Printable View
Anybody have a good flow today? Collected 27 gal at 8am. Things started to drip around noon but not a very hard drip. I moved about 30 of the taps I put in around family day for this week as I think it will be my last. Not thinking much will happen but would like to do one last big boil for my personal stash.
Boiled 32L today that I collected over the past two days. Some trees are bone dry, and a few were dripping. I moved a few taps, but am not optimistic. I'll be getting under 1L from this batch, and it is absolutely delish! Very light and buttery.
I was getting very light finished syrup at the beginning of the season but since about early to mid march it's dark. I actually like the dark stuff though so I am happy to have got both.
Looks like the end folks. Friday is the last day to hope we go below 0 degrees here in my neighborhood to recharge trees.
If it doesn't happen the taps are coming out on Saturday.
Thank good we upped our taps this year.
Got about 50 gallons finished on 125 taps....................we had 45 gallons on 90 taps last year.
Started Feb 18th. Last year we made syrup til the end of April. Crazy weather this year.
Looks like I might get one last run in for the year but not holding my breath. We have had snow all day today just a wet snow but it's been cold. Tomorrow is going to get +5 ish then back to -2 overnight and +17 for Saturday. Fingers crossed. I am pulling taps Sunday or Monday regardless.
I pulled all my buckets out but havent had time to pull the spiles out. Friday and saturday their will be a good flow of sap. I was debating on puting all the buckets out again but Im going to let this go. I have more than enough syrup for the year.
It's a winter wonderland here this morning. Snow and ice make things look more like Christmas than Easter. With any luck Santa will leave some sap dripping into my buckets.
Yup same here. Just went around the lines and nothing dripping but real close. Still sitting at -1 plus windy so I think later it may start as the temps climb to +5 so they say. Tomorrow we should have a good run if mother nature allows it. Dipping back down tonight to 0/-1 then +8 tomorrow full sun. Fingers crossed.
The taps are dripping like mad. A couple of fresh taps have given me 3L in the past two hours. :D Fingers crossed that it's perfect sap and buddy-free.
Cleaned buckets and crossed fingers for one last run. Had some sap flowing Friday afternoon but still not a full flow. Today is probably the final flow of the season. hoping to make another 5 gallons of syrup boiling on Sunday if we can get 200 gallon of sap from these temps. trees are charged and the sun and warm temps should unlock them. Pulling taps Monday if temps stay as forecast. good luck to all on this final weekend here in my area.
Well I got the last little run I was hoping for but that's about it was a pretty slow drip today yesterday was not too bad after I collect tomorrow will probably have gotten around the 70 gallon mark off about 70 taps since Friday afternoon. not the greatest but will have to do for a first run in my first year. Pulling taps out Monday. Now my real season starts up.
Today is the day that the clean-up begins. I collected a total of 90L over the weekend, courtesy of Thursday's blizzard. My final boil of 2017 produced 2L of light syrup. Probably the most flavourful light syrup I've ever made. Surprisingly, even though the silver maples had flowers on the trees, none of the sap was buddy. I tested each batch before adding it to the boiling pan just to be sure.
I'm at less than half of last year's total, and very happy that I also decided to pull out the drill in February like so many others of you in Ontario did. That saved my season for sure. This year took some finesse, some finger crossing and a lot of guidance from the life-long sugarers on the forum to reassure me about drilling that first hole in February.
Good luck to those further north. Hope you get some more good runs before you break out the power washer!
Way to go Karen!!! I tap in Feb every year, just because of the way this year played out. It's a little more work but helps the season total balance out.
Wow should I get the drill out. This weather is looking pretty good for sap flow. Not so good for my snowmobile season.
I am debating whether I should start tapping as well now. It does seem super early but this weather has me itching to go...
I am giving it 2 weeks then I will make the call. Hope the weather stays cold for a bit to be honest. Last year I put first taps in on family day weekend. That's early I thought but as others in my area were talking about tapping so did I. I was sure glad I did. Best runs of the year came early. Time will tell this year I guess.
I'm tempted as well but the forecast doesn't seem like the warmth will last. I'm planning on mid February as well to get going. I'm itching for the season as I've some tuning out this year and have all my parts ordered for a small home made RO unit. Plan to rap every tree I can find on my property lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Hkb82
Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk
Welcome Paul! If you are tapping in Beeton you are only ten minutes from me. Looks like we'll be sharing the same tapping season calendar. Obviously the same crazy warm weather got me thinking about sugaring as well - hence the reason that I'm on the site tonight. hahaha Are you boiling over fire or propane?Quote:
Originally Posted by paulflikkema
Thanks Karen! That is great to hear you are so close by. Last year was my first venture into this and I am hooked. I am boiling over propane. I was looking into a barrel burner but will stick with the propane for this year again. One of the properties in my area tapped over the weekend. To me it seems way too early as from here on out for the next 2 weeks it is back to frigid temps. I keep checking the weather forecasts and will go based on that. Last year I tapped on the Saturday morning of Family Day weekend and had 120 liters of sap by the Monday morning. I tapped 6 trees with a total of only 9 taps. By Monday night I had 3 liters of syrup boiled down. I did one more batch that following weekend for another 3 liters and that was it for me as our house was under renovation and my wife didn't see it as a great use of my time to be sitting in front of a burner for that long doing "nothing" hahaha. This year I am planning on adding a few more taps/trees and doing a few more runs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Hello All!
We started tapping about a week ago, we are well on our way with about 7,000 in already, I figure about half done. We hope to finish off in the next week and half.
