Tapped 20 trees today and hope they start flowing soon.p
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Tapped 20 trees today and hope they start flowing soon.p
I think I may sit this season out boys. Snow piles are high, wood piles are low. I guess we'll see if I can resist! Good luck to all!
The weather is a mess but we tapped yesterday. Nothing so far. Ted
1.5 gallons per tap since Sunday here.Looks to be a short season but hopefully a productive one.
20 gallons fri and 45 today testing at 3%. Hope to boil Friday storage tank is almost full.
Hunter and I finished off 6 gallons of amber today. We've put 11.5 gallons in bottles soo far, planning to go until it's done. Ted
It's a struggle but we got 200 taps out on the 14th & 15th of March. Collected 3 times so far. Packaged 16 gallons thru yesterday and hope to package another 6 or so today. With last nights freeze and the weather forecast for today there should be a decent amount to collect tomorrow. Overall I'm afraid it won't be a great season.
Hope the rest of you Iowans are doing better than we are.
Good luck to all.
Jim
We collected 40 gallons (3.2% according to our refractometer) we're going to boil today. We're going to boil until we hit buddy syrup, both to experiance that and to see if we can cook it into sugar that's suitable for baking with. We've got 15 gallons bottled up so we're just playing around now. Never smelled or tasted buddy syrup so this is the year. Luck to all, Ted
i'm working in Iowa city for the week and saw trees budding. Sunday we still had snow on North hillsides but my tulips and daffodils by the house were up. Should check my garlic when I get back fri maybe it's up too. Bad year for sap to warm to fast.
Disappointed in our collection on Wednesday (March 27th); Only about 230 gallons of sap from 200 pails. Took about 11 gallons off the evap pan last night. Hope to get 6 to 8 gallons of syrup when we finish and package it later today. We will probably end up with about 30 gallons of syrup for the year. That's a little over half a crop. We normally plan on about 1 quart of syrup per tap. On a good year we may exceed that by 25%.
On the plus side there wasn't much niter this year; it filtered pretty easy. The quality was also pretty good. About as light as we can get it with a flat SS pan with no baffles.
200 taps, all on pails
Ranger and a 2020 John Deere with a tank on the back to collect sap
Flat stainless steel 2 ft. by 6 ft. pan with wood heat
Finish with LP gas
A partner, friends, and a hard working wife to help this old man (approaching 80).
Being a Diehard Cubs Fan "Wait Til Next Year!!!".
Jim
Got back into it this year . Last year I couldn' t participate. I'm glad to be back at it. I put in 47 taps about three weeks ago and pulled them about the middle of last week. Got three and a half gallons altogether. Still have to do it while working which makes it harder to run the evaporator. Bought a Yamaha rhino to collect with, way easier on the back. Looking forward to retirement to do a little more of it. I think it's mostly over in my area. Upmep
Hey upmep! I couldn't remember if it was time or health that kept you out last year so I said a quick "hope all's well with him" this year. Glad you were able to make steam. Ted