Southeast Missouri 2010 - It's Time!!

[Goggleeye]

Tapped 22 trees today, about 17 of which involved my wife holding a spotlight from the truck. She's a good woman. They were all dripping fast. Now I sit here anxiously awaiting supplies so I can put all the rest of my taps in. Man, this is addicting.

[Groves]

I'm west of you in Springfield, but as is my tradition, I let the sap weather sneak up on me. I too am awaiting new spiles. I've got my wood ready and my pans ready to go!

Need to rig up some more storage though.

[Goggleeye]

Checked them this morning - only about 1/8 to 1/4 gallon on each. I'm wondering if the frozen ground is keeping them from flowing well? We just came off of 2 + weeks of very cold weather right into highs and lows above freezing. I don't have my pans yet, as they are on order from my wife's cousins' stainless manufacturing company just south of you, Groves, in Ozark. I hope our somewhat inconsistent MO weather cooperates for us this year as good as last year.

[Groves]

Last year was great indeed.

Let me know how those pans turn out. I can't get the family discount, but at least I can shop local. What style of pans are you getting?

We still use steam table pans on a simple concrete block trough.

Looks like all this week is above freezing during the day and below freezing at night. I hope I don't miss the whole season because of my tardy acquisition of spiles. C'mon bascoms and ups!

[Goggleeye]

My order from Bascom's came in three days. So you should be ready to go pretty soon. If I was you, though, I'd probably be carving elderberry spiles. I made several of those last year, and they worked just as good as the manufactured ones, with no sooner hole closure due to sanitary reasons. You just have to make sure they are carved to size so they don't split when you drive them in the taps.

UPS tracking has my tubing and TEEs from the Maple Guys coming Monday.

My 2 pans (on order) are 28" X 40" X 10" that will rest upon a barrel burner I made from a 400 gal fuel tank. I plan to keep the sap shallow and the fire hot.

Last year (first year), I cooked in kettles. Lost way to much heat. How does that trough system work for you? I've considered that myself. Does it get enough air to keep the fire hot?

Mark

[Groves]

If I come across some elderberry, I'll start my whittling.

I went with 5/16 spiles this year, bought a mixture of SS and plastic. We use milk jugs to collect.

Take some pics of your setup, sounds great.

We used a turkey cooker 2 years ago before I was learned enough about the boiling rate being linked to surface area. Man I wasted a lot of propane then.

We love our pan setup, though mostly because it's cheap. We just keep adding blocks and more pans. Having a drawoff would be nice, but I'll probably always be a batch guy, so it's ok.

Here's some pics of last year.

http://matthewgroves.com/Hobbies/Sugaring09.html

One score over the summer was finding a flooring company in town that gives away their scraps. So I have nice piles of dry oak that are already in the form of 1x2 boards. They burn so hot since they're so small. It worked well for boiling corn this summer so I can't wait to not have to split wood during sugaring....and it's free!

Find a flooring mill near you, you're in Missouri after all.

[Groves]

Poor form to reply to my own post, but I forgot a few things.

We did use a blacksmith blower last year to add air to the fire, which really heated things up.

This summer putting up corn using the new flooring wood we didn't need to add air at all. Much faster boiling with that wood.

I do need to rig up a good feeder tank and preheater.

[Goggleeye]

The first 24 hours yielded about 12 gallons of sap from 22 taps, most of which came from about 4 trees that filled their 1 gallon jugs. Temp in mid 40's today, but the ground is still frozen below a layer of mud soup. Found several moths in my sap - that just shouldn't happen in January. I plan on getting more work done on barrel tomorrow.

Good idea for fuel wood. We've got acreage with a bunch of wood down from last May's inland hurricane that hit us dead center, so I'm sure that will keep me in firewood for several years.

And cooking corn using the same method - that never occurred to me. We put up a lot of produce - the big pans would work great for cooking down tomatoes and the like outside - that would keep the heat out of the house in summer.

[Goggleeye]

Flowed well in SE MO today - had most of my gal milk jugs full. Frost is already on the ground tonight, I hope tomorrow is as good. Forecast highs for the next week in the upper 50's/lower 60's is rather depressing, though.

[Groves]

Indeed, we need some more freezing! Still haven't tapped here, but have gotten permission on a few more residential trees.

[skinny78]

Not ready for this here in Holts Summit either. We are almost done with the wood cutting and are working on the new flue pipe. Also trying to get a steam hood fabricated this year. Feels like we are missing out but this weather is a little early.

