Eastern Ontario 2017

I am just minutes north of Belleville, and after the one and only big sap run of the year last weekend we hit the 1 LPT of syrup. I have had the pumps running all day and night since last Sat. Starting to slow down, (thou the high winds this evening sure had the lines running good, when I was leaving) The sugar is dropping .1% a day. We ran most of the season at 2.5 to 2.8 which has been the highest since tapping this bush a few years ago. This morning we were at 12401 gallons of sap at 1.8% and 213 gallons of syrup. Wasted about 1000 gallons of sap at the beginning of the season to clean what may have been contaminated membranes that were supposed to be cleaned from CDL.
We started tapping Friday of family day weekend and had all the pumps running that Sunday. Buds are starting to break, no off flavored syrup yet. Hopefully a few more days to go. Planned for 200 gallons on 800 taps so anything extra is a bonus. Thou the wood pile is going down fast.

Yesterday was a good day - not spectacular but good. Sugar was still decent at 37:1 We made about 20 gallons of Dark-Robust at the start of the day but it lightened to 60LT once The Beast got rolling at full speed and the new concentrate pushed through to the front. The sap coming in is getting tougher to pre-filter going into the RO causing it to shut off from time to time when the supply pressure drops.

The freezing temps Friday and Saturday night will help extend things a bit but I'm not hopeful that we can get through +13, +20, +19 and +12 with no freeze up from Sunday-Wednesday and still make syrup that doesn't make your face pucker up! The fat lady may be warming up her voice...

Sounds like a pretty decent day ennismaple! I'm hopeful that the forecast lows here on Friday and Saturday nights will give a last gasp for me. On the other hand I've heard peepers for the past three nights. Not great. I'll do my best to keep them off the 401 so that they don't find you too soon. Good luck with the weekend!

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Originally Posted by Clamer33

I am just minutes north of Belleville, and after the one and only big sap run of the year last weekend we hit the 1 LPT of syrup. I have had the pumps running all day and night since last Sat. Starting to slow down, (thou the high winds this evening sure had the lines running good, when I was leaving) The sugar is dropping .1% a day. We ran most of the season at 2.5 to 2.8 which has been the highest since tapping this bush a few years ago. This morning we were at 12401 gallons of sap at 1.8% and 213 gallons of syrup. Wasted about 1000 gallons of sap at the beginning of the season to clean what may have been contaminated membranes that were supposed to be cleaned from CDL.
We started tapping Friday of family day weekend and had all the pumps running that Sunday. Buds are starting to break, no off flavored syrup yet. Hopefully a few more days to go. Planned for 200 gallons on 800 taps so anything extra is a bonus. Thou the wood pile is going down fast.

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Chris - glad to see you back. I've seen the truck parked a few times so knew you were boiling. Big difference between vacuum and buckets. We have had no sap since Sunday, less than 5km away.

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Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!

Sounds like a pretty decent day ennismaple! I'm hopeful that the forecast lows here on Friday and Saturday nights will give a last gasp for me. On the other hand I've heard peepers for the past three nights. Not great. I'll do my best to keep them off the 401 so that they don't find you too soon. Good luck with the weekend!

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Thanks Karen! I hope you get another kick at the can this weekend.

We got 1/2 GPT overnight, plus what runs today and tonight should make for a long day tomorrow. We're desperately trying to go from a bad to an OK season before we hear the peepers! We still have lots of ice on the lake and that creates a micro-climate.

Hi all..
Well I'm done..I arrived back home today and found stored sap really cloudy and nothing in collection sites ...Soooooo I pulled taps "I'm tapping out" ..
Returned my cloudy sap back to the earth as a offering to the sap gods for a good run next year.

Drain the pan and finish it off then start the cleaning process this weekend .
Good luck to those who are still plugging away at the season .
I will add up the numbers and tally up all the totals of bottled product .
I don't think I hit last year's total that's for sure !

Yes big eddy only the one big run this year. Everything else has been like 1/2 GPT a day. This is the most I have run pumps around the clock. Gas bill will be high this year. We are still running. Pulled up alost 2000 gallons since yesterday morning. I always waiting on my RO. Think it's time to upgrade to the 600 GPH. If anyone's is looking for a Hobby RO. Let's talk

I'm interested in the RO . Email me I will private message you my number to text or email

We ran our last 500+L of sap on Tuesday. Made around 15L of syrup. There is no question we could have come up with enough for 1 more boil but decided to pull the taps and clean up instead. Dad and I both needed to move on to other things this spring.

