Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[ryebrye]

The rate of sap flow is still increasing here. I think the tapholes may be drying up a bit, but the rate of sap increasing after the temperature drops and the sun goes down seems like a lot of what was holding it back was the trees being frozen solid and not yielding much sap. (maybe the frozen parts of the trees would act like ice packs inside the trees keeping the rest of the sap cooler - so it seems like it could take a while to thaw out from those couple of days)

The sap is running about twice as fast now (8pm) as it was today around 3pm - I dumped all that was in my tank this evening and washed my tank out to clean out the cloudy and scaley stuff that came in. The sap is clearer now.

After the kids are in bed, I'll test boil some of it in a sauce pan to see if it's worth it to keep going.

Sugar content was lower for me - I hadn't been below 2% at all this season and this stuff was 1.7 - 1.8% - a bit of that is rain water diluting it but not much of it.

If this is the end, it's been an interesting season to say the least. Higher elevations should have some more legs left in their season I would imagine.

[woodchuck]

OK, so scratch my last post. The idea was to run the pumps all night and finally finishing a good book. Beer opened, butt in recliner, book in hand...................and the wind starts to howl like a train. I check my vacuum and my usual 24” is running 15”. Headlamp and rain gear on I start closing valves until I find the culprit. Maple top took out a lateral line. I had to shorten the run by one tree but now back to my book and slightly warm beer.

[tcross]

sap ran decent over night. boiled the 125 galls I got yesterday last night and made some delicious DR. I thought about untapping my red maples cuz the buds are very very swollen and some popped open... however my last boil will be tonight, so I decided to leave them and hope for the best! the best happened... sugar content was right 1.9% and crystal clear. got another 75 gallons between 9 p.m and 530 a.m. after tonight i'll be done, but the sugar maples aren't even budded yet... anyone in my area has another solid week to go with the forecast! it's been a record year for me! good luck to everyone still going!

[spud]

Sap ran a bit all night and I have now gotten 6500 gallons since yesterday. It's snowing hard right now but sap is still coming in. Looks like it will continue to trickle in at 300 GPH till about 7-8 tonight. Sap is pretty clear and I can see the bottom of my 4250 tank when its full.

Spud

[rhwells2003]

I haven't heard much from other sap suckers in my area, but I know my trees don't show any signs of letting up yet. My reds are swollen, but my sugars don't show any signs of buds. I dumped the little bit of sap I got Wednesday afternoon to get rid of that cloudy sour stuff, but in the last 24 hours I got 1.2 gallons/tap, and eventhough it was 34 and snowing at the house this morning it was still running good and clear. The first bit yesterday was cloudy, but its cleared right up since. The guy that buys my sap is boiling tonight so we'll see what he makes. If its still good syrup, and with the extended forecast I don't see why we can't make it to the end of next week. I don't know my exact sap total this year, but I think I'm plus/minus 20gal/tap.

[ryebrye]

I dumped and washed my tank last night around 6pm. In 14 hours I've got 0.8 gallons per tap of clear sap sitting in it. I can see the bottom - which I couldn't before with the cloudy sap.

I did a test boil last night and there wasn't any bad smell in the steam. I got it all the way down to syrup (and probably past syrup, since it was such a small amount on my kitchen stove) - the 1 teaspoon or so of syrup I ended up making didn't have any off flavor.

It's running about 10 minutes between releases right now and overnight it was doing about 15 minutes - so the rate has picked up this morning along with the snow. By the end of the day I should have a lot of sap - well over a gallon per tap - probably in the 1.5 gallon-per-tap range.

This makes me think that my trees were frozen and my tapholes haven't dried up.

[DrTimPerkins]

We tossed out all the crappy sap (mostly ice) in the tanks yesterday morning, and pressure washed everything, then let the incoming sap that had soured in the lines go down the drain for a while until it cleared up. Things started very slowly because the trees had been in the deep freeze for several days and were solidly frozen to the core, so it took a good long time for them to come up to temperature where they would run. It started to pick up by late-afternoon to early-evening, and then ran all night. This morning Brian and Wade test boiled sap from each of our two woods to see if it was buddy....fortunately it wasn't, so we're back in the syrup-making business. We ended up with about 3,700 gal of clear sap off of our 4,300 taps. Sugar has dropped off some to about 1.5-1.6 Brix.

Brian had boiled out the rig (total 39 gal syrup) to avoid things going ropey, so he had to sweeten the pans again today. Ended up with about 20 gal of DR syrup (plus what is now in the pans again). Flavor is still good. Total for the season in the drum is now up to 2,314 gal, or 0.54 gal/tap.

Looks like we've got another weekend off (too cold to run), but looking like a great week coming up.

[spud]

Sap is still running at 6:00 tonight. Since yesterday afternoon I got 9000 gallons so far. Never ran hard today but it ran some. My upper woods is not running great. I think my trees are still to cold. Monday they should warm up and give me a bunch. Sap testing at just 1.3% now. Next week should be fun.

Spud

[WestfordSugarworks]

A few more sugarmakers in my area began making nasty stuff and called it quits yesterday and the day before. We are still making good syrup. Haven't dumped sap all season. Fixed our 3'' dry 2'' wet lines this morning using an electrofusion coupling at our big sugarbush. In this warmth they had almost completely collapsed. We should have fixed it sooner. Hoping for another week of good syrup.

[PARKER MAPLE]

We had our last boil today. 20min from the end things started to have an off smell and slightly off taste. So we called it a season. A very good one at that for us as well. Drained and rinsed the pans now soaking them. RO was washed and rinsed, might do the acid wash in morning or just buy new membranes next year not sure yet. Pulling taps tomorrow and washing as we go. Back pack sprayers and wash solution will get us started. Time to go on vacation😬