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This was a good learning season for you Iwantsyrup, YOu done fine. I still have taps in just to see if I get sap this week to do one last batch, but after this weekend I am done for sure. It's been about a 50% season. I hoped for better, but this is good enough. I think everyone in the south struggled this year.
I left my taps out just in case there was a run after this cold snap and I am glad to see there is. All laterals are running good and I have about 40 gallons just since noonish. So I will get to make a bit more syrup afterall.
It seemed like we had great sap weather last week. Mid 20's at night and low 40's until it froze up Friday through Monday. Every day I only got about half gallon runs - I thought they would be better. When I went to gather today, I was disappointed when I lifted the first bucket. About 26 last night and low 50's this afternoon - just what we've been waiting for-and they still weren't running. I think though the trees were just thawing out. The taps on the south sides of the trees were running harder than the taps on the north sides. Another half-gallon run. Many trees were just getting going - finally. I haven't boiled since last Wednesday. I would have boiled last Friday or Saturday, but all the sap was frozen. Even my trees on tubing were not doing much today. My vacuum was down to 23 and not much going in the tank. Then I found I had an obstruction in the recirc line, removed it, and things got moving again. Should have some sap in the buckets tomorrow and I can get the sap boiled that I have... Can't wait!:cool:
Untapped and cleaned up and organized for the year as of last night. Had two full day boils this weekend that all finished into 1.75ish gallons of syrup. So total we ended up with over 2 gallons this year yay! That big run we had last week for a couple days was the grand finale :). If it ran like it did for those two or three days all the time I would have been boiling 24/7 with just a couple dozen or so taps. Anyways, will look forward to next year for sure. Take care everybody!
This was a good year to learn. No sap tsunamis to overwhelm you. I had a couple more boils and then I quit. I made about 60% of my goal. Everything is washed up except the pan which has fermenting sweet in it to clean. I disinfected tubing yesterday and capped off. No more Maple until next winter. The best part of this year was everything filtered easily and sugar sand was very low, while sugar content was good. The biggest problem was those dang furry demons of the woods. I am not kidding when I say I had hundreds of chews.
Buckeye those tree rats got me too this year. Probably not as bad as you. But this year was the best year we ever had. Made over 50 gallons on 125 taps. We had a consistent flow for 4 weeks. My wood are south facing so they stay pretty cool even on warm days. This is probably why mine was better than other’s I know making syrup this year. It was really easy to filter. We stop this past Sunday. Even though I woke up to 200 gallons in the tank by morning we were done. The only problem I have is thermometers I seem to go through them. I used two this year and the second one is going. Have to tap on it to make sure it’s reading correctly. Time to clean and get ready for next year.
Best run in several years here in Champaign County (mid-west Ohio) this past week. 340 gallons of sap on 140 taps but sugar not so good. Still way behind production rate of past years. Only up to about 18 gallons syrup so far. Redbean good for you. We should have a good run this weekend but then there is not another freeze in sight. Sad for early March.