The warm-up was good to get all the snow out of the bush - made running around a whole lot easier.
Looking forward to the season, we have a ton more taps and have spent a lot of time rethinking our pumphouses, I am really excited to see how they run.
Hey there....
We started tapping on Sunday. Still pushing hard to rework lines, install new plumbing in the shack etc etc etc.... not enough hours in the day!
2018 - RO, 3hp vac, approx 1500 taps.
2017 - new shack, evap, vac 735 taps
2016 - 3 homebuilt evaps 160 taps
2012 - 5 pails - 5 taps turkey fryer
Any thoughts on the warm up that is coming this weekend and next week? Think it will be enough to get the sap to start running ? Looks like average of 3 degrees daytime and -5 night time most of the week.
Hi Paul. While some of the daytime highs look interesting, the evenings are still pretty frigid and it's pretty cold for the trunks to thaw out enough to start to run. If those daytime highs were 14, and not 4, then I'd be all in.
Last year I was very early with my test taps - February 19th. The sap was flowing that day. It was the earliest ever around here for me. I got some decent amounts of sap (but no overflowing buckets) for about a week and then everything froze up solid until March 19. Usually the daily, consistent runs come around St. Patrick's Day with Easter being tsunami time in our area.
To satisfy my curiosity, I usually put out a test tap or two early on. I also snap a few twigs on my trees that I can monitor from the house and watch for 'sapsicles' to form. I don't want to jump too early and dry out the tap holes unnecessarily, but you can bet that I'll be watching the forecasts closely.
Oh, and one other trick....keep an eye out for the snow to recede in a ring around the base of the trees. When you start to see a 'lawn donut' around the tree then the wood is definitely warm enough to release sap.
Thanks for the great tips Karen. I am just itching to get going. I want to put the new stove and pan to work... hahaha
Paul, did your new pan arrive yet? Post some pictures if you can!
Update:
The weather forecast has changed for the better. You may be tapping sooner than you think - but not just yet. :D
Hi Karen,
I am still waiting for the pan to arrive. I should have it early next week. I will upload a pic as soon as I get it. It does look like the weather is warming up so might do a few taps on the weekend just to see if things will start running...
Paul, I was going to suggest that you could drill a few tap holes just to scratch your itch. If there are any trees you have that are large enough to take two taps, just drill one now and then drill the second one in a couple of weeks. That will go a long way to extending your season and make the sap flows more manageable. I'm dying to try out my Denali. It better work as well, if not better, than the propane fryers! I can't wait to get all of them fired up. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by paulflikkema
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...13ce24d0ac.jpghttps://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...557c7511d3.jpg
New (home built arch) and pan in place. Test boil last night got us ready to scratch the itch here as well...
Looks great!
The extended forecast has me puzzled! Don't know whether to start this weekend or wait till next, or wait even longer lol! What's everyone else thinking? I'm north of Belleville. Thinking of maybe putting a dozen or so taps out this weekend to test the waters :)
I'm waiting. We have some interesting high temps in the next few days, but the nights are still really cold. The trees on my property are exposed to the elements and need some extended high day temps to thaw out enough to get the best run when the best weather arrives.
With overnight lows of -7C to -11C in the next two weeks, the daytime highs are too low for me to hang my buckets. Anyone that has unlimited number of trees to tap might want to give it a go. I'd definitely do that! Then it won't matter if some of your earliest taps have dried out, you'll just drill some fresh ones in some new trees.
Broken jaw
Great looking evaporator. Hope it works out for you.
I just finished putting in 10 taps. We will see how they do over the next week and will judge accordingly.
Paul, all of the four weather forecasts that I monitor have now increased the forecasted temperatures for the next two weeks. I think that putting in some test taps is the smart thing to do.Quote:
Originally Posted by paulflikkema
And so it begins.........
I put in 10 taps this afternoon, all sugar maples, and had sap right away. Even if the temperatures at the beginning of March are as cool as the forecast is predicting, it looks like we've got at least a week of prime sap weather in the meantime. I'm going in!
I really lucked out as my neighbour has offered as many of their maple trees to tap as I want. I thought that they were only soft maples, like mine, but it turns out they are 90% sugar maples! They have never turned a brilliant fall colour, so I didn't realize they were sugars. How did I miss this???
They are all lawn trees, great crowns, no hills to climb and right along the road. What a score!!! Not only that, the gracious neighbours have said that they don't really use maple syrup so they aren't interested in any. I think I'll have to force a small bottle on them when I'm done just so I don't feel like a free loader! :o I still can have access to the forest 5K down the street if things dry up here, but now it looks like I likely won't need to make the drive as often with all of these new trees right across the street. What a nice surprise!
I've also purchased a Denali camp stove to try out this year. It will add a lot of extra boiling capacity along with my two fryers. Three full size steam trays can fit along the top! I can't wait to fire it up and see if it's as good as I hope it's going to be.
Got all four of my propane tanks filled and ready to go. Bring it on.
Good luck everyone in the GTA!
Karen, you are ready for a small evaporator!Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Don't tempt me, I have to hold myself back with this hobby. I'd run the risk of becoming a syrup baron(ess) and there would be no end to the madness. lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Ghs57
You may not realize it, but you are already there as far this community is concerned.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
You are right. That shipped sailed when I made my first batch 7 seasons ago. Denying it only makes it worse. :emb:Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghs57
You need a evaporator lol, keep an eye on Kijiji, that’s where I got mine from and it was only $400.00 for everything, I do need to drive 3 hrs to get it, but it will be worth it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk