Eat it before you convince yourself to boil it more. You've waited long enough for the first batch of 2015. Looks great!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Walton
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Eat it before you convince yourself to boil it more. You've waited long enough for the first batch of 2015. Looks great!Quote:
Originally Posted by Rob Walton
I didn't take your advice Karen and boiled it down a little further.
I lost my patiences with 6 trees and moved the buckets to a more open section of the woods. All the new taps were running good. Shocked as it was after 6 pm when I made the move.
Hoping for a better run tomorrow. Only have until April 9th then off to Cuba for a week.
Collected another 18 litres over the last 2 days. Trees are slowing waking up but still have about 8 or so buckets that were bone dry! Might be moving a few more in the next couple of days.
I haven't seen much from my reds....a few gallons max. the sugars are pumping though. I may have set my collection barrels up wrong though....I just put a thread out in the tubing forum to see what the others think. I got worried on the weekend so I put in another 21 taps on a neighbours property mostly sugars.....103 taps now and only 20-30 gallons of sap in total
Got another 10 litres tonight and added 2 more taps. Slowly but surely the sap sunami is coming.....at least I hope it gets here before April 10.
Another 7 litres of sap today. Up to 47 litres for the season....rather disappointing....:cry:.....now have 49 taps
Hey Rob, I'm betting at this rate your sap will still be flowing when you get back from Cuba. Maybe you should keep those taps in while you're gone.
Maybe so Karen as the temps for the up coming week are forecasted to be hovering around zero. It appears this week is not going to be great either.
Unless you'll be gone for two or three weeks, what's the harm?
I agree with ya Karen. Will be back on April 18th to full buckets of good sap!
Just finished up the latest boil.....yielded 1 litre. And it taste so good! Filter it before I botlled and kept the niter from it......and will be eating that with a spoon!
If my math is correct, I think I have 2.6% sugar.
About 1 litre of sap per tap and about 25 ml of syrup per tap.
If my math is incorrect please say so.
Just came in from checking the lines.....not even a gallon of sap since Thursday. It was SUPPOSED to be -7 Friday and Saturday night then +5ish during the day....reality was it never went below +3 either night. Last night was -11, today +1 in the sun lines aren't frozen but there is zilch sap running.
That's rough, I'm up to about 75L over all so far. Haven't boiled yet as I usually just freeze and concentrate the sap so I can get away with a couple boils a season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
Should I worry about the sap lines freezing and pushing the spiles out of the trees. Have a line with 7 spiles on it going to a wine bucket. Lines are full.
Looks like I have about 20-30 litres froze in the buckets.
Attachment 11594Attachment 11595Attachment 11596Attachment 11597
I sweetened the pan today....I didn't want to hold sap any longer for fear it would sour. I have a lot to learn about firing and how to build the fire. I couldn't get a full boil in the entire flue section just the front and only a small boil in the forward syrup section. My arch is a touch sort though so I will need to modify it a bit for next year.
It was -15 at 0600 this morning and + 4 at 1300.... One line I checked has 29 taps on it and it wasn't dripping at all I checked again at 1700 and even then it was just a drip.
Where are you? I got a full 15 l today alone. Maybe you need to redrill to open up? I did that late march and they've been dripping since.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
On your boil (or lack of), maybe to need to build the fire up closer to the pan and spread out, front to back. I get an amazing boil outside with a cider block jerry rigged evap but a build a fire under it too.
It's all trial and error with a backyard setup.
I'm in St George and I may have to freshen up my taps...I shudder at this as the CV2 spiles I have keep losing their tips when I pull them.
My fire box is 28" deep which may have an effect, I was pushing the coals back and adding wood to the front but then I started spreading everything and it got better. I have natural air going under the entire grate but it comes in through a draft door so the dead spot is in the very front.
Well, I freshened all my taps this morning, some had sap running and some didn't....there wasn't a noticeable difference in the wood or type of holes between sap producers and non sap producers other than the lack of sap, colour, wood condition, etc were all the same. I did notice that the older trees were inconsistent in producing sap (some trees has one or two taps producing and one or two that didn't while others were completely dry); all the younger trees were producing something. However, the trees that produced last year are substantially down in volume as well so the 'new' old trees I tapped may not be the culprit.
With that being said, if the non runners stay dry my 103 taps becomes closer to 50 or so....that would be unfortunate.
Thanks for the tip Dscanuck and fingers crossed that was the issue...
I hope that was it, you should know today or tomorrow if it was. I had a great day, 45L from 11 taps, I drilled the last 4 after work today.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
The next few days look perfect!
Even with 50 taps, you'll have a great haul.
Collected 30 litres tonight. Haven't collected since Saturday afternoon. All filtered and ready to start boiling tomorrow night. Once the pans are on the stove, go collect some more.
I bumped into a guy from my lodge who taps recreationally as well. He does 2 gallons of syrup then calls it quits and normally he's done by now but he doesn't even have enough for a boil yet.
Is it wrong to feel a bit exonerated by the failure of others? ;-)
kidding, I don't wish any ill will on him or others but I am glad its not necessarily something I am doing incorrectly.
