New December Journal

Dave- Too bad about that wood. Can you get slab wood from a local mill for free maybe to hedge your bets? I think I can here and I think Im going to do that. I cant wait to see how you do when you put vac on those trees of yours. With as good as they did last year on gravity youll have all the sap you want then I bet. I told a local guy what I was doing this year with my 3 by 10 yesterday and he was a little concerned for me. Hes not running a whole lot more than me and he has all kinds of equipment. I like your attitude about it. Too much sap is a good problem just buy more tanks. Theron

Danno.

With the price of a new evaporator, both of the evaporators sound like a good deal. I would think the 14' wouldn't be a problem on your evaporator. I wish my 2x8 was a 2x12 with a 9' syrup pan. I bet Leader would growl if I ordered a set up 2x12 pans thinking I was crazy.

The 4x12 sounds like a good deal if the pans haven't been used much and with new stack.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gmcooper

Dano
Either of those evaporators should work for you. The 4x14 is more common. I have friends that make a lot of syrup on a 4x14! My thought would be go with what will best fit your budget. With maple equipment you can always upgrade when you find something better. At 16 you've got a couple seasons to make enough syrup to pay for college. LOL You were planning on college right???
Mark

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yea i do plan on collage uvm and vtc for Dairy management, mine as well get some extra schooling on farming cause right now its a hard buisness to stay afloat in.

Im going to call the guy with the 3 1/2 x 14 and go look at it, its only an hour away, and the 4x12 is 5 1/2 hrs away, so it would be worth the trip to at least look at the rig.

Theron,
I have enough wood to do around 600 gal of finished syrup. That will require colecting 30,000 gals of sap. I have a source to get some kiln dried wood in season if I need it. I am hoping to go to vac and RO next year. But that is going to require a lot of things to happen. If it does I will have to work 12 hrs a day till I tap. Also the main line I installed this year has the potential for an other 800 taps. then I Think I sould run an other main and add another 1500 the following year. that would give me 4500 on one bush. then there is another 25 acres across the creek that I could get 2000-2500 on. They could be brought to the same location as my bush that I am currently working. I have all kinds of growth potential.

hey i want a bush like that, there is only 1 in waitsfield thats unused that big well 3000 taps but the guy wont let any one tap it , my uncle taps 300 of his trees but he only let u put 1 per tree no matter the size, he let another farmer tap it all and the tank ran over once and the guy made him pull all the pipe out in his first year using the bush

Dave, glad to see you've reconsidered and are thinking about an RO in the future! Certainly a necessity when you start adding all those taps, no matter what size evaporator you get.

Did you get to do any trapping this fall?

Tim

Tim,
I almost got an RO this fall but decided that it would be better to wait at least one more year. as i am sure you know how difficult it can be to lay out that kind of cash.
I haven't done any trapping yet this season. things have been kind of complicated for me of late., and have been working thru it. I plan on doing some beaver trapping after Christmas. I ma even set some canine snares not sure. If i can get every thing ready ,and we have a real January thaw I my try to make syrup. I still have a ways to go to get to that point though.

Update from BIGSAP INC- Got quite a bit done over the weekend. Added two lateral mainlines on my side of the road. One was needed to pick up some taps and reduce some real long lats and the other was just to reduce some long lats that were real nice trees and the lats were just not doing those trees justice. I think I have an evenings worth of mainline connections to do. Then an evening of saddles and maybe a day misc and I should have my side of the road done. Then across the road I have mainly drops and saddles to do so that should be pretty easy. Bunch of clamps too. Put in a releaser. Hope to be all done end of month hopefully. Im hoping to get some money and maybe go up to the bush I was going to run the bucket line and just tube it in for gravity. I just wont know if I can till I see on the money. That could give me another 700-1200 taps on tube if I could. If I do Im naming the bush from this day forth the Brandon bush becouse Im stealing his Ideas on the long loaded laterals. I know hes right on the performance running it gravity that way and itll be easy for me this year to just run the long laterals and just cut in drops. Ill do it catering to how I want it to look when I change it to vac but it would give me some more sap easy for now. Do you guys think I should get an exact tap count when I get done? Like how many honest taps, cull trees, ones on gravity, ones on vac, buckets, etc when I get some time so we can see how stuff performs or to heck with it and just fill barrells? Theeron

Theron,
In the interest of proper research and learning all we can about procedures for sap production etc, it is absolutely necessary that we have a complete and accurate count of taps. We need definitions of what a "cull" tree is. we need to know how many of each kind of tap are at what elevations on the slope and in which direction the slopes and taps face. We will need to know the complete weather from last May 1 through the entire sugaring season. You will need to keep records on an hourly basis of how fast the realeasers are dumping. We will need to know the depth of the tapholes on the various tree types. What do you mean Barrels? Your job is to learn the ins and outs of making Big Sap!!!! Oh, don't forget to keep an accurate record on vacuum fluctuations.......:)

Theron,

As long as you have good slope, it should work good. I like the long laterals better for me as I have seen a significant increase last year in sugar content and sap quality over the black mainlines as it keeps the bacteria levels much lower in the lines. No, I should sap when the sap is running, it is running so fast it scares the bacteria to death. LOL!