Tapping the 2012 season

[ClarkFarmMapleSyrup]

Sad to say that it didnt run alot yesterday. I only had alittle above 15 gallons of sap so i boiled and it got down low, in the pan when i got back even with no fire, water was added to thin it up. I went to draw off the rest and the stupid filter cone went sideways and dumped about a pint of close to almost syrup. I brought the rest in the house and will finish it today, sugar tested at 1.3-1.4 in the sap. I hope to get more taps in for this week and the coming week after is going to look godd i suppose.
Had a rough night in the sap house, but ill still have syrup.

[Dennis H.]

Gary, I have the pump running at 22" of vac anymore and I start getting problems with the Bender.
I love the new lapierre released I got so I can see another one in my future.

Paddymtn. you getting 2.5%, that is awesome. The best my trees can do is 1.5%!

Well the temps here got down to 27 last night so i am hoping this will get the trees flowing again. Right now I have about 25 gals of sap waiting, heck the evap won't even be warm yet when I finish that.

[calsum2]

Hay guys...never done this before and will be setting 10-20 taps as a rookie.....wish me luck. I taped 1 tree a few days ago and as of yet my test tap has been bone dry....so are my pancakes....lol I have three Red Maples on my property the rest of the trees I will be tapping are going to be at my in laws and a couple of taps set along random "stealth roads side locations".

Last night it got just below freezing and yet to see a drop.......getting kind of anxious and worried that my test tree is a dud....but I am holding out hope that I just need to be patient......looks like the coming week will be 40s day time and 30 to 33 at night......is this cold enough to get the sap to flow.

Any other advise would be appreciated.....I have a propane turkey fryer with a 12x24 stainless pan for boiling......hope you don't mind me hopping on your thread.

Thanks, Mike

[Gary R]

Calsum2, freeze at night, thaw during day is what you want. West wind is best. Red maples can be finicky. Some of them won't run on buckets. I have a few that won't put out a gal. all season. Hopefully that's not your case.

Clark Farm, that's a bummer. We all hate losing the precious syrup.

Cleaned all my tanks and the syrup pan this morning. Almost no niter in the pan. It is all coming out with the syrup as I draw. I also changed my front hood stack. Hopefully I won't have a room full of steam any more. We're going to filter and pack the 8 gal. or so this afternoon.

[calsum2]

Thats a real bummer about the REDS if they won't run on buckets.....tapped my second red today.....and will try to scout out a few maples on the road side today....

Unfortunately I won't have the advantage of seeing the trees with the leaves on to determine the type as I would like to stay away from Reds based on the info you provided.....if this doesn't work out this year I will spend a little time this summer scopping out a few good donors.....results are always dependent on the prep I guess.

[Dennis H.]

Had some free time today so I went up to the woods that I will be tubing this summer for next season. There is actually 2 different stands of trees.
The 1st one is at my dads cabin, found that the trees up there are just staring to run. I did a few small test holes. Found one tree running at 2.5%.

The other stand is half way to the cabin at a friends place and found those trees are running. So if I plan things right I could start with my trees here at the house and about a week later tap the trees at my friends place then another week later tap the trees at my dads cabin. Could end up with a long season.

Anyway back at home here, went to collect the bucket trees and found nothing! The trees on vac ran good though. I think between the sun not coming out and the high pressure system coming into the region the buckets just didn't run.

I will be boiling in the morning now that I have about 60-70 gals of sap from the vac trees.

[waysidemaple]

Trees didn't run as good today collected 525 gallons from 600 taps. Got another 240 in on gravity that will be vacuum once I get my releaser problem figured out then ill tap in the 120 tap ladder bush that will be on that releaser. Up to 10 gallons of syrup with awesome taste but really light color. Got cold quick today, already below freezing here. Good luck to everyone!
Scott

[ClarkFarmMapleSyrup]

I finished my syrup, got 1 1/2 pt. and 2oz extra for my little syrup jar in the fridge. I have got alittle over 1/2 gal this season so far. I hope to get more boiling this week as i tapped 15 more today and i believe im getting alitle natural vac. good luck to all pa. producers who have tapped early like me!
J.C.

[KV Sappers]

Collected about 2 gal. of sap this morning. Trees are just starting to run again. Boiled that off and finished what we had on hand. Got another 44 oz. of syrup. Now have 1 gal. 44oz. of syrup. Trees seemed to be running good tonight. This week is looking good. Hopefully by this time next week I'll have another gallon of syrup.

[Paddymountain]

collected another 45 gallon today, put about 40 more taps in, got my vac system up and running, boiled about 200 gallons of sap tonight. we didn't get to
draw off any syrup ;but was really close to doing so. still have to go down and drain the flue pan, just need to get off my feet for little bit.
hope everyone is getting started up with this early season