Scaling down production?

[BryanEx]

Many signature lines here on Maple Trader itemize how each person's maple operation got bigger from year to year. A large number of posts refer to larger evaporators, more taps, a sugar house or sugar house addition yet the profitability or margins always seem slim. It seems that the more we do each year the more we want to do the next year. My question, to a select few I suppose, is if you have ever scaled down your operation at some point and been happier because of it? I ask this question for two reasons... I read a post where a member here half-jokingly stated they should sell everything and go back to a half pint when things were fun, and secondly, because of a decision I need to make about expansion myself for which I'm undecided. Given the poor year many members here are experiencing this year it may be a sore point but I'll ask anyway. Have you ever gone smaller yet been happier because of it and if so... why?

[maple flats]

I never truly got smaller. However I do have 25 fewer taps this year than last. That is only because of the over warm weather and a snow storm. As I was ready to tap a storm hit that made a lot of repairs necessary and then I got tapped a little late, 2 full weeks later than I wanted. I always tap my sugars first and when I finished the sugars the weather had gotten so warm and the forcast was for more of the same so I never tapped my reds this year. On some of my steeper sections it took me way too long to tap trying to climb steep hills with snow shoes on. I made it but the time was too much.
This being said, I still plan to grow. I am in the planning stage to add vacuum for 2011 and increase my taps to about 750 by picking up sections I will need a sap ladder to get. At this time I have no dreams to ever go bigger than my 3x8 but I do plan to add an RO and lots more taps to fully utilze that 3x8 potential.

[michiganfarmer]

I would like to do less tapping, and just buy more sap, but I do want to build up to making 1000 gallons of syrup per year

[BryanEx]

I'm curious michiganfarmer... less taping I presume to cut out the "bush work"... but you like to boil? Do you also have demand for 1000 gallons of syrup and/or get enjoyment from selling it? That's part of my delemma... I don't care to run around selling the stuff. Sales that come to me are cool, helping a city family to make their own syrup is awesome, but direct marketing of syrup against many large players just doesn't do it for me and while I could entertain twice as many families per year I'm doubtful I would get enjoyment from the workload, pace, and management difficulties. This year is a perfect example of what I need to plan for. I HAVE to have enough good quality sap every weekend to put on "the show". I can do that but at what cost and I wonder if it would be worth the fun factor?

Financially the numbers work no problem. Upgrade would cost $1000... revenue would increase $2500. If I struggle through the challenges of first year I could still sell the second evaporator and be bucks up. But... would I still have as much fun by going bigger?

[3rdgen.maple]

Bryan I made that halfpint statement for many reason and you would be correct about the half- jokingly part. Here is why I said that. My (not so sure now)goal is to grow the maple business for retirement. Some extra cash and something to kill the time. Well when I keep sticking money into a business that is totally dependant on mother nature sure can kick you in the pants. The past 2 season have been poor at best and no matter how I look at things if I go back and read data from over 60 years ago that my grandfather kept, spring tapping is not anywheres near as productive and you can see the gradual decline in sap because of the lack of proper temperatures. I ran 800 taps this year and had 400 last year. My grandfather at most had 250. He had way more sap from those 250 back in the day. He had a 3x8 drop flue and it shows where he and grandma took shifts boiling for days straight to keep up. So I have to sit here and ask myself why do I really like making syrup? Is it for the extra cash or is it because I just darn enjoy doing it? I enjoy it period. The friends helping , family getting together, the peaceful time of sitting in the sugarhouse in the middle of the night with just me and my dog. I love everyting it brings to my life except one thing. How **** fustrating it can be when you are trying to atleast break even or make a few extra bucks to upgrade next year. So do I jump in again and spend even more money and stick everything on vacuum and hope I get a return on that or go back to the ways that got me here.
I love to boil long hours, I strive and take pride in hard work, So I would be happy and less dissapointed if I stuck out alot of taps and boiled on a halfpint and spent 16 hours a day for a few weeks boiling. But in the back of my mind I will be looking at all the trees and hear them calling me. I think I have to stick things on vacuum and if it does not satisfy me then I will be going backwards. Even vacuum would not have saved my season when there is like 12 + days without a freeze.

[red maples]

It still funn after my first year ...even though this year was stressful...mostly due to weather do I wanna go bigger? not yet. I will stick to the same number of taps for next year. but I want to improve some things to make it more effiecient. like increase sap storage, storten laterals by adding mainline, thinning out some of the smaller trees to get bigger crowns to help the trees get healthier. and a few other things. by I am happy with the size for now. I still have alot more trees on my property an adjacent properties but it is alot of work and will be even more enjoyable when my kids get a little bit older.

