I'm interested to see what the quality of the sap that comes today is. I am more than a little concerned about the effect the fluctuations in weather may be having on the trees. The snow in the forecast is encouraging. In my experience, snow always brings nice runs of quality sap soon after.
173 on 3/16 natural vac for 2023
36 buckets
2 x 5 Smoky Lake Hybrid pan on a custom arch
RB25 from RO Bucket
12x24 salvaged sugarhouse built by wife's grandpa
1965 Massey Ferguson 165 tractor to haul sap.
My brix is 1.1... I've pulled the plug for my season. Here's to the last boil-Raises shot glass with syrup.
i'm getting the best sap flow of the season right now... just a **** shame it's all 1.5%. the ol hobby releaser is dumping every 1.5 minutes. going to continue till it gets to 1.25 and call it a year... hopefully that won't be fore a little while yet.
Awfully thankful for an understanding wife!
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
- Vincent “Vince” Lombardi
Good luck to all!
Mines running the best it has all season also! Should be a good week
Even with a strong wind today the sap seemed to continue to flow here in Middlesex. Will let it flow tonight then gather and process tomorrow.
Mead Maple "It's for the kids..."
Paul Cerminara
2019 - First season ever
-Goal: 3 gallons
-Season Total: 7.5 gallons - pulled taps after running out of firewood and time
2020
Built 2'x8' Oil Fired with Thor drop flue pans
-Goal: 20 gallons
-Season Total: 55 gallons
Threw in the towel here today. Dumped over 1k gal worth of sap from the last couple days this am because it was once again ropey. Let the first 100 gal. of what came in today run onto the ground in hopes that the ice would scrub out the lines. This did occur and the sap cleared up. It also ran quite well once the trees thawed but when I test boiled it was buddy.... no big surprise there are many of the sugar maples here have visibly budded.
Boiled out the pans and that brought my total up to just over .25 gpt for the season. Not great but I'll take it.
About 750 taps on High Vac.
2.5 x 8 Intens-O-Fire
Airtech 3 hp LR Pump
Springtech Elite 500 RO
14 x 24 Timber Frame SugarHouse
16 x 22 Sap Shed w/ 1500 gal. + 700 gal. tanks
www.littlehogbackfarm.com
We boiled tonight and made another 65 gallons of very dark syrup , we don’t make this dark of syrup usually. it’s not buddy yet , I am sure it’s not far away. We had very little sap coming into today and had a great run today 27 degrees last night really helped . Had to boil because it’s to warm to hold . Sap is clear and the sugar is at 1.5%. Will see what tomorrow brings .
My sap was a bit cloudy over the weekend, but it tasted fine and I boiled it. There has been too darn little sap for me so far this season. I've been consistently getting less than 1 gpt per day on my new 3/16 gravity system. Sap has stayed around 1.6 percent. Today I got over 1 gpt for the first time after the nice freeze last night, and the sap was clear! So it feels like I am back in business for a while. It took me about 1500 gallons to get my first draw on the new 3x12. That's a lot of sap, and with the small runs (and some other problems) it took me weeks to get there. Needless to say, it is very dark syrup. I'm not complaining about that, I'm happy to have some syrup after a long year! I think this week looks like it might have some more sap at my place. I can't imagine the trees budding yet, if they do, they'll be sorry- we're supposed to see 17 degrees and 2-4 inches of snow on Thursday!
March 2020- got a Half Pint when the world ended.
12 taps and 3 gallons of syrup later, caught the bug.
July 2020- got a used Leader 3x12 raised flue- go big or go home!
2021- 350 taps on 3/16 gravity. Not much of a year, made maybe 35 gallons.
2022- 450 taps on 3/16, made about 70 gallons.
2023- Life got busy again, only 250ish taps so far.
Good news...crew boiled yesterday. We're right about 62% of a full (minimum) crop, which is about right for this time of the year.
Bad news....slight sour taste from the low sap flows from the prolonged heat. Not too bad though and hoping it'll clear up with fresh sap.
Good news.....had a good freeze which resulted in great sap flow starting yesterday late-morning, continued strong all evening. Vacuum still holding well despite the wind. One of the crew had to come in at midnight to switch tanks over and start the RO.
Bad news....sugar content still low (1.4-1.5 Brix).
Good news....colder weather expected again starting tomorrow afternoon.
Bad news....frogs started peeping yesterday late-afternoon.
Good news....still some hope we'll manage to get a decent crop out of it. Fingers crossed.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
i'm not sure how much sap we got yesterday because i was too busy trying to keep up boiling as it was coming in. my little hobby releaser was dumping every 30 seconds. i'm fairly certain it will be at least 2 gpt over the 24 hrs. sap content went up to 1.75 from 1.45, so that was pleasant. sap was real warm once i got to it, but syrup taste fine. Nitre has become a problem, along with being real difficult to draw off consistently. our ponds are basically free of ice... for us, that means it's a matter of days. real cold weather comming the next 2 days, so hopfully a few good runs before the buds break, but that is coming any day!
question... do warm sunny days affect bud break more than cloudy/rainy warm days? has that ever been studied?
Awfully thankful for an understanding wife!
“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.”
- Vincent “Vince” Lombardi
Good luck to all!
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