For sure, that's a good way to know that it's not you, it's the trees ;) What do the bases look like? I found my sap started running way faster once the snow melted around the base of the trees to allow more heat to reach it thus allow the pressure built up during the cold nights to release easier during the day.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
I tapped a tree around 4:40 and when I went to check on it around 7 pm, I had 400-500ml in the bucket.
I'm sure you're going to have a sapnami in the next few days and then you won't know what to do with it all.
Only a couple have more than a foot or two of open ground around them. Most of them still have snow up the trunks at least a little bit.....I may have to do some shovelling ;-)
Well, I had some activity yesterday afternoon....not much but when added together probably close to 55gallons of sap.
Today looked very promising as everything was dripping at 9am. my clump-o-tree was gushing, it has 6 large trunks all 18"+ in diameter so I have one tap in each. the 6 taps go into 2 five gallon buckets, 3 in each. At 11am, I dumped one bucket into the other for easier transport and when I got back with the empty bucket not more than 10min later there was already about 1/2 to 1/3 of a litre of sap in the bottom. I wasn;t able to check the barrels but hopefully they did well!
Unfortunately, I also had a setback tonight....I noticed that the floor was sticky beside my pan, this lead me to discover that my float box has a small leak. It had been sitting since Monday so I lost everything above the level of the leak, about 2/3rds of the semi syrup in my 2X5 hybrid pan, probably close to a 1 and 1/3 gallons of finished syrup....on the floor.
I was sick to my stomach when I saw the extent of the syrup lost
Marvel, that sucks about the crack.
Pretty good collection with 55 gallons!
I finished up the latest batch last night. Started with 48 litres, ended up with approx 1250 ml syrup.
Potentially could be my last boil this year. Off to Cuba this afternoon but am leaving the buckets/lines out. So if the saps doesn't spoil, I will be boiling next weekend.
Good luck everyone.
Have fun in Cuba and remember you can tap palm trees ;-)
¿Dónde está el jarabe de arce? = "Where is the maple syrup?"
Well, I'm doing my first boil today. Tress have been flowing faster than I can freeze it. My 75L roughneck that fits in my freezer is full with about 200L of sap concentrated down to 75L and my buckets are full on the trees. Going to be a long day.
I'll let ya's know how I make out! Good luck to all those boiling!
And Marvel, sorry to hear about the crack. I hope you get it fixed ASAP.
Thanks DScanuck. good luck today and remember if you get too much syrup you can always do what I do and pour it on the floor ;-)
Here's the tally from my first boil. Roughly 4L. Attachment 11688
Good work dsc. Any pancakes in your future?
Well done!
Hey Dscanuck, how are the buds up there? things are swelling here but I think we are still a week away...or so. the temps are crap though its not supposed to go below zero all week.
I am thinking that this will be the last week, for sure. I had the best run of the year 2 days ago and today and tomorrow it should dip below 0 here. Other than that, it looks above zero the rest of the time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
I haven't seen any buds yet though.
It's 24 C in the sun right now and I unfortunately noticed that there were some very white people sunbathing on the snow today as I was driving around for work ...that is probably a better sign than the buds that the end has come ;-)
Been getting some decent runs the last few days, already back to about 60L in sap in reserve. Monday looks to be the last run here in Fton. -2 Sunday and -2 on Monday than above zero at night the rest of the week.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvel26
Back from vacation. No maple trees tapped but did tap some rum, vodka, tequila, beer and wine trees! 😇
Made it around today.....25 litres of sap. Haven't collected for a week....so not great but will take it.
Boiling will happen tomorrow.
Good looking run dscanuck.
Pulled most of my taps last night. I have one more line to pull at a neighbours house, grand total for the week should be 20 gallons. Boiling/clean up will occur this afternoon depending on my mental state at the end of my shift ;-)
Things are looking good today and tomorrow.....after that it is all over.
Did my last boil this afternoon. I will still have to do some final finishing on the lobster fryer once my hydrometer gets here....customs seems to have taken an interest in it. I'll give an update on that for those who are interested a bit later.
Final tally on sap is ready now though, 205 gallons collected since the first week of March. This equates to 1.99 gallons of sap per tap for the entire season!
OK guys, I have to say, after not having stopped in for the last 10-12 days, if you read the last 2-3 pages of this thread, it looks pretty funny. 'Where's the sap?' 'Yeah, anyone getting any?' 'Stupid Mother Nature!' etc, then not one reply later, 'all done'. lol. Having said that, that's exactly how my season went too.
Got about 140-150gal of sap, most of which came two weeks ago, then very little last week, then the ice came off the river, the river rose and flooded my woods (again). Pulled most of my 70 taps Wed, and the Mrs. did the last 10 yesterday. Burned my first 8gal boil this year (again) and lost about 2 cups. Not a big deal right?
The big boil for the year Apr 11-12 (23 five-gallon pails) yielded almost 4 gallons, but as I was finishing it in a big stock pot on the stove it boiled over. The handles of the pot were covered in boiling syrup so we had to wait for it to stop after I turned the burner off and flicked a bit of bacon fat into the pot. Probably lost a quart of syrup over that.... a little harder to take than the first two burnt cups. Final boil yesterday on 33 gal of sap yielded 3/4 gal of syrup, so I'm over 4 gallons on the season, which is way better than last year. I'm happy at any rate, so's the family. My wife even made snow taffy late last night.