Tapping the 2012 season

[Dennis H.]

Turtlecreek I showed the inspector my preheater with about 60' of 1/2" copper pipe under the hood and all he said was wow.

Sure looks like everyone is finally making some syrup.
What grade is everyone getting? Mine is leaning toward the Medium to Dark. Haven't made a drop of light.

[Turtlecreek]

I'm making all light so far with a really good taste. That seems to be the way it usually goes for me I make a bunch of light from the get go then it gets darker as the season goes, usually I don't even make any dark amber I guess I'm lucky that way, although I do have people ask for darker syrup.

Dennis I think it was you that was commenting about the surar sand this year. I too have noticed a bunch of it when I draw off I run it through a prefilter just to get some of the undesirables out of it, and I have been clogging that filter up pretty quick. After I filter at the evaporator I'll finish it then when I put it into the canner I run it through 4-6 prefilters and a orlin filter, even they are getting clogged up. It does seem to be worse this year, and I have been noticing more calcium typ deposits in the section of the pan from the steam this year.

[Maplewalnut]

Ours has been all light. UGGGhhh. Even my son asked when we were going to get some syrup with taste! Low sugar% and lots of sand

[molineutu]

Looks like a little cool down coming . this will give me a chance to get caught up.

[mapleack]

Drew off a couple gallons of light amber last night, some of the best syrup I've ever made. Very little sugar sand.

[theschwarz1]

I'll be boiling just a little tonight maybe...tapped a few trees and it was running like crazy yesterday.

[Turtlecreek]

Just got in from collecting, some of the trees were really running. Looks like I'll be shut down for a little with this cooler weather comming in, but that's ok it will allow me to do a couple of small modifications boil the rest of my sap, and clean out the pan for the main event. I have also not tapped all of my trees yet, I have almost 20 more to tap, my idea is to hold off just a bit until my usual time to tap then tap the rest. It's kinda a two prong attack if you will, that way if my earlier taps dry up I'll still be in business!

[Dennis H.]

I'm with you turtlecreek, I too am planning what I can do with my buckets once these trees stop. I am looking at placing some at my dads cabin and go collect every other day. His trees are on the north side of the ridge so they will be late staters to begin with. That may extend my season by maybe 2 weeks.

We'll see how tired I am when the time comes.

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

We have made over 20 gallons of syrup so far and are sitting on almost 400 gallons of water. hopefully it will still be good to boil tomorow evening. The tempurature of it was 40 degrees. doubt it will run tomorrow. Time to catch up!

[Paddymountain]

Gathered around 100 gallons of sap today, quite a bit slower than it's been ,just got done boiling pulled off about 2 gallon . tomorrow nite is filter/bottling nite. looks like
a respite for a day or two. everyone step back and catch your breath,we're just gettin into it!!!!
so far boiled a little over 600 gallon.