Michigan April 'Late Season' Sap Reports

[Tweegs]

Had more sap than I thought.

Boiled 310 gallons today, drew off about 6.5…getting really dark, but I don’t think I’ve hit B yet.

The ice R.O. put my buckets at 2.5%, was afraid to test the woods tank, guessing about 1.5% based on the amount of syrup I got.

Sap ran good today, supposed to freeze again tonight…maybe I’ll try to get 1 more boil in. I’ll collect tomorrow, but if the sap is under 1.5% I’m not going to waste my time (or wood).

[DonMcJr]

I'm finishing batch #7 on the stove right now then one last boil Friday til I run out of wood then it's pull taps and clean pans and get ready for Surgery Monday...BLAH!

[Roy Coates]

got another 45 gallons of clear sap today, buds are swelling, hoping for 2 more days based on overnight temps.

[firetech]

Boiled 850 gals off tonite. 325 gals dropped off from my sap suppier, I'll make another trip thru every thing tomorrow. This is coming to the end. The syrup is boiling differntly, smell differnt, I'll call it B but still tatses ok

[Tweegs]

Sure was boiling different. Lots of thick, foamy type bubbles in the last channel that defoamer wouldn’t touch. Was easily bubbling up a half inch higher than the prior channel, which was foaming higher than the channel prior to it. Almost like the syrup was flowing backwards, scared the beejeebers out of me, adjusted the float to put another ¼” in the pans.

Lots of sugar sand, plugged 2 of the felt cone filters and almost 2 dozen paper filters just trying to get 6.5 gallons through and still didn’t get it all. We’re going to reheat and filter that entire batch again tonight.

[DonMcJr]

Mine's been foaming a lot and I skim it off. Also a lot of niter on my filters...pain in the butt to clean filters...

[Lethalbowman]

Sap is still running clear here in the Traverse City area. It had shut down for a few days but started up again for me yesterday. Hope to do 1 last boil this weekend. The weather is warming up and our snow pack is finally melting. Almost time to start a 3-season room addition on the back of our home so it's a good thing the sap run is coming to an end.

[David in MI]

We hit a new record for a single collection last night with 817 gallons!! (old record was last week at 680 gallons). Sap was at 1.7 brix.

[Pweideman]

In less than 24 hours I have collected twice will collect again soon and maybe 4 times.
Total of 188.5 gallons on 46 trees (less than 24 hours) so far and should end the day with a total of 250 gallons. I am not really set up for this but not complaining. In fact, I added 4 more trees this afternoon that almost run and don't drip. I lost 35 gallons of sap off the front of my tractor when I sunk in the mud- don't ask, it was not a happy experience.

My silvers are running from 2 to 3%. Very pleased with that.

Paul

[Roy Coates]

I got another 45 gallons today still clear. two of my 12 trees are very close to budding as I can see they have swelled in the last 24 hours. watching, waiting and boiling like a mad man