It's March 18th and this is our 10th day in a row boiling -- last year our very first boil was March 19th. Everything froze hard tonight and it looks like it could start up Sunday afternoon. Hope to get the tanks and everything cleaned up tomorrow to be ready to start again.
3,100 taps
60 cfm flood
HC2
5 by 14 oil
Brian
Other than 2 hedgerows with 70 taps on 3/16" tubing, which have been great, our sap yield has been really low. It shows the advantage of vacuum on marginal days. Lesson learned is that more trees will be on 3/16" next year. Test has averaged 2.8%. We've made 40 gallons of syrup so far, 30 of which is dark. Excellent flavor. We boiled the limited sap several nights this past week to make sure it did not spoil in the warm temperatures.
Ian
New sugarhouse fall '06. 3x8 drop flue by Phaneuf. Kubota L2800. 260 buckets for 2012. 504 taps for 2013. 320 buckets, 207 on 5/16" and 200 on 3/16" gravity tubing for 2014. 2017: 280 buckets, 920 on 3/16" tubing, selling sap from 560 of that. Son Gavin is in 3rd successful year of selling maple equipment as MacK Maple Supply.
Despite three warm nights in a row, I still managed to gather in 130 gal. on Friday (3/18). I made five gallons of nice amber syrup today which gives me 26 gal. for the season so far. This looks to be a good week, especially if it's sunny.
Has anyone in county made grade a light amber in the last couple weeks. I can't seem to make anything other than dark syrup. Thinking of boiling down concentrate and starting over.
We are around the 45 gallon mark and it is all dark except the first 10 gallons or so. Drained and cleaned pans and it did not make much difference. Getting very little sap on buckets but have been able to pull it with vacuum. Took in about 500 gallons of sap between Tuesday and yesterday.
12 x 16 shack with 8 x 16 addition
2 x 6 D&G raised flue with hood
Homebuilt releasers
220 taps on vac
100 plus taps on buckets
Gast 1550 on gas engine
HF vac pump on generator
There are a lot of factors at play in trying to make light colored syrup. We have had some daytime temperatures lately that were too hot, and the sap in a bucket on the sunny side of the tree is quite perishable.Then we've had a season that's been broken up by cold days, or warm nights...any delay in the process has an effect. Now that we're a couple weeks into the season, it's likely that all of our equipment is a little less than pristine. Perfect weather, perfect processing, and clean equipment are essential for light colored syrup. This week may give us the first opportunity to experience that first part.
We've had small runs for the last three days, but nothing to write home about. It turns out 36 degrees isn't really quite enough....that little piece of ice from Monday is still there even in the buckets in full sun.
Running really hard today. Only trees in the sun. Got about 65 gallons of SAP off 3o or so Taps. How do you all test for buddy SAP?
Same type of thing here, getting 2-3 gallons off single taps in a 24 hour period. I do sight and smell, if it looks weird/cloudy then I smell for sour/fruity smell.
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2015: 8 bucket taps (7 red, 1 sugar) on DIY barrel evaporator
2016: 13 taps (bucket and tube) on block arch and hotel pans
2017: SAME
2018: 25 taps on 2x3 flat pan and resurrected barrel arch
2019: 25 taps...same setup plus DIY 3x150gpd RO filter
2020: 50 taps, all buckets..."new" oil tank arch setup
2021: 100 taps (50/50 buckets/3-16 tubing) on 2x4 divided pan
2022: 150 taps (50/100 b/t) on 2x4 pan with sap warmer pan
2023: SAME
2024: 150 taps, added single-post 4x40 RO system
no test other than sight,watch for the buds to swell.
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