Sistersville tapping

[Edward Howell]

I am pulling tubing as we speak , about 700 gallons on 175 taps but sugar only 1% We are using the leader ck valves new this year, curious how they work out ......

2/21 what a nice run , 450g on 210 taps and still coming in ........ woo hoo , same here on the dry ground thing , this rain will help still only 1.2 on the sugar , thank God for the ro ......

[220 maple]

Ed,
Hows the season so far, Jim Fergerson at Bridgeport is having a good season, I talk to him on the phone a couple times a week. He has had some decent runs and has a new RO that is making his life easy, he said he probably will tap more trees next year because of the RO. Sistersville is in Tyler County? I believe the TWOLYNNS camp is in Tyler County also they are located at Shirley West Virginia. They probabaly are having a simlair season as yours, I don't think they have a Vacuum system, which can make a big difference.

Mark 220 Maple

[Edward Howell]

Hi Mark ,

We have a love ,hate year going here. The new tubing system is producing 1 to 2 gallons per run , but the sugar is 1% and we are stuck at grade dark . Many of our customers from ohio are calling but we made no medium. In our defense we did not start tapping until 2/14 and by that time we already had some 60 degree days which always drives the grade darker. This is my first year in WV and we are learnind alot about this area in regards to syrup.Next year I plan to be tapped by feb 1 to make some lighter syrup. We rarely saw 60 degree in northern ohio , the temp swings are amazing , it is common to see 25 at night and 55 the next day. It is a challenge to keep the sap cool with 55 , 60 air temp. Also i am going to install the old style piston pump to move the sap from the pump house to the 1000 holding tank in the sugarhouse . The ceterfug pump thrash the sap and heat it much more than the old style pistion pump. The vacuum is working good and we just had a 2 gallon run per tap 3/7 with 3 week old taps so it appears the leader ck valves are working .

Enough about me how are u doing ?

[Edward Howell]

Ps , yes we are in Tyler county about 3 mile from the ohio river . Sistersville is 10 mintues from the farm .

[220 maple]

Edward,
I have had a semi-good season, I've made over 200 gallons and hope to make a little more the warm days played havoc with the tapholes that was tapped early I still have some holes with three weeks or less time on them and have high hopes of getting some more water to boil? We finally have the moisture and have been getting some good freezes. I had one day when the temp hit 70, I thought the check valves could handle that but apparently not?
We broke some camp records this year, we got over 1000 gallon of water one day and 8000 gallons in the month of Feb. Both new records since we started keeping detailed records. Usually the first two weeks of March had been very good to us in the past, not working out this year. I'll keep you posted if things change.

Mark 220 Maple

[Edward Howell]

Hi Mark ,

If I may ask , How many taps are running this year ,and what is the elevation of your woods ? Again 3/12 we went from 27 deg last nite to 63 deg @4pm .

The sap is clouding up ask we speak and the run did not start until 10:00 am ... Six hours old and the sap is already turning , at this rate we will have to add a meat locker to cool the sap. I ck the records and we have had 16 days out of the last 32 with 50 deg or better with two @ 68 deg .

[Maple Hobo]

Tapped begining of Feb?... Taps still running good after what, about 5-6 weeks now?

No check valves in the taps, just regular tree savers and a few of the stubys with the non-check addapters.

Keep your bacteria down.

Clean your equipment if it gets buildup in it. Just rinsed things out a second time this season.

Clean your taps before they go in the trees...

[220 maple]

Aaron,
How many bottles of Bourbon does it take to do 3000 taps? Do you put it in the holes as well as dipping the tap? I have never tried that before but I would say your taps are proof that it works!

Mark 220 Maple

[220 maple]

Edward,
I believe you asked how many taps I had this year? I had 1060 on Vacuum an 789 on gravity. The vacuum system out ran the gravity system 4 to 1. The sad part of that story is the fact the trees on vacuum are nowhere near the quality of the trees on gravity. I basically missed 5500 gallons or more of water because I don't have vacuum on them. I always said I couldn't afford to put vacuum on them but I believe the math would show that I couldn't afford not to. The sugar content on the gravity system was 2.4, vacuum 2.1, so I could have made at least 120 gallons more syrup with vacuum.

Mark 220 Maple

[Edward Howell]

I have good news and bad news .....

Tapped 2/11 last boil 3/12

Off 250 taps , 4051 gallons of sap came with 15 inches vacuum.

This is excellent I think considering the veins died on the delaval 75 and we had a 10 days out of 33 days with no vacuum.

Also the first 2 runs were only 125 tapps. All tapps were in by 2/21

The runs on the gravity days were 1/2 the vacuum days.

I was careful to stay 75 feet max from the main lines and 5 tapps max per lateral on the new setup here ,also we have a lot of drop on the laterals 100% grade or a 45 degree incline. Fun for tapping and washing ....


Leader ck valve results
The following were the largest runs

2/21 543 gallons 10 day old taps 2.172 gallon per tap
2/25 509 gallons 14 day old tapps 2.036 gallon per tap
3/12 426 gallons 28 day old tapps 1.704 gallon per tap

Considering 17 of the 30 days were 50 degree or better with 6 of the 17 were 60 to 68 degree the ck valves worked very well in my opinion .

Now the bad news .... 31.375 gallons of dark or b syrup , thats right

4051 / 31.375 = 129.11 to 1 boil rate = .666 percent sugar

I use to cuss the woods in chardon Oh because it ran 75 to 1 .......

We put out 8 test tapps in 2010 and the sugar was 1.5% to 2% in this woods in Sistersville . No clue what is going on with the sugar here .

There u have it Gentlemen , next year I plan to 750 tapps