainlines get sap from part of the bush and all the swamp. Just over 400 taps. Mostly soft maple.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h280/Leah_Anne/ChrissCameraMarch20001.jpg

The shanty boiling with my woodshed and some of the outside wood piles.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h280/Leah_Anne/ChrissCameraMarch20002.jpg

Pumping up sap from my 400 Imp. gal. tank to my 300 Imp. gal. feeder tank with my 3/4 hp submersible.

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h280/Leah_Anne/ChrissCameraMarch20003.jpg

[Yellzee]

Had good runs Saturday and Sunday.. collected about 200 gallons over the weekend. Up to a whopping 29liters so far... looking in the book I had 49 by this time last year. Still to finish everything from the weekend so total will go up.

fighting to get the new smaller healthy spiles I installed sealed in the trees.. have to post a question elsewhere on that one.

[crackher]

well we are at 25 gallons of syrup produced thus far and I hoping that it will last a little longer

[ennismaple]

We had a good weekend and between the 18 hour day I put in on Friday and yesterday's 18 hour day we produced 25% of what a normal season would be. So far we're below 0.5 L per tap but things are progressing well considering we've only boiled 4 times. I'd guess we're at 4.5 gallons sap per tap total.

Has anyone else been having trouble filtering so far this year? There's next to no sugar sand in the syrup - just a dark slime that clogs filters immediately. Our Sirofilter runs almost non-stop at 40psi just to push out a dribble of filtered syrup. Filter Aid helps but not a lot. I sure hope the real sugar sand comes soon!

[v. Deschenes]

guys i have a question, whats happends if a little rain gets in your sap ??? not much just a little.. it will just take a little longer to boil down or is the sap no good at all ?

[BryanEx]

You got it v. Deschenes... rain water just decreases your sugar content which means a longer boil for the same syrup quantity.

[Bruce L]

Marty,we are at 40 % right now,lots of sugarsand for us,having to really watch the syrup pans for cleaning now,scary thing is how much has disappeared from the woodpile already.
Bruce

[argohauler]

Boiled 400 gals. today and got 38 litres and it's getting darker. We now have a total of 368 litres off of 1800 taps. I would be happy with .5 litres per tap , but I'm pretty sure I won't see it this year.

I haven't had sugar sand in a coons age. Just the first few years when I first started back in 94 and I was only tapping hard maples. I wonder if soft maples have something to negate it?

As for the black slime ennismaple, I have it, but I just use the cone orlon filters and the syrup goes through pretty well.

We gathered the other half of the buckets today and got 450 gals. to boil tomorrow.

Broke the rip cord on my generator today.

They say we'll be lucky to freeze here tonight.

Sap is starting to run cloudy now. I think those couple hot days sort of cooked my flow.

[DrewCP]

Boiled on Sunday on our untested, built on Saturday, block arch.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v357/aleger33/Picture777.jpg


Ran through 145g (550l) of sap in about 14 hours. By then the 2x4 pan was down to under 1.5". Pulled it off and finished up in 4 hours on Monday. Final yeild was close to 4g (+/-14l) putting us at 39:1.

Less the Monday finish on the turkey fryer the 2x4 pan on the block arch was running @ 9-10 gph. We did cheat a little by pre heating the sap on the fryer to about 100*C before adding it to the pan. We would only lose the boil for literally 2-4 minutes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v357/aleger33/Picture783.jpg


Best friend but useless when it comes to syrup making........

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v357/aleger33/Picture786.jpg


Already have 100gal ready for Saturday. Would like to get another 100 or so this week. We'll see.

Later,
Drew

[Yellzee]

Ennis, I had one batch with really bad slime, but i'd put alot of sap into that batch and figured I should have taken it off sooner.

Drew... I'm a fairly similar set up... and what I have done is wrap a piece of 3/8 copper tube around the chimney about 6 times and run the sap through that to pre-heat it.. a steady drip into the pan and I never lose the boil.... 5 gallon water jug mounted just above tubing height hooked up to the tube. so every 20 minutes or so I top up the water jug.

[Yellzee]

Wow, looking at the forecast here.. .if it just gets a couple degrees warmer during the day we are going to have a heck of a week... most nights -7, most days about zero with sun...

[argohauler]

Didn't freeze last night. Boiled 450 gals. today and got caught up again. Took off 42 litres putting me up to 410 now.

Weather is cold and snow coming tonight. Some lows are going to be minus double digits. Wonder what it will look like when we emerge from it. Will it be normal syrup weather or will it spike. It's late in March for us in the sunny south.

[markcasper]

ennismaple, You are correct in regards to sugar sand. Last year I was able to filter practically a 55 without a paper change on the press. This year I can't get a 40 gallon SS barrel full and I have to put in some new papers. What really torks me off is why the syrup went from light amber to dark amber on the second day of boiling and the sap on the second time was clear and not nearly as old as the first boil. It has me stumped!

[Brian66]

Finished and bottled 2 batches today. The first batch was boiled down on March 19th and was 80:1. I could not believe it! Second batch was Boiled down on March 22nd. and came out at 43:1, getting better. Anyone ever seen that before? This is gravity tube system so no water was introduced to the sap in case you are wondering. I should probably charge about $40.00/L on that first batch eh?

[argohauler]

Well we've got 5 - 6 inches of snow and it's still coming. I wish it had froze first instead of the cold minus double digit lows after. It's gonna make getting around the bush difficult now all the ice and frost are gone. Likely going to get hung up some.

I would like to know how you guys in Elgin and anywhere to the southwest are finding this year?

My year is better than last, but poor.

[ennismaple]

After yesterday's boil we're at 0.5L/tap, which is probably standard for our area. Our sugar content did suck the first few days (50:1 or worse) but it's improved and has been at 40:1 or slightly better since late last week.

[cheesegenie]

Brian , I guesstimated in a post last week that the first runs was about 70-1. Was almost normal later in the week. One strange thing, NO sugar sand when filtering????? The last two days have been too cold, below freezing all day, everything is all froze up here.

[timbers]

We have made 42gallons to date off 650 taps. About 50% of our taps are reds and although our totals are low for our tap count its much better than last year. Mostly dark and amber grades.
Ian

[argohauler]

Timbers do you know the Chamber's from Villa Nova or the Watt's around Townsend?

If you do, do you know how they are making out this year?

[longbeard]

What a difference a year makes! Things are frozen up real good now and will stay that way for a while but should bode well for another run in a week or so.
My totals are abut 1/2 l. per tap so far which is better than I got all last year, which was one of the poorest. I used my new sap hydrometer and floated it in the head tank and showed 2.6% this week - not sure if this is good or not since I haven't done it before?

I agree with the filter clogging comments - my prefilters are clogged in no time.