Tapping the 2012 season

[Paddymountain]

Turtlecreek : I have a two pronged attack also

1 GATHER SAP!

2 Make Syrup!

[Dennis H.]

Trees really slowed down today even though it was in the low 40's.

I managed to boil for a few hours this afternoon. I will finish up that tomorrow well I guess that will be today now that I see what time it is!

It looks like we will be getting a short cold snap down here. That should help the trees I guess.

[Gary R]

I've boiled 900 gal. of sap so far. Only about 7.5 gal. of syrup. At this rate I'll probably make about 12 gal. for every cord of wood I might have to rent 5 cord a day Ray! I will definitely have to add a second steam stack. Still tough to see and any paper is soaked.

[waysidemaple]

Hit the 40 gallon mark today. Got through all my sap. To cold today but the next two days look good. Collected 2600 gallons of sap of 838 taps so far. Pulling medium Amber so far. Back to school tonight. Boil On Friday.

Scott

[PATheron]

Update from Pierce and Sons Maple- Started tapping January 10th. All tapped by the first of Feb. Most of it done with a flashlight. Roughly 4400 taps. Three releasers, one pump. Had trouble with pretty much everything initially but all working good now. Been getting lots of sap for the time of year. Pretty much if it gets above freezing usually get 2500 gallons or so so two days to equal one good run day. Sap weak like normal so thats good. Keep the ro's lubricated. Been working steadily on vac fixing probly 50 to 100 squirrell chews becouse of my kids have been dropping the ball with the shotguns. Something about school work and some other nonsense. Anyway everything going great. Got a new 10 press, best investment ever. Pressing is real easy now. Made up my mind not checking sugar content of sap, gallons of sap or anything else this year just concentrating on getting as much sap as possable and getting it into barrells. Everything going great, confident of a banner season. Over 400 gallons so far in the barrell and a barrell in the evaperator and its only feb 7th. Gonna go for big gallon count. Made up my mind at the end this year single passing to the evap at 8 percent and paying the oil bill. Gonna try to make the worst syrup at the end Bruce Bascom has ever had the misfortune to taste with his turkey baster if Parker hasnt already. Theee( gonna get the vac so high gonna suck the leaves back in in April)roon

[KV Sappers]

Boiled down 16 gal yesterday, ended up with 32oz. of syrup. Two weeks tapped and so far have 1 1/2gal. Collected 9 gals. of sap yesterday. Sap tested at 1.3. Did not collect today, trees running slow. Next 2 days looking good, then cold snap for three days. Next week looking good. Have about 1 inch of snow on the ground.

[Dennis H.]

KVSappers that is great to hear that you are up to 1 1/2 gals looks like a good year for us.
I had a guy stop by the other day to tell me that he makes syrup off his dads trees out by the Boy Scout Camp. This will be his 3rd year I believe and he wasn't going to tap until soemtime in Feb but when he heard and saw what I had made so far he went out last weekend and tapped his trees and made 1 gal of syrup the 1st boil! He is using an outside fireplace with steam pans.

Theron, holy cow man you made 400 gals so far and this is early. This looking up to be a banner year.

I managed to finish the remainder of sap that I had in the tank and now have somewhere between 1 1/2 - 2 gals of syrup waiting to be finished.
It is looking like what sap I get tomorrow and maybe Fri will be it for a few days. Todays temps never got much above freezing so I didn't even turn on the vac.

[KV Sappers]

Hey Dennis, the propane guy was here yesterday while I was boiling down and he said he was on this one road and there were all these trees that had buckets hanging from them. I said to him, was it Greenbriar Rd and he said yes. He now knows what all those buckets are for.

[Paddymountain]

Just got done filtering and bottling all the syrup we made so far; looks like 9 gallon total.
boiled just a tad over 600 gallon sap.
will have to wait til tomorrow to grade, need some good outside light to look at my grade set.

[happy thoughts]

Sounds like everyone's doing great and glad to hear it

Now with just 2 taps in a single tree, a report from the little people .

Tapped on saturday, had 4 days of good runs then slowed down yesterday. Cold weather for this weekend so I don't expect much to run again until Monday but then looks good until the next weekend. So far collected about 9 gallons. I'm using my crockpots to reduce volume overnight like I started to do last year. That's working pretty well though I don't expect any light syrup because of the long cooking. It sure beats standing over a propane stove then having it scorch when you turn your back.

Because my production is so small and my livelihood doesn't depend on it, I'm going to treat this season as an experiment and wait to tap other trees later in the month as I normally would. I'd like to see how volumes compare between early and late tapping. By then I should have a block arch set up.

Keep up the good work guys and keep that syrup coming