What’s the prediction for 2020 season?
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What’s the prediction for 2020 season?
No frost in ground as of yet, if we end up without any frost I think season will be over quick.
I predict a short season. With no frost tree will wake up quickly. I’m thinking about tapping my lines by Feb 1. I did a few upgrades this year and I don’t want to miss the big run like I did in 2018.
I'm quite a bit northwest of you guys, we had several days well into the low teens in early November that put a good amount of frost in the ground. Then 40+" of snow. I'm thinking up here it will be mid March before anything gets going up here. Have a great season!
i predict that the early season will be very cold with deep snow, the kind of snow that when the tip of your snowshoe catches a buried branch it takes you a good 10 minutes to get vertical again.. the cold won't actually be so bad that the 10 gal of sap you just dumped on yourself will freeze solid to your jeans but will soak through so you can be miserable for the rest of the collection. the end of the season will be warmer and most of the snow will be melted which will turn the road you came in on into a muddy quagmire so that your vehicle, now weighed down by all the finished syrup you are taking home, will get planted in the one spot where you don't have cell service. i'm no Nostradamus but based on my past experiences, i'm thinking this is a fairly accurate prediction.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweet Beav
Not implying you’ve been watching me but.. pretty sure you described me once or twice! Dang I needed that chuckle!
Put in around 60 taps or so last weekend 2/29 & 3/1 in the Sayner-Star Lake area. About 10 or so trees dripping in the late afternoon sun when tapped. I too took 10 minutes to get up after a wipe out or two on the snowshoes. Ugh !
Just wondering how deep is the snow in the woods up there?
Based on last weekend in the woods tapping, i would say around 20". Then add what fell today.
Collected 54 gallons of sap Friday night from the last week on 25 taps, boiled that down to 2 gallons was at 217 for temp when I pulled it off to finish on propane later. Left our place Saturday at 3pm and it was not running yet hopefully it opened up yesterday with the temps as nice as it was.
4th year
Is anyone getting any sustained sap flow in the far north (Iron, Vilas, Forest county area)? We've tapped early in the past, gotten the initial flow of sap stored in the trees, and then not much until the ground thaws more. And usually trying to melt frozen sap in the buckets.
We have not checked since we tapped on 2/29. Will be checking this weekend to see what has been collected. At least frozen does not go bad !
I love the optimism. A couple years ago my brother cleverly floated our frozen buckets in the jacuzzi until they thawed enough to put in the pans. And yet we still sucker for tapping too early every year.
Was going to try a few test taps today ...................but now that its raining guess I'll hold off till next week. Looking back in my log book I usually tap the third to fourth week of March. Then looking at my notes if I did tap on the third week I really didn't get a good run till after the fourth week anyhow. Jay
Collected 75 gallons yesterday from the past week on 25 taps. So far season is going good, looking cool this next week.
Bryan
Was able to check the results since we tapped 2/29. My best guess is 60 gal of frozen sap. We will probable thaw in the turkey fryer , RO it and boil all next weekend. Yes next week weather up here looks flat. Looks like some better weather in a week or so. This would be our 1st boil of the season. Last year we boiled 4 times. So you got to start sometime.
Spring continues to be a fickle partner in this sap to syrup business. Although it seemed too early, the long range forecast at the beginning of March called for several days in a row with highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s (ideal) starting on Thursday, March 12th. In anticipation of that, I hurried north to our sugarbush property just south of the Powell Marsh on Wednesday March 11th. It was a sunny, warm day and as I tapped trees, sap virtually gushed out. Whoa, was I a day late? This wasn't supposed to happen until tomorrow. Well, even though most of my taps didn't go in until mid afternoon, my 120 taps still yielded 125 gallons of sap. Sounds like I'm off to a good start, right? No, not so much. The forecast changed in a negative direction and I've see little flow since then. Those multiple days with highs in the 40s turned out to be cloudy with highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s and teens. Some folks are predicting a short and early season. I doubt that. I don't see much of a warm up in the next several days. By then it will be the last week in March - which seems to be when the season typically gets going. Still I'm hopeful that we will have another good season.
