Tapped in Rowley

Posting from Topsfield, MA and new to this forum. Tapped 5 trees last year and boiled on a block arch with 2 steam table pans and got 4 gallons of syrup which lasted us almost one year. Tapped 5 trees again on 2/18 but it has been a very slow start this year due to the cold. Finished my arch (3 pans this year) today and had planned to boil the 20+ gallons I have collected so far tomorrow but found my holding tank was frozen solid. Only one tree was running today and I don't think I will be able to boil until next week. Wish I had tapped more trees this year.

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40 gallons boiled last night...ready to start drawing off sunday

Also, is it me or does the long-range forecast indicate the season will end in two weeks or so in Essex County?

It looks like we should have a decent run at the end of the week, after that I don't have a clue. I will probably tap another 10 or 15 trees tomorrow to make sure that I get what I can from this next run. After that who the F knows. Doesn't feel like enough sugar has comeback up into the trees for it to finish up, but I have no real idea.

There are 4 gallons in my kitchen all set to bottle up. Mope for one more batch that size and I will have more than enough for the family, gifts, and trading.

Sam

I was just doing some mental math and I feel like the sugar content has been pretty high in the sap I have gathered so far. While I didn't put a hydrometer on it I have 4 gallons of syrup from what I expect was a little less than 150 gallons of sap. What is everyone else seeing for sugar content?

sam

2-2.2% is the highest ive seen so far this season, im just hoping for another 1000 gals of sap, if not more. but who knows , the season hasn`t ended yet .

Well they have adjusted the forecast here up by a few degrees. As of now night will be 33-38 until early next week with plenty of rain. I'm boiling outside and only have about 50 gallons of sap in my tank. I'm hoping for decent flow so that I can put up 150 - 200 gallons to boil next Wednesday. After that I'll be all done.

Sam

just picked up another 325 gal plus at 3% things are looking up, atleast for now

I have 40 in the tank i'm boiling with the reenginered stove tomorrow, and prolly another 40 in the buckets hopefullI can have 60 for Sunday

adding a pic of the re-worked innards I'm curious as to how the draw might be affected with the reworking. I'll see tomorrow...I need more grate and have to trim the heat shield some so it's more flush...I'm worried about that wall. Only refractory cement is holding it up and the refractory cement, which is allegedly good to 2000 degrees, was gone from a lot of my upper bricking.

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Drop a couple of concrete blocks behind the heat shield. It will keep you from knocking it the partition over.

Sam

well the wall didn't fall over...I finally got some boil in the back of the pan but not as much as I'd hoped so I will raise the height of the baffle one more row....the concrete block is a good idea...I'll give that a try. I'm getting about 10 gph, near as I can tell. I think I could do better.

Boiled another 30 gallons last night.....I don't have enough AUF so nect year a new blower....I cracked the door open a bit and with the wind it helped a lot. But I need to split another six barrows of wood to get me thru tomorrow night's boil and leave enough for what I expect is the final boil sunday. Looks like temps at night will help but a lot of my buckets are empty. I definitely tapped way too early this year.

is yellowish sap indicative that rain got into the bucket?

probly rain, but could be bad its getting to that time of year. to me i would throw it out just on principal, because i look at it like its not worth spoiling 280 gals of good clean sap with 1.5 of bad or dirty sap. but others have interesting methods also of testing, lets see what they say...........

Id dump the yellow. A few years ago before I had a sap hydrometer I boiled 6 gallons of yellow sap down to a half pint. Hardly any sugar in it. Everyone always said dump it but couldn't tell me why, well I found out. Now I dump yellow sap. I don't think its rain because my buckets don't have a way for rain water to get In.

I'll dump the yellow before tonight's boil....I;m hoping it's not the last one of the season

I pulled about 25 gallons out of buckets last night that was still nice and clear. Temps have been near freezing, but not below the last few nights so hopefully everything stay fresh in my tanks until Friday afternoon when I can start to boil. Should have about 120-150 gallons for Friday afternoon and Saturday session with the evaporator. The wife and one daughter are headed to VT so it will be me and my almost 5 year old daughter for when I am boiling. It will be challenging to babysit the evaporator and parent at the same time. We have already discussed the fact that Saturday I choose what we do and Sunday she will choose. Let's hope she does not forget that by 10am.

sam

Got thru 20 gallons before I ran out of gas so I will finish tonight...most of my buckets are empty so I suspect Sunday I am pulling taps :( I have about 8 gallons of sweet to finish, hopefully I can get 4 out of that. Not a great season but wait til NEXT Year!