[JuniperHillSugar]

I've been looking on for about a year now, here on the trader, and it seems that everyone is planning an upgrade. Bigger evaporator, more taps, better preheater. For many of us, half the fun is in the setup. I have friends visit the sugar house that are really interested to see all the improvements from year to year. I enjoy the challenge to make some improvement as well.

As for the money side of things, I would suggest that about 90% of us here are doing it for the fun, and maybe 10% are making a profit. Hobbies can be expensive, wether you like to hunt, fish, or make maple syrup.

[Maplesedge]

I'm happy with 8 taps. Don't want to get bigger. Just want a little syrup, candy, and some stories to tell.

[BryanEx]

I appreciate everyone coming forward with their thoughts and 3rdgen.maple... I didn't want to call you out specifically but your post that one day really hit home. Is it about the fun or the profit and where is that balance? Thank you everyone so far and I hope others chim in.

[3rdgen.maple]

Bryan I still have fun while I working on maple stuff it is just the down time that gets me thinking too much. But I know exacally what you are feeling. I am not sure if I can tell where the line is. It is fun to make a goal and try to reach it and very rewarding. Wether it is making a quart of syrup, a dollar profit or a 1000 gallons or 10000 bucks. I am just very very fustrated with this year and last. I thought for sure I had beat mother nature with doubling up. I gotta give it another year and see what happens. If 3 years in a row gets me I think it will be time to make a change.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I remember as a kid my dad got a new 12' boat with a 7hp Evenrude and dang we all had fun. 7 kids and a sand beach. Then came the 16 footer with the 28hp Evenrude. More work bigger cost more fun less kids in the boat. Then came the 24" Uniflite crappy engine, trailer, took all day to go anyplace I hated it and gave up boating. Im sorry were we talking about having fun. I found my passion at what cost.........................DONT CARE:)

[Revi]

I know exactly what you mean. We stopped lugging 50 buckets from all over the place and now have about 20, and 280 on gravity.

It is still fun, but it's enough for us.

We were thinking of getting vacuum, but we have enough sap to boil now and we don't really need any more.

There is a balance between fun and chore, and we keep it on the fun side.

We both have full time jobs, so we need to keep the maple from eating all our time.

[3rdgen.maple]

I hear ya Haynes. I hear ya. Let me put it this way my maple equipment is my 24 foot uniflite the dang crappy motor is mother nature. Love the boat hate the motor.

[JohnsSugarShack]

Upgraded to a 2x6 this year, really enjoy sugaring have always done it for fun. Thought I might make a little more this year to sell seeing that I could boil down more quicker. But this was the worst year for me as far as sap quantity and the sugar pretty much stayed at 2% or less. Looking to tap more trees next year would like to have 200. Just love making the liquid gold.:)

[Rhino]

Very stressful for me when we got to 4000 taps. Lots of stuff that can malfunction during good runs, weather not right, lots of pre-season expense with no guarentees, finding help. A 500 tap operation with a small evap. would put the fun back into it. It's crazy how when the season ends your looking forward to the next but thats the addiction. As the years go by I know the scale back is comeing.

[TF Maple]

Since this is only my second maple season, I wouldn't think of getting smaller. My oldest son and I happen to be unemployed this season so we have a lot of time to work the sugar bushes, so we wish we were bigger, especially with this slow year. I think if the work to collect and boil takes up more time than I have to spare, it wouldn't be fun and I would get smaller and probably enjoy it more. So, while a person could miss making a lot of syrup and using big equipment, scaling down would be better than not doing it at all.

[PerryW]

My tap numbers have bobbed around over my 22 years of sugaring in my current location. I have discontinued some of the less productive tubing runs and instead, hung a few buckets on the nice roadside trees. I definitely have less taps now than 10 years ago, but still make about the same amount of syrup.

Any increase in sap to me (by adding vacuum, significantly more taps, or some other new technology) would most likely require a significant investment in more equipment like R.O. or steam away, filter press, etc.) and would require developing more retail markets, or selling at a bulk price.

A bigger reason for keeping small is I can still handle a good sap run (for me) of 500 gallons with only 6 hours in the sugarhouse, including start up and clean up.

In an average year, I can sell my $5,500 worth of syrup with $1500 in expenses and pocket $4,000 for 2 months total work; and still keep my day job.

[BryanEx]

There is a balance between fun and chore, and we keep it on the fun side.

We both have full time jobs, so we need to keep the maple from eating all our time.
Thanks Revi... that's pretty much my concern. I may go ahead with the second evaporator anyway but with the intention of using for straight production during heavy sap flows. That way it's always around should I want to host additional families from time to time... without depending on it. Market and book for one evaporator with two available if needed so that I'm not obligated for too much at once.

