Screen Shot 2019-03-14 at 12.20.42 PM.jpg
Current snow coverage in northern Maple Country. CNY 10-day forecast isn't looking after 3/24/19: no freezes.
Screen Shot 2019-03-14 at 12.20.42 PM.jpg
Current snow coverage in northern Maple Country. CNY 10-day forecast isn't looking after 3/24/19: no freezes.
Last edited by Daveg; 03-14-2019 at 12:37 PM.
I hope my forecast is more accurate than your's. AccuWeather shows only 2, 2 day times after Mar 23 when there is no overnight freeze thru April 6. That's for here in Oneida, NY, and I'm south of you. about an hour and I'm not at a very high elevation (465' above sea level).
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
I’m going till April 18th at the earliest. Lots of sap today. On my third barrel of the night. A cat nap then out for MORE SAP!
Hobbyist here, in Hancock NY, been at it 10 years or so, usually with about 30 taps and buckets. But I'm only in the area weekends, so limited in when I can tap and collect. So anyway -
I was last up 2 weeks ago. I tapped 13 trees even though everything was frozen. The first week after (3/2-3/9) was a full freeze, as far as I could see from the weather app (wasn't up myself) it stayed frozen all week. But this past week (3/9-3/16) it seemed like things warmed up with some nice freeze / thaw cycles, so I would have expected to return to overflowing buckets. And when I checked just now it had run some, but not NEARLY as much as I'd have expected.
Not sure what happened. Did I get the weather wrong? Did the deep freeze last up here longer than it looked from the weather, or was the freeze / thaw cycle not right? Is it possible the taps aren't functioning great because I tapped when frozen, and it stayed frozen for the first week after? I can't recall specifically, but I feel like I tapped frozen before and never had this problem. Any thoughts?
Thanks.
My guess is that your weather was like mine with no freezes from Wednesday till now, Saturday night. Buckets don't do too well in that situation. Tubing with good vacuum, that's the ticket. I pulled in 10,000 gals this last run. A day to refuel and clean tanks, evaporator, etc....then more sap Monday!
I'm in Deposit and saw the same thing. We had a good run From Monday thru Wednesday and then it got to warm with no freeze and didn't run all weekend. This week looks pretty good for a few runs.
100-110 buckets
Leader 7.5" 3 Bank filter press (2023)
RO Bucket RB10 (2017) upgraded to RB20 (2020)
Homemade oil tank arch
Homemade stainless pans
12x16 Sugar Shack (new 2020)
Big sap in the Catskills Wednesday to late last night. Over 12,000 gals of sap! Trees I tapped in January with the zap bac spouts are producing as well as trees I tapped in March. Should overtake last year to date total this week. Boil long and prosper.
Van, our trees did very well too, both Wednesday and Thursday. On both days we started by tapping more trees, but then had to process the sap. Our original plan was to save it until today for Maple Weekend, but when our tank were full even though we had run them thru the RO just to take them from 2% to 3.1% (didn't dare go higher and then store it until today), we then realized we had to boil Friday. We also put another 300 gal tank into service, plus we had 2 IBC totes full too.
We had the evaporator performing the best ever I think on Thursday after lunch.
It looks like Sunday will be another real good sap day again, it will go up to 34 before 9:00 a.m and will be up to 48 in the afternoon, After a day with freezing temps and 2 overnights that should be a winner. I can see a first for maple weekend, enough sap to run the evaporator and the RO up to max. Only too often we need to either boil slow or even boil water for maple weekends, not this time.
Also, the early forecast looks to be good for next weekend too.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
Amazing week even for us small timers. I've never made this much syrup in this short amount of time. RO and evaporator are great combo. There's an outside chance I'll match last year. Hard freeze tonight.
Gary / Zena Crossroads / 42˚ 00' 24" N / Hobby in Early '70s, Addiction since 2014
175+ taps on 3/16 (60 of which are on two Lunchbox Vac/Releasers)
12x34 timber framed sap house w/attached 10x34 shed roof for storage
2 x 6 Smoky Lake hybrid pan on Corsair arch with AUF/steam hood/preheater/concentric exhaust
7.0 KW Sun Power PV System, Smokey Lake Filter Press/Steam Bottler, Modified NGMP RO - 2 4x40 posts 200 gph
Full tanks of sap are equaling full barrels of syrup. Not much sleep and lots of coffee.