Lessons learned:

1A) Don't tap too early. I suspect tapping during the February warm spell ruined the end of March for me.

1) Raise the back of the arch another brick width toward the bottom of the pan

2) Get a bigger fan and a better way to distribute AUF.

3) Run the pan a bit shallower....2+ inches is way too much to get a fast roiling boil

4) MORE WOOD! Ima be logging all summer and fall now

I think next year is the make or break year for this stove for this pan. I never got the gradient, I really never drew off anything close to syrup. Part of that is me, but I'm wondering if a bigger stove with a bigger fire will make the investment in the continuous flow pan worth it.

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Originally Posted by eustis22

Got thru 20 gallons before I ran out of gas so I will finish tonight...most of my buckets are empty so I suspect Sunday I am pulling taps :( I have about 8 gallons of sweet to finish, hopefully I can get 4 out of that. Not a great season but wait til NEXT Year!

Lessons learned:

1A) Don't tap too early. I suspect tapping during the February warm spell ruined the end of March for me.

1) Raise the back of the arch another brick width toward the bottom of the pan

2) Get a bigger fan and a better way to distribute AUF.

3) Run the pan a bit shallower....2+ inches is way too much to get a fast roiling boil

4) MORE WOOD! Ima be logging all summer and fall now

I think next year is the make or break year for this stove for this pan. I never got the gradient, I really never drew off anything close to syrup. Part of that is me, but I'm wondering if a bigger stove with a bigger fire will make the investment in the continuous flow pan worth it.

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i think this would be a great topic for a new thread. THINGS WE LEARNED THIS SEASON. or something like that. i dont want to hijack but i think alot of people can learn from a thread like that.

it is sad to see the season end.

Checked a couple of buckets when I got home yesterday and thought that it had been a decent day. Looked further this morning and it looks as though that good flow was isolated to one small set of tress (7 buckets). It did drop below freezing for several hours last night so I am hoping for one last run today. In any event I have plenty of sap to boil on Saturday and the weather feels like it is keeping it cool enough to stay fresh for the weekend.

sam

Finally got my first boil in yesterday. First day I was off from work and my sap wasn't frozen solid. This year I lined my cinder block arch with bricks and it seemed to really help keep the heat up and help keep the steam table pans at a full constant boil. I seemed to use a lot less wood this year as well. The sugar content seemed higher this year. Last year I averaged 40:1 and this year closer to 20:1. The sap is still running so I am hoping to get one more boil in before the season ends.

so yesterday I pulled 13 unexpected gallons out of the trees and today may be more....it's gonna be tricksy to calc when to time the stop of the boil so it coincides with last of the sap. What'll I'll prolly do is finish off all the sap at 2+ inches in the pan and then boile that down to the last inch and hope to time it so I draw out 99% of the concentrate and reflood the pan with water to avoid scorching.

I'm gonna need more boiling sodas, I can just tell.

I just boil down to a comfortable level and then let it cool. Once it is cool I boil it all down and then finish it on the stove or turkey frier. That's tonight's job for me is bringing down the last 5 gallons of concentrate to 3 or so gallons of syrup. Then bottle up and clean everything to get put away for the summer. Then its boat time.

sam

yeah, I shoulda done that..I let it cool down and with an inch left started taking it out....of course I had to raise one side to get the last of it and for a brief moment the uplifted side started to foam and burn...dropped it in a hurry, leaving possibly 1/4" in the pan and dashed 4 gallons of water in there as a buffer...I am sure the maple gods decreed that that last 1/4" was my best syrup, too. so now it's on to finishing all the concentrate I have. I also pulled buckets and taps and NATURALLY every tree was running. Mother Nature laughs at me. Used to be when I looked in the mirror, now it's just all the time.