Started this addictive hobby in 2012 - flat pan on cement blocks, got 2 pints of buddy syrup from 20 taps
2013 - 50 taps, buckets w/droplines
2014 - 75 taps, upgraded to a Smokey Lake 2x4 drop flue hobby pan
2015 - 90 taps, begin construction on 18x24 cordwood sugar shack, made 39 gallons - banner year
2016 - 100 taps, finish constructions on cordwood sugar shack
2017 - 110 taps, transitioning from droplines w/buckets to bags
2018 - 115 taps, 30 gallons made
2019 - 120 taps, 39 gallons made, another banner year
TedA, my theory is that when you first tap, you pull off a tree trunk full of sap, which is pressurized when the warm temps cause carbon dioxin to come out of solution (instead of being dissolved in the sap, they form bubbles, creating pressure). Anyway, that will be all you get until the tree can charge itself again, which happens with sub-freezing temps condensing all the carbon dioxide, creating vacuum, and pulling more liquid from the roots. However, if the roots are frozen, no go. We've noticed this every time we tap early. Once we had a couple nice days in Feb, cooked a small batch, and then it froze up for another several weeks. We are in Winchester, just north of you, and we tapped yesterday. Running like a sick nose. (bad metaphor?) I'm guessing we'll freeze up tomorrow and Sat, and then it will be game on! I'm actually hoping the sap that collects today will make a nice ice block in the buckets, and help preserve whatever we collect next week, in case we don't get back for another week. That's some real guess work there. Good luck. By the way, we still have about 18" of snow in the woods.
I also tapped yesterday We are South East of TedA and TwoSaps in Sugar Camp Wi. My trees that are usually early risers dripped a little one a fair amount most were dry and yes we also have 18 to 20" of snow still on the ground. Rain today then cold.....................maybe things will start this weekend??? Jay
Got pretty good flow yesterday despite cloud cover. Wasn't expecting much today but those low pressure systems can surprise you. Cloudy skies and low pressure kept my yard trees dripping (albeit slowly) all night and all day today. If fact they are still dripping at 8 pm(but pretty slow now). Collecting is challenging. Neighbor came over to help and used his snowshoes - a bit clumsy but much more sure footed. That 16-18 inches of snow in the woods settled a bit with the light rain that fell off and on all day. Turned to wet snow at 5 pm and the next two days will be much colder. That's OK by me. I could use a few days to recover. Picking up the last two days has been exhausting.
Has anyone checked the sugar content? I've got a refractometer sitting on the kitchen table but forgot to take it out and use it.
Haven't checked my sap yet but my friend here in town ran as high as 3.3 on reds ...........he didn't say what the lows were. This wind today is making it hard to do anything outside. JayQuote:
Originally Posted by TedA
Greetings from the Great White North (still). We put out 29 taps last Wednesday (3/18), and collected 64 gallons of sap in the day and a half before it froze up. Cooked about 2.3 gallons of syrup on Monday. As of yesterday noon, everything was still frozen up. Looks like the initial burst was it, until maybe the ground thaws a bit more by us? Hopefully this week will flip the switch to On.
Sunday I collected 72 gallons on 25 taps for the past week and then Wednesday morning collected another 70 gallons from the past few days, been running good. all ready at my sap amount from last year, due to the safer at home policy in effect my dad will be pulling taps early next week and that will be it for the season, we travel 3 hours to get to our cabin where we tap the tree so figure best to call it a season would be a great one if we could do the whole season.
Bryan
Holy sap-o-rama, Batman. Went up to Winchester area this week, to find every 5-gallon bucket, and even the 18-gallon drums overflowing. Collected 157 gallons on 29 taps, and who knows how much went on the ground. Funny side story. When I went out in the morning to collect sap, there were 25 deer milling all around. Strangely, they did not all scatter when I started clunking around buckets, walking on the crunchy snow, and talking to them. One even came CLOSER when I turned my back to attend to a bucket, getting to about 15 yards. It just stood there while I did my business and talked to it. Best I can figure, they had been licking the sap that was accumulating on the lids of the overflowing buckets, and they were worried about the human messing with their candy supply. Sad to pull all the taps, but a guy can only cook so much sap. Good luck to everyone who is soldiering on as the northwoods finally thaws out. Looks like a great season for the crazy few.
