Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[TapTapTap]

Hi Ken! I bought your lapierre junior, its working great for us! Glad to see you are having a good season!

Brett, right?
I'm glad it's working good for you and it sounds like you would have had 0 hours of sleep without it. I hope this snow doesn't f up your trees. I'm worried about mine.
Ken

[blissville maples]

Philip Young, a teacher at Essex Middle School, in Essex, VT, sent me this photo earlier today of the sugar content in the sap bucket from one of their trees. They do a unit on maple. This is straight from the tree - NOT concentrate. He's called me in the past to talk about the sweet trees there. You don't find them like this real often.

Attachment 19793

I'd have to see it, and how it was collected etc, in person to believe it.... something just doesn't seem right to me!! Most sugar content are between 2-5 and this ones at ten???? Not saying I don't believe it however......... Perhaps the old wise tale is correct pure straight syrup used to come out of the tree not watered down sap!!

[bj's sugaring]

Brett, right?
I'm glad it's working good for you and it sounds like you would have had 0 hours of sleep without it. I hope this snow doesn't f up your trees. I'm worried about mine.
Ken

Yes, Brett. I just went out and cleared a bunch of stuff off my lines this morning. Its not great out there! Hope it warms up fast tomorrow and we get something after this.

[Vtmaple2]

Long range forcast not looking good. No freezing. Hopefully it changes!

[spud]

The flood gates have opened. Running 400 GPH and climbing on my 4050 tap woods. I assume my other 4000 taps is doing the same. Lot of foam and testing at 2.2%.

Spud

[VTfarmboy]

just under 1gpt and still running testing 3.7% highest ever for us in 15 years!

[GeneralStark]

Running hard here as well. Already about 1 gpt just since it thawed earlier today. It has been a busy few days. Had one of the best sap runs ever for my woods wednesday -> thursday with over 2.5 gpt in 24 hours. Had to run the ro at 1:30 am to make room in tank. Boiled over 2200 gallons thursday and made 55 gal of AR. SC over 2%. Most syrup I have ever made in one boil from these woods. It took about 6 boils last year to make as much syrup as I have in two this year. I think it's going to be a fast and furious season...

It snowed hard all day friday and the sap ran a bit. I was sweating it when the snow really picked up in the evening and started sticking to the trees. Power went out at 2 am and fortunately came back on by 5. Awoke to almost 2 feet of heavy snow saturday am for open house weekend. The driveway wasn't passable til 10:30 as my regular plow guy couldn't plow it with his truck. A neighbor was fortunately able to get it open with his tractor... Anyway open house was pretty slow, but made some good sales. Didn't boil as we barely had enough sap and attendance was so light.

Spent today clearing limbs off lines and digging out. A bunch of spouts got pulled out and drops disconnected due to falling limbs and heavy snow loading. Also had to re set a bunch of cv2 spouts. Got vac back up to 27. Back to boiling tomorrow. Looks like it could be a big run later this week...

[Ultimatetreehugger]

Only a half gallon per tap here but Coming in at 2.5. The highest I've seen from my woods.

[DrTimPerkins]

We had our first boil of the season on Friday. Had run the RO and stored (at 25 deg F) the high-Brix concentrate for several days, so had about 920 gal of 35 Brix concentrate to start, then ran the RO all day Friday as we boiled. About a 7 hr boil (first hr was sweetening the pans). Ended up with 14 barrels of syrup -- about 22% of our minimum target season crop (0.5 gal/tap) in one day. We're shooting to only boil when we max out our bulk tank storage, and hoping to boil only 5-7 times all season.

Vacuum still holding well (27" Hg or better) in spite of the wind we had over the weekend. Had to add a CDL Vacuum Protection Valve to the releaser to prevent sap from tripping the moisture trap during rapid flow periods. Seems to work most of the time, but still evaluating.

Decent run Sunday afternoon. Don't have totals yet, but will post later. Concentrating today. Looks like a couple of days off, then we may have good sap runs from Wednesday through Monday (as far out as our reasonably reliable forecast goes).

Afternoon update...total of 5,293 gal of sap from yesterday's brief run...just a little over a gal of sap/tap. 2.6 Brix from both sections of the bush. 390 gal of concentrate @ 35 Brix (about 155 gal syrup equivalent) now sitting in the refrigerated bulk tank for processing. Will probably collect/process sap until Friday, then boil what we've collected til then.

Air temperature is 31-32 deg F, but it started running a wee bit this afternoon.

[tcross]

we had a good run here yesterday afternoon as well. didn't test the sugar content, but it sure tasted sweet. will be firing up the evaporator late this afternoon. hard to imagine we boiled 17 times to this time of the year last year! tonight will be our 3rd boil!