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That's a crime, John. Been flowing like mad the last couple days down here in the SE part of the state. Just got in from 4 hours of collecting in a steady rain, and everything was flowing good as I was pumping out the barrels. Can't wait to see what the next few days give. Just wish I had a lot more wood split.Quote:
Originally Posted by unclejohn
Hi all! I'm in the northeast corner of the state. The property I moved onto last fall has 10 silver maples. I was wondering if it is too late to tap them and get my feet wet in the experience. All 10 have buds on, but they have had since the last week of January. None of the buds are open.
Go for it! This weekend is going to be great and I expect the season to run for a couple more weeks. There is still time to get bit by the maple bug!
Tapped 5 of the trees, we'll see how it goes :)Quote:
Originally Posted by skinny78
I boiled down 120 gallons of sap and bottled last weekend. I ended up with 31 8 ounce bottles. Somewhere I lost a gallon of surup. I call that the angels share. I collected 130 gallons early this week. I will start boilong that today after work. I left all of rhe buckets in rhe sugar bush. Themeratures were perfect this week for flow. I will collect the he buckets as I am cooking. I hope to have another 50 gallons or so. I live just north of St Louis. I am thinking the season here is a week later than you Sourhern Missouri guys. My trees did not flow much in January.
I ended up collecting about 50 gallons of walnut sap. I think the walnut needs a little warmer temperatures for flow during the days than maple trees. Also I had a lot of sap running down the bark of rhe walnut where the taps were. Walnut bark is much thicker than maple bark. Next year I am going to get longer taps. I used stainless steel taps this year and they generally worked great for the maple trees. I found some longer stainless steel taps and ordered and received rhem. I will be using the longer ones for the walnut trees next year. The 50 gallons of sap cooked down to maybe a half gallon of syrup. It is stinn in a pot on the stove. I will bottle it in a few days. It tastes really good. Will be even better once it is filtered.
Coryfavre welcome. I am cooking my last batch of sap this weekend. Let us know how your whole process progresses.
We didn't get a lot in January, either. February was great, and I can't give it up yet. This latest cold blast has me hoping to finish the year swimming in sap. Trees were still producing well last week, and given that it never got all that warm, I'm hoping they are still willing to give a lot more. We are up to 160 gallons or so on 500 taps, so it's about average so far for us. I'm hoping that we can make another 40 or so and at least hit that 200 gallon mark this season. The sap seems to be running a little thin this year - has me wondering if all the extra rainfall dilutes the sap.Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverSap
I heard that younger walnuts will give a bit more sap, and I would imagine their bark to be a bit thinner. Hopefully I'll have time to tap a few walnuts in the future if we go to an RO. Anybody out there ever done a batch of pure box elder syrup?Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverSap
I was down in the woods rhis morning and the taps were still dripping. I tasted what was coming out and it was sweet still. I did not collect any this week. Just still have not pulled all of the taps. Dripping on the ground. I have bouled enough for this year.