2015 is HERE!

a) I have a LOT more wood stacked...about twice as much as last year, and cut wrist sized vs arm sized...even then I am not quite sure I have enough :)

2) I altered my arch from a sand ramp to a brick wall in order to get more flame closer to the pan.

c) I chanced on some stainless stove pipe on craigslist vs the black and like the look/gauge a LOT better.

d)I have a new blower and now need to decide if I want to try that square angle iron grating someone elsethread recommended. The cast iron gets bendy

V) marked 10 more trees for tapping so more buckets! if I have a good season I will strongly consider relocating the sugar shack to the bottom of the hill for gravity feeds.

And, in a sad note....my sugaring partner and Maple Muse passed last June suddenly. I will dearly miss her companionship, inspiration, and inputs. Godspeed, Shauna.

Sorry to hear of your loss but I appreciate your honoring her here with us. All the best to you and hope your season is the best ever!

well here I am eager to boil and the cold weather is holding off my tapping. so I'm mulling that I have about 3 feet of snowpack nearly level with old tapholes and should I dig out my trees? I don't want to tap too high and then have the snowmelt drop my buckets away from my tubes. Also if I dig them out they'll be sheltered from the wind as I still don't have an anchor method perfected.

The good news is the sap pump works and the new bilge blower I am using for AUF is almost all put together (I had to rework the piping from last years gutter downspout jury rig to accomodate the new fan).

The g/f dug out the sugar shack and I gotta say, looking at it half buried behind the snow berms she shoveled makes it look kinda cool. Pics later.

Placed my first tap in my largest maple yesterday although I think the weather does not look too promising for the next week or so. Mostly did it for my kids. I am going to have to do a lot of digging out to get to my wood pile and to clear a spot to make my boiler. I lined my concrete block arch with brick last year which seemed to help a lot with heat retention. I still plan on having five buckets this year, some day I will try to move up to ten.

MT
Topsfield, MA

From 10 it goes to 20, from 20 it goes to ..... I was able to handle about 15 taps on my block arch with catering pans until I stepped up and built a real evaporator. I'm planning to tap as much as I can get to on Staurday. My sister is getting married the weekend after and we've got plenty of snow to keep the sap cold and fresh.

I also need to get going on some arch upgrades before I am ready to boil. I need a new door to keep the flames inside the unit instead of losing heat out the front. I have been using galvy duct mterials for my stack and I am tired of replacing it each year. My plan is to build a steel pipe lower section and then use galvy for the top 6'. Hopefully i can find it under all this snow.

sam

I made big progress today. I found my tapping bit and the work belt I use to carry spouts.

Sam

dug holes and stuck in 7 taps.....what the heck

14 more taps yesterday,...struck sap on a few trees...I'm pretty happy. I'll finish the rest of my bush this weekend.

My taps finally get here. Now I need to find some tap trees this weekend, which is going to be hard as my sister is getting married. I should be able to get the first 30 or so out at least.

sam

Still behind the 8 ball here, but, recovered enough from my sister's wedding to get about 30 taps out yesterday. I'll hang another 25 or so this evening after work. Temps look great so I should have plenty of sap to boil next weekend.

Before that happens I need to fab a new stack transition piece and redo my preheated. Oh yeah I'd also like to fab a new door, but, that's starting to look unlikely, unless I can get someone else to cut pallets for me.

I'm a also getting worried about the weather for next weekend as I boil outside and I'm looking to send moisture up and not to have it falling down.

Sam

looks like a great week weatherwise so I'm hoping I can pull enough to sweeten my pan this weekend.

If the weather does what it is supposed to you will be doing a lot more than sweetening your pans this weekend. I would be surprised if I didn't have a few hundred gallons to boil out of 50 taps.


Sam

Got to 48 taps tonight. I also found out I may well be surprised. Today was pretty warm and reasonably sunny, but, still very little sap. Is the snow covet keeping the roots too cold to get things flowing?

Sam

what I collected + what I left in the buckets I would guestimate 18 gallons over the 22 buckets. My big sugar maples haven't started yet.

Wow that's a ton of collecting to date, I have a 1/4 of sap if that, in my gallon milk containers.

I have a divided pan on a homemade 1/2 pint. I need 100 gallons just to START