[The Birdman]

I see you Missouri maplers got a tread welcome to the trader.

[Groves]

Thanks Birdman,

We're in year 3, following the time honored evolution of turkey fryer to steam table pans.

Here's a question. How does one drive these?

http://www.bascommaple.com/images/products/SPHLATS.jpg

I assume some sort of special insert tool that I didn't get.

I could have sworn it said stainless steel when I bought these, but they're aluminum.

Live and learn.

[JohnsSugarShack]

I've been using the soule taps for 10 years. They work great, I just tap them in with a small dead blow hammer.

[Goggleeye]

Just finished the first syrup of the year. Did it the hard way. Don't have pans in hand yet, so cooked in a kettle. Got a really good ratio. Got almost exactly 1 gallon of gold from 50-55 gal of sap.
The upcoming weather is terribly exciting. Nearly every day of the entire 10-day gives lows in the 20's and highs in the upper 30's to 40's! I'm planning to set the rest of my taps today.

[Groves]

Gotta get those pans, man. We tapped two on Friday, but it's not flowing yet. Great weather ahead, like you said. I need to tap today.

I've got all manner of people feeding me milk jugs now. Perfect.

[The Birdman]

weather man lies said same thing for my area the last ten day's. Has been to hot:o

[skinny78]

We finished tapping our trees today. We have 82 taps out this year on buckets and I am finishing up my steam hood. I will get some pictures up when it is done. We are waiting on the weather now. Hopefully the half pint can keep up!!!

[The Birdman]

skinny. 82 taps that might make you the largest producer in missouri. :lol: :lol: :lol:

[Groves]

Mark, if you are, you can put that on your bottles!

[Goggleeye]

Put in #84 today, hopefully 120 by Thursday!

[The Birdman]

skinny looks like you lost out.:( Goggleeye take's the led, you still have time to get more taps in.

[Goggleeye]

Put in #84 - 110 today, mostly before light and after dark. Does that qualify as having "the sickness"? Most of my taps yielded 1/2 gal + today, and it was cloudy and never got out of the 30's all day. Tonight, 21, tomorrow 40 and sunny. Most of my gal jugs and 5 gal end line containers will probably be running over - I have no way to collect before 6 pm:cry: Still need to put the finishing touches on the evaporator.

Skinny - have you collected any sap yet, or have you been too cold?

[skinny78]

We got about 15 gallons today from our 82 taps. I will be hanging my steam hood tomorrow and getting the pan set. Wednesday looks a little better but the long range is still looking pretty cold here.

[Groves]

Mark, let's hope you're not writing checks with your drill that your evaporator and clock can't cash.

[Goggleeye]

Those are the least of my concerns. As of now, I have no wood cut yet for the evaporator, and about the same amount left to heat our home. And my wife told me if I write another check for maple supplies, our bank won't cash it! Glad the weekend and a brother with a chainsaw are coming soon.

[Groves]

Cut. Wood. Fast.

[skinny78]

Started cooking today, we had about 35 gallons of sap and that wasn't even enough to sweeten my pan. Everything working good except my steam hood. I made it 12" wider than my pan and it has an 8' stack on it. I have it hanging from the ceiling and some steam goes up but it is lazy and heavy. I have started messing around with putting a fan up on the top of the stack but it will need a big one. I had an electric leaf blower motor and impeller up there and it helped but it was noisy and cost about nine cents and hour to run. I have been thinking about trying a roof turbine but I don't have one laying around. I have uploaded some pictures of it to my photo bucket if anyone is interested in looking at it.

http://s272.photobucket.com/albums/jj176/skinny781/Maple%20Syrup%202010/

[The Birdman]

bring your hood down to @16 in above the evap.

[Goggleeye]

Jugs and buckets were overflowing today. At least 100 gal just today. It was cloudy and never got out of the 30's. Right now, I have somewhere between 225-250 gal to boil this weekend, and I expect we'll have another 100 gal by Sat morning. All 120 of my taps are finally set.

My brother coming from KS to help with sugaring picked up my pans on his way here. They are stinkin' awesome. I'll post pictures of the set-up soon. I'm hoping for 30 gal per hour. Now - all I need is wood. Dry wood. We spend most of the evening gathering sap in the rain. Just got in at 9:30.

One of our dairy goats looks like she's going to kid tonight.

Tomorrow's gonna be a 5 cups of coffee day. At least! I'm beginning to think I may have bitten off a bit more than I can chew.