Nice and short. Tapped on March 17, all cleaned up by April 4.

I thought we had all 65 buckets on but it turns out we only had 50. There was a whole stack that didn't leave the shop. I thought something was amiss when I was collecting but honestly only got to collect once this year. I currently live 40 minutes from my parents place where we tap. They did almost all the sap slugging this year. I was lucky enough to be there for 2 of 3 boils and all 3 "finishes"

We've had a perfectly average season. 50 trees tapped, 3 400-500L boils, 40L of syrup made. This will keep us in syrup all year with lots and lots of 250ml and 500ml bottles to give away.

Very happy with our new CDL 18"x48" Hobby Evaporator. We ran the same amount of sap as usual but slightly quicker (even though the new pan is smaller) and used about 25% less wood. Also, for the first time EVER I didn't smell like smoke after loading the arch all day! Really clean running, well sealed, efficient unit. Already looking forward to next year.

It's crazy to look at this Eastern Ontario thread and see how spread out the results have been. It seems like 30 minutes North, East, South, West of any 1 location can have wildly different results.

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Originally Posted by DrewCP

...It's crazy to look at this Eastern Ontario thread and see how spread out the results have been. It seems like 30 minutes North, East, South, West of any 1 location can have wildly different results.

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yeah exactly, that's just how it is! Impossible to offer advice to local noobs asking my advice other than to shrug and tell them what to watch for, and when the trees dry up or the sap turns, pull your spiles then. Got 15l over last couple days but maybe this weekend will produce something.

Hey Galena, ya, I tapped down near merrickville as well, but I tapped it later in March when the weather kind of looked right and only put about 20 taps down there. It was very disappointing, I only gathered maybe 45 gallons total off those taps. I'm pulling everything now... total for the year was 21 litres of syrup off of 36 taps. I tapped fewer trees this year which was a stupid idea, but I only boiled 3 batches, so I didn't work that hard this year either. All the taps at the merrickville spot were on tubing into 2 55 gallon drums, so ive only got a few barrels to clean up and 18 buckets from my yard. Next year I'll do my usual 50 or so again I guess.

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Originally Posted by Galena

@ maple75...don't call it quits just yet! Now that there is finally a warm spell you may get a few more good days of sap.

@ KyleBaker....glad to hear that they haven't tried to pilfer any of your stuff. Are you tapping the bush near Merrickville too?

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Think I've made a grand total of 10.5l this year, a far cry from last year. Maybe just maybe this weekend will be it...?! Meanwhile still messing around with a few litres that will make 2-3l for batch #5 but not holding my breath. Very glad I still have about 2 gallons from last year in reserve.

What a frickin frustrating year.

Finished off the last of my sap, drained and finished off what was in my evaporator and everything bottled. But taps still in with fingers crossed for one last run this weekend. Weather still looking very good for Saturday and ok for Sunday with lows predicted of -6 and -2 respectively and warm sunny days. It seems every year I hold out for that one last late run and always end up being disappointed. Here's hoping we get it for a change. That said, I have 302L of syrup from 265 taps which already exceeds my 300L goal so if we don't get another drop I'm happy.

Here's hoping that everyone who's still in the game drowns in sap this weekend!

The weather has not been the friend to producers with buckets from sure. I put out 40 buckets a year to go alone side my 700 pipeline with vac and I noticed only 1 really good run with buckets. The pipeline and vac produced very well. I had a really good week and boiled 4 times in 6 days and made 300 litres 1/2 my haul in 4 days. I haven't pulled out yet, I think we might be in for a run Sunday. Still making medium syrup now.. but that can change quick. Hope everyone gets another kick at it before it's over

Right now we are *enjoying* weather better suited to BC...which is why I left BC in the first place and returned to Ontario! Trees no liking all this damp though maybe my cold-weather guy, #9, has produced some, haven't checked yet. Going to pull on floaties and slosh around as I say thanks and night-night to the trees...*sigh*

ETA: Ok soaked to the skin now and 2/3 of my bush is asleep...but #1 and #9 are happily pumping out sap,including some lovely tree pee (which I use anyway, it's perfectly fine) from the west spiles. Wondering if they'll go all night.

