Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

Well not as much sap as expected today, I believe that will be it for me unless something drastic happens very shortly. That will put us at 1422 gallons of syrup on 3300 taps. 2 of the better 'bushes, a total of 1800 taps with 150 reds, produced 58,500 gallons Of sap, just under .55gpt . Other bush with more reds and probably 200 trees less than 6" in which I'm trying to irraticate only produced .3 per tap. First year with a half a gallon per tap so that's a nice improvement!!

Hope everyone else had a good year as well.....

Sap has been running pretty well here the last 24 hours with a little over 1.25 gpt. Tapholes are now 2.5-3 months old. Going to boil tomorrow and could very well be the last of the season.

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Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins

Duh....not our first research rodeo. :D

Sample size was 80 trees in 2016 and 50 in 2017 (and 50 more in progress this year). Correlation (r-squared) was 0.70 and 0.78, respectively for syrup yield vs tree diameter. Highly significant trends.

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Thanks Dr Tim,

I was expecting crown size to be a large second factor that would conflate with diameter, but most stands may be fairly similar in that regard I expect -- I know ours is.

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Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins

Yup...that would be "Pie and Pasta." I have a nephew who works there. We try to go at least 3-4 times each summer. We go to the "Eastside" more frequently though. Most of the family is around the general area (Newport, Barton, Westmore). My wife and I have a house on the lake in Newport we spend most weekends at (except during tax and sugaring seasons). She is retiring in about a month, and we'll be moving there permanently at the end of May (assuming sugaring season ever ends).

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Thats going to be a long drive to work for you. How many more years will you be at PMRC?. I wish you and your wife the best. You now can enjoy your morning coffee staring out at the lake.

Spud

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Originally Posted by spud

Thats going to be a long drive to work for you. How many more years will you be at PMRC?. I wish you and your wife the best. You now can enjoy your morning coffee staring out at the lake.

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Takes me about 35 min now, more if traffic is congested (coming from Williston). Newport will be about an hr drive, maybe 1:05. My father worked for VTRANS most of his life, so it's pretty well ingrained in me that if the roads are bad, stay home. I'll probably work at home a bit more (my laptop travels well), and plan to start taking vacation days that I just lose now. My wife had far fewer vacation days than I do, and she is an accountant, so busy from Jan-March (she doesn't do taxes....it's a special field called "captive insurance accounting"), and then I'm busy from Feb-April, so we pretty much don't take any time off for half the year.

The plan, as of right now, is to retire June 30, 2021, but that might change a little one way or the other.

Yup....morning coffee looking at the lake....shot of Bailey's for cream (on weekends). View off the back step is below looking almost due North. Most everything you see over the water is Canada.

Sap ran half-way decent yesterday afternoon, freezing up around 8pm. Got about 5,000 gal sap to concentrate this morning from sap that came in the past couple of days (will update this post with better measurements once I have them). Still looking like we'll be good through the weekend -- a bit too cold if anything -- unless it turns buddy before then. Mid-week next week it starts to get warm, so probably won't go much beyond that....which is good. I have to input and analyze a pile of data, and put together a couple of presentations in time for Open Houses just a couple of days later. Very short turn-around time.

Late-morning update: 2,160 gallons of sap at 1.6 Brix from flow yesterday afternoon/early-evening. RO is running with concentrate headed to cold bulk tank. Probably will hold off boiling until Friday morning. Sap just started to trickle in at 10:15am. Not likely to be a real big day, and will likely freeze up again tonite.

With the syrup in barrels, what we have (or soon will have) in concentrate, and syrup in pans, we're at 0.55 gal/tap. Sap is definitely slowing down, but looks like decent weather until about the middle of next week.

Attachment 18572 Attachment 18573

But right now I can assure you that it looks considerably less inviting

Oh WOW what a beautiful view.

Spud

Our oldest tap holes are two days shy of 16 weeks old and most are still flowing well. All brand new tubing on this section. The 12,500 remaining holes between our two woods are still flowing well for the most part, but some have stopped flowing sap it seems. Mostly all check valves here with a few hundred white D&G 110 degree spouts.

Very good sap flow in our Jericho woods today. Vacuum just shy of 28 after finding 5 or 6 hanging drops. Still a few leaks out there but they must have started hissing after I checked the valves for leaks on those lines, and I wasn't feeling like going back out and walking a couple miles again. Would really like a monitoring system.

I am enjoying the late sugaring season. April 17th (yesterday) was the latest that sap from our Westford bush had ever been collected (since it was first tapped in 1979), but we are still going. I bet that there were seasons in the last few decades that went this late, but maybe not? The tubing system that used to be here was very old and sap would warm up quick in the poorly sloped black mainlines, so with our new tubing we can extend the season and get way more sap. Nearly at 0.5 gal per tap. Hope to make it thru the 23rd or 24th.

My main woods are still coming in a bit, but have slowed down considerably. I can't complain though after another pickup I'll be at 25gpt for the season. My small 3/16 system is still pulling good though. I'm up to 29gpt off my 3/16 this year. Happy camper here.

Sap ran well yesterday after a solid freeze Tuesday night. I boiled almost 2000 gal. of sap from monday-wednesday to make about 25 gal of DR and AR. Then I pushed what sugar I could out of the rig with water and made some more syrup. Not going to be hanging on at the evaporator any longer this season. Syrup flavor has become pretty earthy and there is a subtle lingering after taste that is only going to get worse. The boil has that unique "musty" smell as well. Sugar content is just below 1% and I'm almost out of barrels and wood. So, that's it for the historic 2018 season.

I'll share some stats when I have more time to calculate but the sap collection season went from 1/15 - 4/18, I collected over 30,000 gal of sap., and my syrup production ended up at .64 gpt. I'm very happy with how the season turned out. Now it's time to move onto other projects like siding the sugarhouse addition, restoring the sugar wood supply, making maple products, getting ready for the farmer's market season, and the mile long honey-do list I have.

Good luck to everyone still hanging in there!

About 4,200 gal of sap here overnight (off 4,929 taps) from yesterday afternoon to 6am today. Maybe a touch of a freeze in some parts of the bush, but sap never stopped running. Sugar content came up a bit to ~1.8 Brix. Sap quality is decent. Vacuum holding well at 26-27" Hg in the two bush areas (after a few repairs due to the wind storm). Will concentrate today (to add to what we put in the bulk tank over the past few days), and then boil everything tomorrow.