Neighbor has taps in.................sure is early for us this year. I'll give it a try this week and see if my early trees drip????? Jay
Tapped 30 trees 2/27 collected 3/5 for only 42 gallons on the week, still lots of snow in the woods hopefully the warm weather this week will take care of that and really get it flowing. We did our first boil in our new Smokey Lake Dauntless Evaporator, very nice made quick work on the 42 gallons in 3.5 hours.
Bryan
2017 7 taps cinder block arc
2018 17 taps
2019 25 taps, 7 gallons of syrup
2020 25 taps, 8 gallons of syrup
2021 31 taps, new SL Dauntless Evaporator
We did 4 test taps on 3/5, thinking that the ground and tree bases likely were still too frozen by us to allow much sap production. Looks like it is still too early for us -- only got a few cups of sap from Friday through Saturday.
Merrill area
I don't have a good count, but put in somewhere around 90 taps on 3/16 Saturday. Had decent flow and vacuum starting already when I left. Tuesday eve my brother checked gauges. 11 (low) 19, 14, 0. Found a blocked tee and cleared. Took gauge off the one that was low because leak relates to the gauge line. Typically the vacuum ranges highest at first line and similar from there dropping slightly the further in and north. Looks like a bit over 100 gallons Sat thru Tuesday eve. Would really like to see about 320 total for the weekend but that's probably wishful thinking. I'm sure they went all night last night, but I suspect they slowed or stopped today thru Thursday. Doesn't look much like it will freeze overnight tonight.
Still pretty frozen up by us. We installed 4 taps last weekend, just to see. Produced only about 3 gal sap total for the whole week. But the forecast looks so bueno here, we're jumping in today.
We're only about 35 miles south of you I drove a test tap yesterday bone dry but neighbors are getting a trickle here and there so I"m with you and I'm tapping today in Sugar Camp Wi. JayQuote:
Originally Posted by TwoSaps
tapped yesterday later in the afternoon and every tree was dripping. Snow in the forecast...........go figure hey?
Game on. We put in 42 taps on Saturday (3/13), and less than 24 hours later, we had 41 gallons of sap. Some taps produced almost 2 gallons in less than a day. Of course others were dogs -- the usual ones in the woods where there is still a foot of snow. Looks like a fantastic week. Wishing everyone strong shoulders, easy toting, dry firewood, fun camaraderie, and good cooking with no mishaps.
Collected 148 gallons for the past week on 30 taps almost every bucket was full, very busy weekend boiling. Drew off 4 gallons of syrup.
Bryan
Great run last week. Collected 200+ gallons on 48 taps, with many buckets overflowing. On Saturday afternoon alone, got two gallons on a couple of taps. That's a lot of drips. Sugar content was pretty good -- made about 7 gallons of nice syrup. Beautiful weather for watching sap boil. Now it's all shut down. Still maybe 8" of snow in the woods, in some places. I think we'll get one more nice run later in the week. As always, going back to work with chapped, slivered, gouged, and blackened hands, and searching for the least arduous method for cleaning pans.
Cleaning pans reminded me of a old timer telling me when he was a young guy, his dad put him in charge of watching the syrup pan and well his mind wandered and burnt the pan. He said his dad made him scrub it out with sand while standing in the Kickapoo river in March.That was the last time he burnt that pan.God Bless.
Don't let that other sap fool you. He's already found the easiest method for cleaning pans. Leave camp and the pans behind. Let little brother clean em. Actually, I filled pans with water, sprinkled some borax on them, COVERED THEM to keep the steam in, and let them simmer for a few hours. Rinsed pretty darn clean.
I'm starting to wonder if the season is over? We had a pretty significant warm-up Sunday-Wednesday. Last two nights have been below freezing, but still not a drop from any of the taps. Could it be? Season is over?
All done for the year, pulled the taps April 1st, was a good year for me made 9.7 gallons on 31 taps on a new Smokey Lake Dauntless Evaporator.
Bryan
Ten day forecast seems to have changed over nite. Looks like we'll be tapping soon. Probably start tapping Presque Isle area March 18??? Could be a short season. Already starting a week later than last year.
Had to get the blower on my loader to open up the roads into the woods. Still frozen in here. As usual still have too much to do before I start haha. Good luck Twosaps. Jay