Gathering up everything this evening and going to boil this evening. There won't be much because 3/16 woods stopped running. Going to chase with water and have a beer or two and pull the plug. Not a good season for me.
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Gathering up everything this evening and going to boil this evening. There won't be much because 3/16 woods stopped running. Going to chase with water and have a beer or two and pull the plug. Not a good season for me.
We finished up this week also, pulled all our taps, seemed like an average year. A little hard to judge with all the upgrades we did. We made 53 gallons off about 260 taps on gravity. Very happy with the new evaporator though. Sugar content was better than last year but still a little low. Time to plan the upgrades for next year! Maybe a shack expansion and/or a water jacket canner.
All done here. Finally started to pull taps. Buckets are all done. Lines need to be pulled and cleaned. Not bad of a year, wish I had higher percentage but better than last year. Some light and a little of amber with lots of dark. Finished with about 11 gallons of syrup from a total of 225 taps. Looking to upgrade to all vacuum and a press.
I'm no where near ready for Maple season yet but looking at the forecast for next week it sure looks like Maple season. Is anyone going to start tapping?
I tapped the end of Jan last year, that turned out to be about 2 weeks Too early. It's been a real Cold start to our winter, might be one that lasts a while I'm holding off.
I'm not going yet. If it were the first week of Feb maybe. But I think it will get cold again after this January the. Plus, I need to cut a hole in my roof, Put up stack, and then move the evaporator in my shack yet. Hope to get that done next weekend.
I am not going to get too excited about it yet either. Already see cold on the back side of it. Gonna take quite a warm spell to thaw out these trees anyway.
I feel like we always get a January thaw. I would like to make it at least until mid February. I messed up tapping too early with buckets 2 years ago in January. The season went well into March for me that year.
I took a look at some 10 day forecasts. Looks like a warm up in 8-10 days. Long enough to thaw trees even (if forecast does not change). Looks like a long stretch of cool, but not frigid weather after that so not sure if it is worth it. Problem is that far out is a crap shoot.
Seems like I get worked up every year when I see the big boys putting up syrup well before I'm ready. Merle posted on Facebook they made 50 gallons last night, but sap was thin. Said 65:1.
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I see a warm up at the end of the week but it's -1 f and falling fight now, last Sunday morning it was -16 f . Even after the warm and rain the ground has a decent frost in it. The really big guys have to tap at a certain date regardless of temps and conditions but I would think that waiting is the prudent thing to do around here for everyone else. I am not even close to being ready. Hell I haven't got my new evaporator yet. I wanting to go to tubing but a few things held me up this year so I will go with as many buckets as I have and try to get the tubing set up for next year. If the evap isn't ready I may not even boil this year. My 2x6 is up for sale and if it goes soon I will not have an evaporator in time anyway. We will see how it goes.