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It seems to do pretty good here year in and year out on gravity. 3600+ gallons of sap from only basically 4 runs is pretty good in my opinion. I am very far south, but in a good weather area to make syrup and the temps are normally right most years, just not this year. Either way, it has been fun and good sugar content. I was figuring last night I am averaging about 19.5 gallons of syrup per cord of wood and that is up from what I used to average with was always 15 to 1. I am boiling sap under 2% sugar and at a 46 to 1 sap to syrup ratio and with an 8' evaporator, 19.5 to 1 is tremendous in my opinion with that low sugar content. It appears I have enough wood to boil close to 7,000 gallon of sap in my shed, so that is good to know if we hit the motherload for a season in a couple of years. I have it stacked 6'+ high, so I guess I could stack a little higher.
Either way, it's been a very enjoyable year and has went smooth and quick with only 6 boils which helps the wood average some.
I keep changing the tubing setup some every year trying to perfect it and with almost everything on 5/16 and the changes, the sugar content seems to get a little better every year. I know some of it has to do with the prior growing season and the winter, but the less bacteria in the tubing and spouts and the better the design, the less chance for it to grow and the higher the sugar content and the more light syrup.
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Brandon I can see where you are coming from. You've got to do what works best and keeps it fun for you.
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With vacuum what is the chances of looseing more trees. I could never do it here as its 500 ft between trees and over a half mile to the last tree. But there are trees running but so very little its not worth dumping the buckets. I actually have no idea what to expect as this is my first year in Quebec let alone tapping trees.
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Ken- The vac wont hurt the trees at all. Proctor research center says that drilling the hole is more damaging than any amount of sap you get. They claim that you are only getting a fraction even with the vac. Jeff- How many days run was the 500 gallons from? You do really good with the dairy vac once you get those ring pumps on line it should be something else. Looked like nothing was going to run today here like yesterday becouse of the cold but I just looked and it looks perfect this afternoon now. Im going to take a half day off I guess and come home and get to ro'ing. Ive still got over 4000 gallons of sap from the other day to do and lots of other work so better get back to it I guess. Two full nights sleep in a row sure felt good. Bought an electric hoist last night to move drums. The 55's are very heavy. Gonna have a nice fix on that today I think. Ennis- How you guys makin out boiling? Who's the draw off man? Are you managing ok? Other day I was over to Richards(sugarmaker) and checked out one of his bushes when it was running good. It was a 10,000 tap bush on high vac. Ill tell you what that was pretty spectacular. I was impressed to see such a good vac level on that many holes. It came in to a 15,000 tap releaser and then went to jet pumps right into a semi trailer. The sap was coming in so hard the mainlines were jumping up and down. All a guy can say is wow. It was a whole valley tapped. Ill tell you what if Im ever rich and famous Im going to tap a valley like that too. That was really something. Hope everyones havin fun. Theron
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Brandon- I forgot I was going to tell you with the high concentrate Im boiling Im guessing Im getting about 100 gallons of syrup per cord with my evap. I think its a little over that actually. Im going to figure it out exact. That is pretty cool for me with trying to do so much volume with such a little rig. I need every advantage I can get. Theron
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theron i got that sap in 48 hours and finished boiling that run out yesterday. 536 was the total count. started on the l/r pumps yesterday putting on pallets so i can move with tractor loader. strapping cooling tanks and pumps so in the future i can move them out and go get them and store with out so much hassle. still working out the cooling loops ect.will be nice not to baby sit those dairy pumps
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I have 330 woods tree taps on tubing for the 1st time this season. This last 24 hour run they averaged 1.5 gallons per tap giving me 485 gallons of sap.
200 of these taps are on red maples. I know it was more because one tank was running over before I could get to it.
I also have 265 buckets all on road trees. During the same 24 hr run the buckets averaged 2.5 gallon per tap with a total of 660 gallons of sap.
We gathered the buckets in the morning and they ran hard the rest of the day. I didnt have tank room to gather them that day so they are sitting froze up but I estimate another 200 gallons in the buckets yet from the same run.
This entire run the wind was out of the south but mostly from the east where sap is supposed to run the least. Would I be still boiling if it were out of the north or west??
The last time I remember a sap run like this was 11 years ago with somewhat the same weather conditions. Rainy and windy.
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Jeff- Keep those new pumps as cold as you can. You can chase leaks till your blue in the face and you wont do as much as you will cooling the pump off. If its steaming much its probly running at half the cfms. If your system is tight you better get the kinks out of that ro becouse your going to get sap like youve never seen at 17". I think you live in a particularly good spot to make sap anyway but at 25" all you need is 32 degrees and really not much else. The sap you get is going to be a lot, one %$#@ of a lot or holy #$!@ what am I going to do with all this stuff? You know all that youve been living next to Wheeler all these year. Theron
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My brilliant idea has been to increase my taps hopeing for a couple of good runs this year. I figure I will be swamped maybe a couple of days which will hopefully make up for the days nothing pours. If I disapear its because I am out watching sap boil.
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Next week looks like big sap in NH, from Saturday on, high 40s during the day and 20 at night. Bring it on.