[KenWP]

I had the chance to jump to a lot of taps this year but time and money got in the way. I am tired enough as it is just with 200. They haven't run all that well so I get some free time but when they do I am busy. She who has to be obeyed has helped out a lot by gathering it into pails and such so i just have to carry it when I get home at nights.

[markct]

i keep expanding but not gettin alot more syrup lol! my first year was 35 taps and 7.5 gal syrup, next year 300 taps and 15 gal syrup, this year 480 and about 30 gal syrup! mother nature just aint cooperated, but since we get the 10 months to improve im sure i will add more taps for next year and if we get a great year i will have more sap than i can handle, but if we get another crappy year i will make a bit more syrup! i can always dump extra sap, but its alot harder to make more syrup with not enough sap!

[orser506]

This year from 8000 taps to 7500. I have 4000 taps on my own land and 4000 on crown land. When i expanded 10 years ago i leased the land from the feds to go to 8000 . The rent then was $300 . Over the 10 years they got my rent up to $1800 . This year they haven't got a price yet because they are reviewing (read , how can we screw him again)their pricing policy.
My goal is to get back to 4000 , and produce the same amount of syrup, So i can stop leasing ( read ,, government go #$@% yourself). I realize that my goal is long term , probably not in my lifetime and maybe not even my sons lifetime. But I believe that it is a goal that can be achieved thru proper thinning practices , tapping, collecting etc.My dad was just the opposite , he wanted to tap every **** tree he could find but not have the proper infastructure to support his goals . I have a paper somewhere that i got at Bascoms several years ago and the protor reseach center ( don't quote me ) has 1700 taps and made 1100 gal of syrup.( could be the other way around)So with 8000 taps I can get on my best year 1800 gal and my worst 7 or 8 hundred. Sorry about the long post it's late and time for sleep. Oh BTW just about done for this year , last barrel was dark .. light reading was only 16.9:cry:

[Russell Lampron]

I down sized a bit for last season. I decided to take out the tubing in my parents woods where I had 200 on gravity tubing and 100 or so buckets. I expanded in my own woods so that everything is in one location. I was only able to add on less than 200 taps on my own land for that season. It was all on vacuum so I was able to get more than double the amount of sap than I had gotten in the past. This season I added over 200 more taps and am close to the amount of sap that I got last season which was a record year here.

My goal when I bought my RO machine was and still is to match or exceed the number of taps that my parents had when I was 9 years old. They last made syrup in 1965 and hung 1300 buckets. They had a 4x12 evaporator, I have a 2x6. I have no plans to get a larger evaporator. I love the fuel economy of the 2x6 and I like the bragging rights of being able to make 100 gallons of syrup with a cord of wood.

I haven't reached my goal yet and I haven't outgrown the potential of the equipment that I have either. There are stressful times in sugaring every season like this season when the sap started to run before all of the additional taps were ready to be put on line. Some of them have only been on for a week.

Once the rough edges were smoothed out at the beginning of the season it has turned to all fun. It will all depend on how bad you want it and how much stress you want to deal with. I'm going to keep adding taps until my woods are full of blue tubing and hope that that is enough to reach my goal or more.

[lew]

Several years ago I was at 8,000 taps. We had several poor years in a row with the maple business and the dump truck business so I decided to cut way back on the maple production and quit the dump truck business. I had been self employed for over 13 years. This was quite change in my life. I had to get a "REAL" job.

When I first downsized, I went all the way down to just 900 taps. I told myself I wouldn't fire up the RO and would just boil on the 5x14. Well, that lasted about 3 boils. I need bigger, better, faster. I took a job with the Transportation Dept. and ended up working the second shift for the sugaring months. I figured I could add on a few more taps and have enough time to boil. 6 years later I am at 3,000 taps and trying to figure out how to add another 1,000 to 1,500 on vacuum and still have time to boil.

It just got into my blood and I just can't quit. I know I am addicted. This time of year it is all that I do besides eat and sleep(optional). Oh yeah, and I have that darned pesky job to go to also.

To answer your question, I am not happy that I downsized. But I am happy that I was able to locate woods that are closer to home and that I have continued to update my operation throughout the years to allow me to even consider adding more taps. This year I put on a new 5x10 Max pan. This increased my consumption of 8 percent sap from 3 gpm to 4 gpm without any increase of fuel used. Might not sound like much, but that takes me up to almost 22 gph syrup. Now that I think of that, I know I can tap another 1,,0 trees. Yes I am addicted.

