Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[spud]

.40 gpt in the last 48hr, testing 1.5%, fairly cloudy but making really nice tasting very dark, a real sugar snow here keeping it going

That’s great to hear your still making syrup down south. Today should be the start of the second half to my season. The 10 day forecast looks very good. Its pretty safe to say the sap will run into April a bit. After this 4 day freeze up I’m in hopes the sugar content will be good for a while. Good luck everyone.

Spud

[spud]

Sap started running a bit at noon. The wind is not helping but I should get sap till about 11:00pm. I was able to spray all my apple trees with deer repellent today while waiting for sap. The deer are all over.

Spud

[tcross]

Same here Spud, not coming in real hard but it should pick up. good thing you got around to spraying your apple trees. i've been seeing betwee 12 and 36 deer on my 10 minute drive home from work each night for the past 4-5 days. they're ready for some new food!

[DrTimPerkins]

Sap just starting to trickle in a bit on the mountain in Underhill. Should run better a bit later before freezing up around midnite, then start up again before noon tomorrow. Nice looking forecast for making syrup.

[spud]

Sap is running 405 gph now and testing 1.7%.

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

Running well up on the hill also. Snips from the H2O Smartrek system from two tanks. No sign of any slowdown in flow rate so far (no sanitation impacts apparent, but still early and we use primarily CV2s in our production woods). Tanks about 1/3 full right now. About 37-40 deg F in the woods at the moment, so should run until about midnite. Tanks will likely be about 2/3 full by that point, which will be about 1.3-1.4 gal/tap. At home, so can't measure sugar content. Should get a decent recharge and a quick thaw early (by noon), so tomorrow is looking to be a really good day.

ST1.jpg ST2.jpg

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Very impressive, will the system alarm at a setpoint (say 90 percent full) as well?

[DrTimPerkins]

If we wanted it to, yes.

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Thanks, sounds like you designed your tank size to be robust in regards to overfill?

[GeneralStark]

Over 2 gpt since it thawed yesterday late morning. At the peak it was running the hardest I’ve seen this season. Hung a couple buckets with my daughter and the sap was coming out in a stream... looks like the ssc came up a bit as well.

It appears that It did freeze overnight but not sure for how long. It’s thawing now and the releaser is full of ice... getting ready to boil later today.