Quit boiling Monday night,would have been Sunday,but while I had a sugarhouse full of visitors/ customers the flexible pipe from the blower to the steam away decided to come off in pieces,so had to shut down,make a trip to Lowes Sunday night to get solid furnace duct work so that won't happen again.
No giant runs here this year,and pretty well everyone of the runs was late afternoon,which meant boiling at night after supper. Not a full crop,but still pleased with the season. Made 250 gallons,full crop would have been 300-325. Missed the first runs getting set up as my back was out for two weeks unable to do anything. Sap deep freeze lifted the ice on two tanks letting probably 500-600 gallons on the ground,and transfer pipe from tanks to sugarhouse froze solid that couldn't pump sap up for two days,so didn't have the vacuum on bringing more in.
Steam away worked great,wouldn't have had enough wood without it. Kept the last 600 gallons of distillate from it to put back through the pans,syrup pan is spotless,not sure about flue pan until I lift the steam away off,but it is not looking like we can count on more sap to fill the pans to clean if needed,so whenever the monsoon quits here I will check to see if the flue pan is clean,or need to fill with sap

I'm hoping for a tsunami this weekend. I'm in the northern region and the weather has not been on my side. Either it's too cold or too warm. -7 tonight and +7 Saturday could be the best conditions all season. After tomorrow, it looks like double digit daytime highs with plenty of rain and only 2 nights bellow freezing. So far I've made 14 L from 100 taps.:cry:

Yesterday was a much longer day than expected. The RO went on at 7:15am and went off exactly 12 hours later (with a few short rinses in between). The initial colour was 35LT, rising to 54LT and then falling again later in the day as the pans got gunked up.

We kept the pumps on all night and I'm sure we'll get some sap today now that we're back up to +3 C. Tonight's freeze should mean a decent day tomorrow. Saturday's freeze should mean another good one on Sunday. 10 days ago I was really worried we were going to have a disaster of a season. We're now at "average" and aiming for good/great after making almost 0.75 L/tap over a 9 day span. It's not how you start it's how you finish!

I've seen a few comments that folks are pulling taps because the sap was cloudy. Cloudy sap doesn't mean it's bad! We have one section of the woods that runs cloudy all season and we still make Golden (maybe 30% of our taps from that section). Cloudy sap will tend to make darker syrup but that doesn't mean it's gone buddy. We've made good tasting syrup on the last day of the season that graded medium (old classification) out of sap that looked like skim milk!

Just saw the OMSP report for this week, it's also basically saying for my area to expect a sap tsunami this weekend and that's it. Glad I still have some snow on the north side of house cause may need to dig bunkers, I'm taking a seminar on the afternnons this weekend so the timing couldn't be worse!

ETA just got in 10l of tree pee from my two cold-weather trees...better than nuthin

The trees with fresh taps are dripping like mad here this afternoon. Even the older taps have been producing. Looks like there will be some boiling tomorrow!

WE pulled over 1200 gallons of sap from Thursday at 8pm till Friday at 6pm. 1.6% and bit cloudy but still tasting ok. It actually lightened up as the fresh sap from this morning starting working thru the evap. Hopefully with everyone that is still going that this weekend will be good. Last weekend I was hoping to hit 9600 gallons of total sap for the season. WE are at 15910 as of tonight. Wow what a week this has been. Glad I hung in for the long haul. I too am with Ennismaple, we have had cloudy sap all week with the warmer weather running 1.8% and making golden and amber till yesterday it dropped to 1.5% and made dark. I tested today's sap 1.6%. All I did was keep the tanks clean of the scum, and changed the prefilter on the pump line and also the RO daily, to keep all the sap as clean and fresh as possible. HE's hoping for a strong finish this weekend. Good luck everyone....

I pulled everything Wed after work, nothing was running and everything was pretty much empty.Not a very good year, it definitely was a strange year. Last year I had to much sap and didn't know what to do with it, so I scaled back abit so it didn't happen this year and Now I think I should have put more taps in lol. Now I know what it feels like to be a Toronto Maple Leaf hockey player.... "there is always next year", "next year will be my year". HA !!

Al, how much syrup did you make this year?

Definitely looking like the sap tsunami swells are coming in now...just been writing up a list of things to do for my sap collection person, so they know what to do with overflow sap etc. Thank gawd I only have 6 trees!!! Long day ahead with seminar going to 6:30, then at bf's for a few hours, then home to see what sap collector got at 5pm when she's due to come, and what the trees may have produced since then. Could be in for a very long night!!!!

