Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

I have 6000 tapped with 3000 to go. I did get 4000 gallons of sap the other day. May get sap tomorrow and Wednesday but then freezing up for weeks. All leaks are fixed and running 27 inches of vacuum. Good luck everyone.

Spud

[spud]

Sap has been running 500 GPH for the last 4 hours or so. I expect it to continue all night and tomorrow. I still have 2500 trees to tap. I have been tapping 500-600 a day and I'm sick of it already. Haha

Spud

[PARKER MAPLE]

Sap has been running 500 GPH for the last 4 hours or so. I expect it to continue all night and tomorrow. I still have 2500 trees to tap. I have been tapping 500-600 a day and I'm sick of it already. Haha

Spud

Hey spud, glad to see your hanging with it. Sorry to hear about your father.
Did you tap yesterday? I did in a monsoon rain storm, everything was soaked. I put in apprx 300 and fixed one of my sap ladders (again, I hate ladders). Sap was running very well yesterday and at 8pm last night. I suspect it ran all night and I will have my first boil of the season today. I think the sap will continue today, probably not as hard as yesterday. Then slowly shut down toward evening for this little cold spell we have coming.

[DoubleBrookMaple]

Sap well ran all night, but slowed to a trickle this AM when temps dropped from near 50 down into the 30's, even with 24" vacuum. It is not going to warm up much, so I think the trees are tired. I will concentrate and boil the 500 gal on hand and call it a wrap for some weeks I guess. Nice to be so ready when it does open up.

[spud]

Things went well today and I worked on fixing a few leaks. Running 27 inches everywhere in the woods. I got 11,000 gallons of sap in the last few days. I hope to be done tapping all my trees by next week. Looks like no more sap for a few weeks.

Spud

[WestfordSugarworks]

We started tapping our big bush January 12th and would've finished today if hadn't broke 2 bits in a crappy red maple. Anyway, roughly 9,000 in and got everything pretty tight, pulling 27 inches yesterday and today just like Spud. Its a brand new setup and even with a few valves and fusion saddles that are leaking right now, our Atlas Copco pump is pulling real good vacuum. Really happy with it so far. The guy buying our sap has come at least 5 or 6 times to fill up, I think we've collected close to 20,000 gallons so far. He's boiling our sap tonight, may go check it out. Didn't think much of this warm up, but once sap started flowing I went crazy! Working as hard as possible to get taps in and vacuum up. Been really fun. Gonna finish tapping our big bush tomorrow night or Saturday morning and then start on our smaller sugarbush next week, which is where our sugarhouse is. Might actually get a bit of downtime in the next few weeks. Was worried about getting everything tapped but a lot of family and friends came out to help, which i'm grateful for. If anyone is curious to see the sap flow out of our 2 inch wet line last night, see the most recent video on our Facebook page. The link is below.

[PATheron]

Good luck Spud. I think you guys will have a good season if ready early. If its like here not much frost in ground. Even if it warms up early if your ready for early stuff you wont have to wait for frost to come out of ground and it should go right to running. At my house last two years it was hard because waited for ever for ground to loosen up. Theron

[spud]

Good luck Spud. I think you guys will have a good season if ready early. If its like here not much frost in ground. Even if it warms up early if your ready for early stuff you wont have to wait for frost to come out of ground and it should go right to running. At my house last two years it was hard because waited for ever for ground to loosen up. Theron

Thanks PATheron. I can tell my trees really want to run. All it took was a bit of sun to shine and even the monster maples were running. I think it's setting up to be a great year. I should be all tapped in very soon. The 10 day forecast does not look good but I still want to be ready because It could start late in the month instead of mid March.

Westford Sugar Works- I am glad to see your system is tight and you are pulling 27 inches. Lets hope a wind storm does not wreck our high vac the day before a big sap run. I plan to check out your video today. It's always exciting to see money pour into the tank. Good luck to all.

Spud

[DoubleBrookMaple]

It turned on the vacuum today and was encouraged with little run of 2.2%, after only 1.5% previous. I got 50 gallons and boiled behind my 4.5 RO sweet still in the pan, and pushed out 2.5 gallons of amber. My pan should keep good a while I hope till the next run.

[GeneralStark]

Started tapping on Sunday and the trees were dripping a little bit. Just enough to start rinsing the lines ... Going to keep chipping away at it the next couple weeks while it is frozen up. I'm replacing some long 5/16" laterals with 3/16" in a few areas and am interested to see how that works out. Also adding some saddles to reduce the # of taps on some laterals in some flatter areas.

My goal is to be all ready in the woods by the time the next thaw comes which looks like end of next week.