Search:

Good luck Dave! (And everyone else)

Put in 75 taps today by Marshall. All were dripping good. Can't believe I'm doing this so early but I'm "all in". Hoping for a late February cold snap to...

Still scratching my head on this. First half of the season every sap measurement was around 4% sugar, then toward the end it tapered down to around 2.5% Normally my trees start around 2.5% and...

taps are all pulled here in Marshall. If I had hard maples I would have left 'em to see what later this week brings, but my silvers are all flowered out. All in all a good season. Average amount...

Wierd, my experience was the opposite this year. in my neck of the state we had virtually zero rain last year from june-august, then a very little bit to kick off the fall, but not anything to break...

Hello all! Last week was an excellent week for me. I expect a good run this week too.

I've got open buds here by Marshall though, it looks like it may be time to start pulling taps this...

I see that I picked a good year to increase my tap count. Excellent year here as well. So excellent that I couldn't keep up with filtering on my primitive gravity system and had to have a filter...

Interesting.

I may have to give the acid wash a try - I was assuming that since the soap wash brought it back to benchmark for a little bit anyway that that had ruled out the possibility of...

I'm on my third year with homebuilt RO with XLE 4040 membrane.

First two years membrane worked consistently well. The benchmarks I used were:

When running sap thru @ 250PSI I would get...

Howdy everyone! Early start this year caught me off guard. But we are all systems go for first boil this weekend. Hoping things cool off a bit after this crazy warm spell coming our way. Good...

Sounds familiar! Same here :-)

The burning question I have is, where the heck in SW MN do you have enough slope to put in tubing?????

Where is there info on this process? I'm not having luck finding anything. I have terrible tastebuds so its really hard for me to tell, but i have a slight suspicion that a little off flavor is in...

What an interesting year! (as always)

In SW MN, the epic snowdrifts made the tapping the most difficult its ever been for me; and then flooding made sap collection at times impossible. But boy...

Pulled all my taps yesterday too. Haven't finished everything off yet but it does look like a strong (though not record-breaking) season for me. Sugar content was on the high side right up until...

ssb - yep, darker = more flavor

Here are a couple threads that talk about the relationship between older sap and darker syrup:...

ssb - its risky! as I say, I dont recommend it as an "intentional" strategy. But my experience (take it or leave it) has been: I usually can't quite keep up with my sap (with my new RO hopefully...

For those who are genuinely concerned with "too light" syrup, there is a tried and true way of darkening it - let the sap sit and spoil a tad before you boil it. I'm not actually recommending this...

Sapsucker1 - Definitely not a Silver Maple thing!

Its pretty normal for the syrup to start light and get darker as the season progresses. The darker it is, the stronger the maple flavor. The...

Joeyhowe - do a search on mapletrader on reaming holes, lots of info & experince from others about it. General theory seems to be "don't make a habit of it, but once in a while if the circumstances...

Final update: it was indeed a bad motor. Got a new one, swapped it in today. Crankin' along just fine now!

Update: had the electrician out, he checked wiring over and it was all fine. He thinks I just got a defective motor (he could actually see smoke coming out of it). Got another one ordered so we'll...

Running only at 50psi at the moment, so definitely not overdoing it. Just doing the initial membrane flush.

I was wondering about the motor wiring - (this one can go btwn 110 and 220 too) - but I...

Fired up my new homebuilt RO for the first time tonight. Having a few problems, one of which is that I suspect that the motor (3/4HP running a procon 240GPH pump) is overheating. How hot should it...

Oh, wow, never thought of that before - that's a great idea!

I know that the center port = permeate and outside port = concentrate, but I'm having trouble understanding the correct "end" to go in and out of my 4040 membrane housing.

1) There's no "gravity"...

212maple - dont worry about those buds, you've got plenty of time yet! (side note: are you just off hwy 212? couple places I've been seeing sap sacks just off the road - might one of those be you?)...