Big trees are not running yet

[backyardsugarer]

My big sugar maples are not running yet, the smaller trees are doing OK but the big ones are not doing anything yet. The nights are also too warm around here. I had a good weekend 120 taps got me 160 gallons of sap, but not as good as I expected. Hope everyone is boiling around the clock like me though.

Chris :lol:

[mapleman3]

I got around 80 gals yesterday and I boiled in 2 shifts with a 3 hour break in between... started around 8 am to 3 pm the 6pm to 12:30 with about 2 .75 gals done.. and sold today !!! so thats good for me... what are you boiling on??
Jim

[backyardsugarer]

Jim,

I have a 2 1/2' by 3' barrel evaporator with a 7 gallon preheating pan that sits on the back (much like a half pint). I also have a 30 gallon barrel up high in my sugar shack that has a valve and copper tubing carrying sap into the preheater pan. The copper is wrapped around the stack 5 times so the sap that hits the preheating pan is already warm. Every little bit helps. My evaporation rate is about 10 gallons an hour when I am in full swing. I am curious to get out of work today to see what happened . 67 degrees here and 6 gallons finished so far. Slow start but I can feel it picking up.

Chris

[mapleman3]

Oh yeah thats right my mind is a blur.... must be a sugar high.... I am getting around 8 gals boilrate per hour...maybe I should take my ownd advice and wrap more aound the stack..... have you ever gone outside in the middle of the night and saw the flames that come out of the stack... WOW !!!!
Jim

ps... when the heck will you sleep with that much sap???

[backyardsugarer]

I don't sleep much this time of year and the trees have not even really started to run well yet. Several trees have only yielded a few gallons of sap so far. When things kick into high gear I may get mysteriously ill :lol:
Chris

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Jim and Chris,

I have always used a flat pan and done well but I am going to purchase a small evaporator after season is over. I am in West Virginia and our season is over here. I only made 19 gallons this year because it had been five years and I am just getting back in it. I used to make it every year and the last year(1998), I made 62+ gallon with an old 5x7 king 4 section flat syrup pan. This year I went to a 3x7 stainless flat pan and I could get aprox 20 gallon per hour. When I used the 5x7, I could get aprox 50 gallon per hour after I got it hot. What I did this year to help matters a lot is that I ran a 10' piece of copper tubing from my feeding tank to the pan. Aprox 6 to 7 feet of the tubing was running underneath the pan directly in the fire. The sap was coming into the pan most of the time close to boiling. This worked great and saved time. When you finish boiling each night, make sure you flush out the tubing with water to keep the small amount of sap inside from scorching.

Happing sugaring!

Brandon

[mapleman3]

And the weather is still goofing things up.... I think it's been too warm daytime..regardless of the below 32 night last, I only got 40 gals again today...I want more sap !!!!! :oops:

Jim

[Tomten]

At the rate things are going here in the mid-west I'm gonna need to by syrup this year....Night time temps have been in the mid 40's since Thursday last with night time freezes not until the weekend....maybe. I had nearly 1/2 my run in by this time last year, and now rain through Sunday. Well, no sense in being disappointed I guess. Just stick to counting my taps daily. Best boiling to all.

[mapleman3]

well I had a good run today so I'm still boiling... do about 3 gals today!! with a 4 hour break mid day !!!
Jim

[pegjam]

Hey, I'm doing alittle investigating. I have noticed when daytime temps get above 63-65 degrees, everything shuts down. Maybe you guys could help me out. Record your daytime highs and the amount of sap you get and email me with it, or post it here. Also, keep track of sunny or cloudy, and wind speed. Doesn't need to be exact, just whither it was blowing hard or soft that day. I think we would all benifit from this because we'd have a better idea of what to expect with different weather patterns. Our "big run weekend" turnned out to be a "fizzle" here, and I was disappointed with it. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Jim

[powerdub]

Jim, I admire your energy in trying to figure this out. The one thing I have learned in the 20 years I have been doing this is that the sap runs when the sap runs. I have gone to my sugarhouse on days that the temps ran 25 the night before and it was sunny and 45 out with just the right ammount of westery breeze expecting to find a tank full and having nothing there. Then two days later you get the same exact weather and you figure it did not run and you would not mind having a night off and find a tank full. I have had many a day When the wind was heavy out of the south, fog, drizzle and cold and the darn sap is pouring in. Go figure! I have learned to check the tank every day it goes above 32 and expect nothing until you look in the tank. (easier said than done :wink: )

[pegjam]

Scott W.

I have been doing this for along time as well, and I am countualy surprized by somethings. But I have also done fairly well guessing when we were going to get a big run, and just a tiny one. I very rarely ever have my storage tank run over, and hardly ever get disapointed because there wasn't "a big" run. I didn't get to excited last weekend when we didn't get any "big" run. However on Wed I got excited because we did get a good run. I knew that before it happened by watching the weather pattern and paying attention. So just for fun, let's do the temps, what the weather was like, and weither the wind was blowing. Maybe I'll surprize you alittle. E-mail to pegjam@infoblvd.net.

Jim :lol: :lol: :lol: