any one tapping?

[glassman]

this warm spell has me wondering if i should have tapped last weekend. i think the weather will change. any thoughts?

wally

[Maple/Cherry]

Had a group visit the sugarbush Saturday and did a tap demo. Late in the day there was a small amount of sap run that day. Don't get excited yet.

[Tweegs]

Playing it day by day.
Weatherman says it’s supposed to be 32-35 degrees between now and the weekend, but that’s in Detroit, we are generally a couple of degrees cooler here.

I’ll be looking towards the 27th, that’s about the time I tapped last year, could go 1 more weekend and into March for all I know, but I plan to be ready to roll by weeks end.

[LawnMowerMan]

forcasting 33/35(and sunny)/34/34 here for the next 4 days.......mmmmmm.....what to do............then artic air AGAIN:mad:

[glassman]

i am still holding off. the weather is close to being right tho.

[shane hickey]

this warm spell has me wondering if i should have tapped last weekend. i think the weather will change. any thoughts?

wally

wally I Think that I would wait another week, The weather forecast shows it to be under 32 degrees. I might tap maybe next weekend I have 7400 taps so it takes me a while. I live 30 miles west of lansing very cold here yet.
Hilltop Maples

[shane hickey]

Hilltop Maples will start tapping tomarrow weather is a little cool yet, On the other hand we have a lot of holes to drill it may take us a week or so, Good luck to everyone. I hope we all have a great yield. :D :D :D

[BoarsNest]

We put in 65 taps today and got the arch installed. I think we will be making syrup either this week or for sure by the weekend.

[shane hickey]

The boarsNest ha
thats nice, I have been looking at the weather web pages really close it looks like we might be able to a couplle of runs the beginning of the week good luck to you in gr

[BoarsNest]

All the trees were wet when we tapped and we had a few that were running a little by the time we got done. So far so good.

[michigansugarman]

In Grand Rapids area. Tapped today (Sunday 2/28). Sap was running. Looks like it should be a good week.

[whalems]

taped yesterday(2/27) and got some sap today.(about 50 gallons)

[glassman]

finally started tapping saturday. flow was slow but it did flow. put out about 20 or so. will put the rest in today or tomorrow

[PeddlerLakeSapper]

Tapped 50 on Saturday, and 25 on Sunday. Collected 75 gal. Sunday night. One tree tested 5%, all trees combined tested 3.5%!!! Ya hooo.

[Rick_Seebeck]

Tapped yesterday and buckets are half full today at 12:00 noon. Looks to be a good week weather wise. Evaporator is ready to roll tomorrow night.

[NYsap]

Tapped on Sunday morning, buckets were 3/4 full this morning. Sap is running!

[ajnrichville]

Tapped on Sunday morning, buckets were 3/4 full this morning. Sap is running!


Southern, Central or Northern NY?

[Tweegs]

Got em all tapped yesterday (Sunday 2-28). Good run today, a little over 100 gal if I had to guess.

Got to tweak some of the tubing, a couple of low spots in the mains and one sagging lat, but overall I'm pleased.

Let-R-Rip!

[Chris W]

Tapped 25 on Sunday 2/28. My first year. Today I only have a total of 5gal the majority of which from 1 tree w/2 taps. Half of my trees haven't yielded any sap. I know they are maple trees. :) Why would they not be yielding any sap? Is it common to have some trees not produce sap? Are they just "slower" than others due to various factors? Anything I need to do?

Thanks from the newbie (who's super pumped for the season).

I have plenty more trees marked as maples that I haven't tapped yet.

[michigansugarman]

Chris,

I'm not sure what the weather has been like where you are. We are in the GR area. I put in about 50 taps late Sunday afternoon and collected about 75gallons of sweet sap this morning after throwing away a lot of ice from the buckets. So, the sap is definitely running here.

There could be a lot of reasons why the sap doesn't run. Weather is the main one. I have also found that some trees just run better than others. And, it varies from year to year as to which trees are the good runners. Trees with bigger crowns tend to produce more sap.

Also, taps on the north side of the trees tend to run slower than those on the south where the sun hits and warms the bark.

Did you hit good sap wood when you tapped? You should see light wood shavings when you drilled your holes. If the wood is dark or discolored you have hit a bad spot.

