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I decided to take advantage of the weather and threw in my taps yesterday afternoon. Emediate flow, and checked the buckets this morning. almost full. Did 29 taps this year. With only 1 gal for all my work last year,that my kids devoured in a few weeks, i am hopeing for the best this year and its looking good. with about 150 gal of sap in the buckets today i might do a boil and notwait untill next weekend. The family of 4 kids is looking forward to it, and beliee e they work for it too.
Have fun with it. When our 4 kids were young, we made syrup a few years with just 7-9 taps. We did all but the finishing on the woodstove, with a moderate steam rising off the pots., Then we finished it on the kitchen stove. We tapped a large sugar in the front yard with 3 taps on buckets, the rest were box alders. We made between 4-8 qts the 3 or 4 years we did it. The kids did all of the hauling, emptied the buckets like 4-5 times a day when the sap flowed. It was great family fun.
We are going to be tapping in later this week in East Windsor, it was killing me not being able to get going this weekend. Plenty of soaking weather, should help with sap flow.
Good Luck to ya!
Mike
I'm holding off. It seems too early and the long term forecast has it getting well below sap temps for awhile.
But 150 gallons from 29 taps? Isn't that already nearly half a seasons worth?
I agree with Tithis, while its always tempting to tap in the january thaw there is a good many weeks of lows in the single digits and teens coming when you look at the long range forecast.
sorry about my math i was out late with a couple late night fire calls. in my head i was close, i multiplied all of my buckets by 5 , it was about about 65 gal 13 full 5 gal buckets. it was all for nothing anyway. as i was toward the end of the boil i fell asleep in my chair next to the fire. i woke up and there was a big puffy black mess in the pan. i spent the next hour and a half scraping black out of the bottom and sides of the pan, what a mess. that was the first time i had ever burned sap it was almost like those charcoal snake things i used to get as a kid. live and learn i guess. this saturday should be good. already have another 25 gallons of sap and tapped another 6 trees at a friends house. and about the long range forecast, these idiots cant tell you what is going on tomorrow never mind next week. all i know is all this week and some of next they are saying high teens low twentys at night and high thirtys to fourty douring the day and correct me if im wrong that brings the sap....i know im new at this but if we do get a freeze will it harm anything or will it just start to flow again when it thaws. if it doesnt harm anything then whats the problem with getting a scratch on that itch
Ya maple flats, the family has fun with the entire process. I am building a new evaperator now out of an old 275 gal oil tank. luckily my cousin has a shop here in town and is getting me a sheet of stainless to make a warming pan and a boiling pan i will put up some pics of it soon. Sad to think i sold my snowmobile to purchase tapping equipment and stainless to make my pans. so much for a small hobby to do with the kids.
Well as you saw last year we had a pretty good thing going. 2x6 200 taps+/- and all was fun. This year a brain storm came over me and well lets sell the 2x6 and buy a 3x8 with a steamaway and heck lets through in another 400 taps on vacuum on top of last years. Well after leasing a piece of land shelling out thousands of dollars for tubing fittings evaporator ect. We are almost there... Stop by when the season start... Good luck with your new adventure...
Rick SFD#1
Well My tapping early idea paid off. I ended up with 3 gal of syrup after a long boil this weekend. If my gal of sap were right it was at 40 to 1. Had fun and my kids were happy. Of course we had pancakes and syrup this morning.
Hey Rick. Ya I would love to come up and see the new equipment. I will bring some pics of my new evaperator im making. Sugar house is coming next year. See you soon. And if by writing SFD #1 you meant Somers FD is #1 you are right!!!!!!