[mapleack]

I definately have frustrating days when I want to go back to 300 taps and a 2x8, but I love making syrup (am addicted) too much to do that. Small scale just won't cut it. Yes when we get dealt bad weather like this year its frustrating, discouraging, depressing, but that's agriculture. I've been helping / making syrup since I was 5 years old, and love it more every year. I was already out looking at 30 more taps I can add on an existing bush after work today, planning better vacuum, etc. My next big hurdle is going to be an RO to cut down on boiling time and allow for expansion. I really want to turn maple into a supplemental income to support maintenance and improval around the farm, so I'll keep having faith that next year will be better. Short story, no downsizing around here.

[aunt stellas gardens]

We expanded a little this year. Bought another 25 taps and had 3 connections for food grade buckets. Our cost for the 2 years we have been addicted is about $500 and that was mostly for the pan. We put out 42 taps on buckets and produced 4 gallons of syrup in 2 weekends. We did try our hand at making a batch during a January thaw and probably won't do it again, very low sugar content but very tasty and we had to clean up 2 times this year because of it. The weather was very disapointing this year and we were just as excited to take out all the taps and clean up as we were when we drilled our first tap. But on another note, dragging ourselves through 18 inches of snow with what felt like 30 pounds of bibs, boots and jacket kept the winter weight gain off and we have a head start on losing the extra pounds from Christmas. I too would like to make the filtering process more efficient. It feels as though we lose alot in the filter as it cools. I believe a filter press would be a good investment, but when you only produce 4 gallons is it worth it. Still so much to learn.

[PerryW]

I believe a filter press would be a good investment, but when you only produce 4 gallons is it worth it. Still so much to learn.

I run 100-150 gallons of syrup through a stainless 12" x 20" filter canner with a flat filter/ prefilter and I rarely have problems. Keeping things hot is the secret and changing the prefilter w/ each takeoff and the main filter after every 5 gallons helps.

You can recover much of the syrup in the filters by dunking them in hot sap and letting them drain. For my setup, I just can't see any benefit for my size operation to having to buy filter papers, filter aid, and the expense of the filter press and the electrical requirements.

A cone filter setup would probably be better for your size though.

[maplerob]

[how many acres for the lease and what state want to lease land but want to know what the typical cost is is it per acre .

[BryanEx]

It just got into my blood and I just can't quit. I know I am addicted. This time of year it is all that I do besides eat and sleep(optional). Oh yeah, and I have that darned pesky job to go to also.
I can relate, as can the vast majourity of Maple Trader members. Just the fact that most replies to my down-sizing question have been all about expansion and not scaling back says so. If I was just running sap through an evaporator and into bottles I would be no different... more taps, bigger evaporator, better look at tubing and vac for better flows and less collection, improve quality with a filter press, etc. The difficulty is that my operation is based on people and not product. If you retail and sell out of syrup it's lost sales. For me, if I'm out of stock (sap) it's disappointment for my customers and lost networking potential. I can gain a healthy increase in sales with a modest $$$ investment but it would also require doing much more of the parts I don't care for as much or care for in limited quantities. I'm pretty sure which route I will take but wondered if others had had to balance between fun & dollars and perhaps going too far one way or the other. Has Maple ever interfered with your "real" job? Has management (labour or admin) ever become too much? Have investments exceeded your budget?

Thanks to all who have shared their thoughts on this.

[trackerguy]

I'm with Russ, it's the level of stress. With a full time job, time is short. Sap is valuable and it takes alot of expensive equipment to process. When it's all working well it's great. When it doesn't, it's stressful. As the investment grows, so does the number of things that can (do, and will) break and up goes the financial penalty of lost production and expense of replacing things in a hurry. At some point, it starts looking more like a profit driven business than a hobby for enjoyment. It's easy to cross that line without realizing it, and some day you walk into the sugarhouse and realize it's no longer fun. At that point, it's about money and the whole game changes.

[Russell Lampron]

As I buy new equipment and expand I do so with money that I have already made selling syrup. I own an impressive little set up here and I don't owe a dime on it. If I had to make syrup to pay on a loan that would take the fun out of it in a hurry.

The only part of the business hobby that I don't like is cleaning up at the end of the season. I enjoy all of the work in the woods and all of the things to be done in the sugar house. I love the mix of technology that makes the process more efficient and the still old school stuff too.

The vacuum gets me large quantities of sap. The RO machine turns that large Quantity of sap into a small amount of concentrate that doesn't take much time to boil, important when the 8 to 5 job has to be done. The blower makes the evaporator more efficient so that large quantities of quality product can be drawn off in a small amount of time.

My operation could have been much larger alot sooner but the pay as you grow method works for me. If I have a bad year and don't make much syrup it doesn't make it so that I have to close the doors or sell something to keep going. That alone takes alot of stress out of doing this.