Susan, things are really ripping here for me today. Good luck with your trees. :D

Sap running like crazy here too. Took my buckets down on the 3 trees by my house this week. It broke my heart to see all the sap running down the bark so I put them back in! That's a first for me. The collection tank on my vacuum was 1/4 full by 11 so should have a full tank by mid afternoon. And as an added bonus a couple neighbors packed it in and are giving me their sap from the weekend. Looking like it's going to be a busy couple days and the decision to stick it out to the bitter end is going to pay off for a change.

Running hard here too. Hopefully a good run the next 24hrs

I stuck some spiles back into empty holes too! I've been hanging anything that I can find onto the taps - including mason jars tied with string. I have a few taps down the street and need to check on those - but I had to dig out the driveway (by hand) so that my car can get out. I'm already exhausted for the day. Can't wipe the smile off my face though. hahaha I've been testing all of the sap on the stove and nothing is buddy even though the silvers are setting flowers. What a surprise that was.

Hang in there everyone. It's going to be a BUSY few days.

Just got home and tank overflowing and still running hard. Not sure how long it's been over flowing. Looking like this could be one of my best days of the year for sap flow. A little cloudy and I think the sugar is probably a little on the low side but we'll take it.

UPDATE: Sugar tested 2%

I boiled through 69L on my propane burners. It's the 3rd best run of this season. I've shut it down for the night and expect to see lots more sap by morning. Sounds like you had a fantastic day too Clinkis.

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Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!

I boiled through 69L on my propane burners. It's the 3rd best run of this season. I've shut it down for the night and expect to see lots more sap by morning. Sounds like you had a fantastic day too Clinkis.

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Yes, unfortunately no time to boil today so will be having a long day tomorrow. Calling for -1 here tonight so hopefully another modest run tomorrow. Glad to here your perciverance is paying off Karen and everyone else who getting good runs today.

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Originally Posted by Run Forest Run!

Al, how much syrup did you make this year?

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I collected 465.5 L, and ended up with only 10.5 L finished. Went for a drive on the atv yesterday to the forest to double check I didn't forget anything, and every single hole was pouring sap out, part of me wanted to go back and get some stuff, but it was already 3 pm and by the time I went back and put stuff back in, it wouldn't have been worth it. I even yelled at 1 tree, I tap it every year, get nothing from it, every year I say i am not going to tap it, yet I still do in hopes of it producing something for me, yesterday the **** thing was running so hard there was a puddle on the forest floor where it was gathering lol.

We quit last weekend. Boiled the last of the sap Sunday, drained the flue pan and boiled the rest in the syrup pan. Last batch of syrup was pretty dark and a bit caramalized. Baking syrup. Pulled the pans and washed them all. Buckets were left hanging until Saturday which was the first avail day to wash them. Got up Saturday morning to ice on the pond so quickly dumped all the goo in the buckets and left them up. We collected another 100gals this morning before we pulled the taps. I'm down to the last 25 gals now, all the buckets are washed, and the syrup coming off is very light and delicate. I guess washing the pans well was a good thing although I'm going to have to do it all over again now.

Still getting good clear sap here, got 59l over last 48 hrs. BF just finished final heat shield work on tiny sugar shack, still have to burn a good fire in cast iron stove out there to get out any paint stink before I trust it to boil sap. Ah well electric stove and cast iron indoor woodstove used to carrying the load. If this, batch #5 is my last, will be happy cause hardly any nitre and at about 127l (so far) should make a true gallon+ syrup. If trees keep going and give me a batch #6 will be ecstatic as I love the late stuff :-)

Walked in this morning with two full tanks to my surprise. One with single passed RO and over flowing for bit by the looks of the floor, the other 95% of fresh sap from the morning. No way the RO could keep up today so we pulled the plug this evening. What a shame to end the season on the largest flow of the year! We pulled up 2.25 GPT in just 20 hrs. God knows what would have been if I had the storage. Either way only have enough wood to burn the balance off tomorrow and do a clean up. Looks like we are going to end around 1.25-1.5 LPT for a total syrup count. Im out of kegs, bottles and using buckets.

