2008 Season West Virginia Mapler

WOOOHOOO BRANDON !! :)

Record year for sure !! 60+ people too Wow you must be tired , hope your feeling better, still plenty of season left for you.. Keep going Man !!!:)

That's really great, hope you break the record. That would be a sight for me for I have never seen more that 600 gallons at one time and it was not mine.

Brandon,
I believe my season is winding down, Trees did not run very good off of a two day freeze. I could pull my inserts and get a couple more weeks if the weather is right, but we have made a ton of syrup already, well in actuality over a ton at 11 pounds per gallon. I need to top off a barrel of grade c to take to are friend Henry, I'm running low on supplies. My tap holes usually only run 4 weeks, has that been your experence also?

Mark 220 Maple

Mark,

I am on week # 6 with one bush, week 4 with second bush and week # 2 with third bush. I can usually get about 6 weeks if there is not a lot of warm weather. Nothing was setting the world on fire this morning, but after that deep freeze, it is going to take a little to get them going. They were running better around 12:30 and I imagine kicking butt this afternoon. Hopefully it will freeze some tonight like they say to keep some of it from running on the ground before I get to collect tommorrow afternoon. This may be the last week for me too, just have to wait and see.

Looks like the fat lady will sing here tommorrow. I picked up 440 gallons yesterday and another 175 today, but everything is about shut down, even the new taps I put in less than 2 weeks ago are about done. They have pumped out about 10 gallons of sap per tap in less than 2 weeks, and I think they are saying that is enough. We got a good freeze over the weekend and tons of rain end of last week put a ton of moisture in the ground. I thought it would run good this week, but shows how little I know the longer I do this.

I pulled all of the tanks in the woods except the bush I tapped less than 2 weeks ago and I will pull those 2 tanks tommorrow when I collect for the last time. Temps in 50's yesterday and 60's today and the weather looks like it is done. Mud completely disappeared in 2 days and the ground is mainly nice and dry which is a good indication season is over too. It is ending about 7 days early this year, but that's the way it goes. Hard to believe I started 6 weeks ago this coming Saturday and tommorrow will make 6 full weeks. Amazing how time flies and at the last boil every year which will be tommorrow for this year, I always wonder if it is my last. Never know, each year we get older and we have no promise of tommorrow. Just thankful for the opportunity God gives me and that in and of itself makes it a good year just to have the health and strength to be able to do it. Last week really knocked me for a loop and 12 days later, I am finally almost back to 100% from the bad respatory flue that hit me, wife and kids. Timing couldn't have been worse and the sickest I have been in 20+ years and I am still not completely over it, but we were able to pull thru it.

Finished up everything on Friday. I collect aprox 170 on Thurs and another 85 on Friday and boiled it all off. I ended up the season at 97.5 gallon from 4721 gallon of sap. That made the ratio of 48.42 which is the best I have had in a long time. Funny thing was I made aprox 50% of the season's crop from March 2nd thru the 6th's sap run. Season ended aprox a week early and could possibly make a little more this week, but basically no freezing and high temps make it difficult.

All in all a very good season and the most syrup I had made. Interesting is that last year I boiled 169 more gallon of sap and made 5 gallons less of syrup and a 53 to 1 ratio last year.

I have all my tanks in out of the woods and washed and stored for next year and the tanks in the sugarhouse are all also washed and sanitized and I flushed about 1/2 of my taps and tubing yesterday. Hope to get the remainder done later this week.

Brandon,
I will start pulling taps this week, some of my taps are 3 to 4 weeks old and I will pull them last, I believe they will run this week if the weather forecast is correct?
Last Wendesday I rushed up to Henry's for some jugs and filter aid. They had only boiled once so far this season. They should of had some big runs the latter part of last week. Henry is still hoping to have a seminar in July, I think he is shooting for the week after the 4th. Henry said that their is a world wide shortage of Maple Syrup, or that what the brokers up north tell him.
He predicts that syrup prices will stay high due to that fact. That was good news to me because I have three barrels full that I'm selling wholsale to a producer that always buys from Henry.
My trees ran better than usual this year, but have never run like your trees. My sugar content has always been over 2%, that helps. My helper said it all depends on the location, he said my trees are mainly forest trees and are on very steep hillsides which drain real good. If I could get 4500 gals of sap per 500 taps I would be drowning in sap.
I still have some unfinished syrup in milk cans and some sap still stuck in the evaporator, I'll post my final total when I'm finished.

Mark 220 Maple

Mark,

Glad you had a good year anyways. I didn't do as good as Larry Harris as he got more sap than me from less taps. He tapped all of his trees a lot earlier than I did, 5 weeks earlier than 160 of my taps and they have 3 of them that are retired and they can boil every day and nothing runs on the ground. I don't have that problem and if I did, I could probably have gotten 6,000+ gallons easily from my trees this year. Either way, you do what you can do and what works best. I am like you, I live a significant distance away and work a full time job. I was happy with the season, especially the sugar content.

All I can say about your sugar content, it seems the further north you go, the higher it gets as a whole and you are aprox 4 hours north of me. It seems the harder the winter and the temps, the higher the sugar. Our growing season down here is much longer than the NE, especially Maine and upper VT, but they run 3% or more out of red maples a lot of time. I wouldn't know hardly what to do with 2% out of sugars.

Brandon, it would be like having a cheap RO for you !!

Finished up flushing the remainder of my tubing on Wed and Thurs. Everything is washed and cleaned for next year with the exception of the evaporator. I am going to try some the of the dairy milk stone remover this year if they ever get it in. I like to experiment with different things and it is about the same price for a gallon as 4 gallon of vinegar.