Syrup Season 2009

[skinny78]

It's syrup season in Missouri. We tapped 52 trees and they produced about a gallon each today, Hopefully better tomorrow. I'm still waiting on my pan thermometers and rail gasket from Sugar Bush. They should be here tomorrow and hopefully I can get them welded in my pan early enough to cook off what sap we get. I have never tig welded fittings to a syrup pan so hopefully that goes well. I will post some pics later.

[3% Solution]

Skinny,
That's good for you guys!!!!
Nice warm up here today 38.
Need a few more days like this to get the trees thawed out.
A couple more weeks and we'll be into it too!!!
Good luck!!!

Dave

[skinny78]

Thermometer ports welded up just fine. That stainless pan is thin, but I got them welded without much trouble. Fired up the evaporator tonight. Trees didn't run today, too cold and windy.

[Groves]

Where are you in MO? We only tap about 6 trees here in Springfield, MO. There are more around, but we're in a residential area, so we'll get more permission as the years go on.

Most of the winter has been above freezing, so how do you know when to tap in MO?

[skinny78]

Groves,

I am just North of Jefferson City in the Holts Summit area. We typically tap our trees in late January or early February. I look for consecutive days above freezing and nights below freezing. You can tap earlier but you will have many days that the sap wont run. We tapped about 60 trees last weekend and haven't had much production yet. Had a good boil going on the half pint today, I was cooking off 12 gallons/hr. Looks like those off season upgrades have really helped out.

[Nemo5]

Skinny, I really like your picture of the homemade float. Could you give some detail of how you built it and what materials you used. Thanks.

[skinny78]

Nemo,

I used a Watts float valve and a brass toilet float rod. I removed the cork ring gasket around the plunger of the valve to permit it to move more freely, the plunger has a rubber tip. For the float I used a stainless canister I bought at Walmart. It had a domed lid that I soldered to a section from the bottom of the canister. The brass rod is inserted through the lid and soldered at the top and bottom. I used a liquid stay clean flux and a lead free solder.

[Justin Turco]

Where do you get a watts float valve and the little grooved piece that allows you to adjust the angle (depth in pan) of the float? Good job on the door and blower. I've got to tell you. I am impressed. Your a good engineer.

[skinny78]

I got the float valve from a local plumbing supply house. I also found it online several places including Grainger, it is a Watts model ST500. It comes with an adjustable arm. I removed the cork gasket on the plunger to enable it to move more freely, it just keeps liquid from running out the end instead of the drain port. I also assembled the adjustment plate backwards so I would have infinite adjustment. And while you have it apart I cut a strip of aluminum soda can and wrapped it over the lever that moves the plunger to make it more sensitive to depth change. You will see how loose it fits when you get it in hand.

[Groves]

We've "expanded" to about 15 residential trees. Gives the kids some chores, and the syrup never tasted better.

We'll boil our second batch this weekend. I thought our season was all over, but a recent cold snap has brought us new life!

Thanks for sharing. I'm quite a few steps behind you, but at least I upgraded to steam tray pans this year rather than the turkey cooker of year 1.

[skinny78]

The season here has not been to productive yet, we have approximately 4 gallons of syrup from our 60 trees so far this year. I am expecting a couple more weeks production, I have a lot of customers from last years sales that are wanting more. The weather has been either too warm, too windy, or just too cold, Sunday on looks good but it always seems to change when we get there.

[skinny78]

Finally finished some syrup today. We have had 60 trees tapped for approximately 22 days and finished 4.5 gallons of syrup today. Hopefully it will get better but I think we are running out of time. Will tap nine more trees tomorrow.

[Groves]

We did our second batch Friday night. We had about 45 gallons of sap, and made just over a gallon of syrup.

I added a blacksmith blower to our setup. I'm sure I burned more wood, but saving time was my main goal. It surely worked well.

By the forecast we may only get one more boil done. I've only lived here a year, so I don't know if this is longer or shorter than usual.

[skinny78]

We are up to 70 some trees right now. We have made 11 gallons of syrup since the beginning of February. The weather here has been the pits, yesterday and today the high has been around 75 degrees and the lows around 50 degrees, the sap is running ok, we got approximately 80 gallons of sap each day the last two days. This past weekend it was too windy and cold to run. Today it is little over 100 degrees in the sugar house with the evaporator running full blast. The weather looks better next week back to the 50's and 30's but it will change before we get there.

[Groves]

the outside temp is 81 here. I shudder to think what a sugarshack temp would be.

We'll process our last 50 gallons of sap tomorrow morning. Need to buy some more wood tonight.

[skinny78]

The season is finished here. We ended up making 15 gallons this year, considerably down from last years 29 gallons. We had 71 taps out this year almost twice as many as last year. Hopefully we will have a better season next year. We are still having fun and really appreciate everyone's advise and input. Thanks Maple Trader

[Groves]

I've got to spend some time thinking through the nuances of sugaring in climates like ours.

I mean if I could pull sap every time temperatures were below freezing at night and above during the day.....heck, that describes most of our winter this year.

Tapping in November? I don't think so.

We tapped about half of our incredible 14 trees very late, but man did they yield the syrup. I assume there's a shelf life to the tap holes and the bacteria closed them up. Our early trees didn't yield as much as the season wore on.

Any thoughts on 5/16 vs 7/16?

Maybe I should start 5/16 and ream to 7/16 when production slows?

We tapped at the very end of January, and I thought I was late.

[skinny78]

I use 5/16", I think changing mid season when the bacteria closes the hole up would work pretty good except it would be a pain for 70+ trees. Next year I am going to try antiseptic tapping, there has been some discussion on here and I don't think a little rubbing alcohol sprayed in the freshly tapped hole will hurt. Maybe next year will be a little more normal, Either way I will be tapping February first.

[KenWP]

I sprayed rubbing alchohol in all my trees when I first tapped just to see if it worked or not. Takes so very little to do a bunch of trees.