On a bad note wow really hard to boil off, really heavy niter. The colour lightened up so much in the flue pan I thought I was just boiling water. Instead of draws coming every 5-10 minutes, it was like every 30 and large draws at a time.. Not something we have had to deal with. However we have run out of cedar slats that we use, and have had to dig into the 4 cords of well seasoned hard wood. That I'm sure is giving us all the trouble. The sap dropped to 1.5% the RO is really slow, sap is warm 54 deg, clear coming in, but cloudy and a little smelly after running thru the RO. Stopped to rinse the RO several times. Didn't help much. Sure it's the end too many issues.... Oddly the syrup has a really buttery flavour 4 of us tasted it and all said it tasted different but good..

On a side note, and good reason for a pump. Last Friday march 31 we were at 9300 gallons for the season. AS of today when we pulled the plug 16993 gallons. Pumps ran all week, day and night except this past friday night. If you need a reason to buy a pump I can assure you it saved a lot of guys seasons this year. Everyone on buckets around me have not boiled much at all this year.

What a great weekend. Collected around 550 gallons of sap from yesterday and today. Got through 400 gallons today. Will get that last 150 gallons processed tomorrow afternoon when I get home from work. Syrup was excellent quality. When I went back this evening to shut down the vacuum pump for the last time the peepers were going wild marking the end to a great season for me. Will post my totals later this week.

I 2nd the advantage of a vacuum pump. My next door neighbour collect 60 gallons from gravity pipeline on 200 taps in the same period of time I collected 550 gallons from 265 taps.

Glad to hear that you Eastern Ontarians had a great weekend. I did my final boil today. Because of the blizzard on Thursday I was able to collect 90L over the weekend. It made 2L of light, but deeply flavoured, syrup. The sugars and some of the box elders are still dripping, but I've called it a season. With temps heading into the 20s this week, it's just too warm.

My numbers are less than half that of last year. I'm so happy that I grabbed the drill in February and rolled the dice. Looks like it was the right call for me.

Best collection of the season was today. 70 gallons from 80 taps. So far this year I have 14 liters finished. Sure is a slow year compared to 2016. Still lots of snow so I'm hopeful that we get a couple more good runs.

Surprisingly, the sap ran well on Friday even though it was barely above freezing. With 3500 gallons in front of us the RO went on early Saturday morning. And then... our good friend Murphy showed up and we blew a tractor tire on the 2nd load of the day! Several hours later we'd borrowed a smaller tractor from my uncle and we were back running on partial loads. One hill was so muddy from Thursday's rain that we had to set up a temporary pump line to the top of the hill or we wouldn't be able gather that sap. This went so well that a permanent pump line will be installed for that tank next year!

We pushed through just over 5000 gallons on Saturday and then shut down while I continued to gather until midnight to get the RO feed tank filled for the morning. Yesterday the sap ran some but was really slowing down as the temperature climbed. Total sap for the say was just over 4000 gallons.

Both days the first runs of syrup coming off were well into dark-robust (verging on very dark) and lightened to about the line between amber-rich and dark. Flavour was excellent with no off taste.

We left the pumps on overnight hoping to get one more boil today. There wasn't enough sap to fire up this morning but hopefully we can get one more boil tonight or tomorrow morning to finish off the season.

Yesterday I managed to get our H2O Innovations Smartrek monitoring system set up - better late than never! For now, we bought the tablet and gateway for the camp plus 2 vacuum sensors as a trial. Installation was quite easy and once I figured out (with help from John from H2O) where I messed up on setup of the gateway I was getting vacuum readings in the camp. I found a couple leaks in one section of woods and the 2" Hg increase was noticeable several thousand feet away on the graphs that each sensor keeps on the tablet. We will definitely be adding more nodes for next year.

Fairly good sap run this weekend but sure sucked balls today, more moths and flies than sap in 60% of the pails....ugh! Still got a couple gallons. Buds on sugars still shut but heard peepers this evening. So a little p.o.'d but ah well what can you do. At least sugar shack works well, so homemade it's hilarious. Will try to remember to get and post pics tomorrow, dead in the water at present. Night night.

ETA: Walked the trees this am and basically no sap, just drowned moths, poor stupid things. And one spile, the east spile on #1, looked like it had just gone and dumped straight nitre into the pail! I was going to try and leave spiles up til weekend but may pull tonight and just make one huge batch of #5 and call it a year. What a season.