How deep did you drill? I use the smaller 5/16 spouts and usually drill around 1 1/2 inches deep.

Good luck. I hope your sap starts running.

Jeff

[Chris W]

Thanks for the info. I'm between Lansing and Jackson. It's been low to mid 30s during the day and 20s at night. I have 2 trees that are really pumping the sap while some of the others haven't produced a drop. My taps are SW - SE side of the trees. Some trees started leaking sap right away after I drilled the holes. Others nothing. It looks like on the trees that are not producing, the wood just below the bark is a darker brown, then goes to light brown the deeper the hole. I drilled to 2 1/2 inches. Is this too deep? I am also using 5/16" plastic spiles to tubing to buckets.

There are a few trees that I double tapped that don't produce in either tap (which leads me to believe it would be hard to hit 2 bad spots on the same tree).

[Chris W]

Hopefully false alarm (a little too anxious my first year). The trees that weren't producing sap produced a small amount today. So I'm hoping that with the warmer weather coming this Friday they will start to pick up the pace.

[johnallin]

Chris, Many times the larger trees take longer to run because they still frozen, smaller trees thaw faster. Be patient it will come.

[Ausable]

You will be swimming in Sap soon Chris - I have 55 trees tapped near Glennie and my Son has another 40 tapped North of Bay City and we only have about 20 gal of sap between us - so far. But --- It can all change in a day and You will have trouble keeping up. Good Luck ------- Mike

[shane hickey]

everything is tapped, helped my custom boilers get theres done so now we are up 9200 taps, made over 140 gallons of syrup, Michiganders, we should have a great weekend hopefully we dont get flooded with sap

Hilltop Maples

[firetech]

We set 250ish tappes yesterday and will do 300 more Sat. All the holes were wet and flowing

[kirkhedding]

We put out 183 taps this last week. Collected last night. Now I have 480 gallons of sap to start boiling down. I did get the pans sweetened last night also.

[whalems]

First boil yesterday. Made 24 8oz. bottles of very light syrup! Sap should run good this weekend. Good luck everyone.

[BoarsNest]

We tapped with about sixty-five 5 gallon buckets last Saturday and collected about 45 gallons Wednesday afternoon. Would have gotten a little more but the tractor didn't like the slippery sliding snow.

[michigansugarman]

Tapped Sunday with 52 taps. It's been a great week. As of tonight we have 150 gal. of sap in storage. Going to start boiling tomorrow (Fri). Looks like the fantastic sugaring weather here in the GR area is going to continue thorough next week.

[Chris W]

Good luck everyone. Here's hoping for a busy and fun weekend. Although I'm scrambling to solve some major steam issues in my 10x10 aluminum shed. If all else fails, I'll be removing the one thing keeping the steam in. :o

[BoarsNest]

Collected 108 gallons of sap this week and ended up with 9 quarts of syrup. Pulled it off a little early, but it is sweet and tasty and won't last long.

[shane hickey]

collected 1600 gallons and have made 140 gallons, will be boiling tomarrow.

[abovetheclouds2]

Shane.....your sap mus have a very high sugar content!

[Tweegs]

Pulled in around 200 gallons of sap over the week, some good days, others not so. A couple of disasters, mama scorched my pan on the first boil of the season, figure we lost about a gallon of syrup there.

Stupid me, I secured the firebox door to the block using masonry anchors…lead anchors…they melted and the door end fell open. The heat melted a couple of solder joints and we sprung a leak. Had to shut her down, fix her up and start over Sunday. I’ll be glad to put this block arch business behind me.

On the plus side, after getting the gradient back, we did manage a couple of gallons of very light stuff, and the arch is running about double the evap rate from last year.

Mama got me a refractometer for my birthday, bless her heart, and thanks to a little ice R.O., the sap in the holding tank was 3.5%.

[shane hickey]

sugar content has been running 2.4 on the low 3.6 high average 2.7 But it doesn't take much, only have to have a gallon per tap and I'll have over 7000 gallons of sap in one day, 2 crews been boiling 24 hours a day made over 500 gallons of syrup so far. a lot of wood throwing over here. good luck to every one in Michigan, East coast be not so good (just kidded)

HillTop Maples