Season Totals

[sg5054]

I ended up with 16 gallons off of 125 taps. Same finished product as last year. My new pan worked like a charm as did my gravity feed to the pan. Didn't set the world on fire but I'm satisfied. I was alone this year so I did run myself a bit ragged. Didn't get any light syrup. All of it is A Amber Rich or Robust.
Filtering with cones went perfect. No niter period, clear as can be. Filtered as I drew off the pan and then again right before bottling.

[marktripp]

Today I tasted the sap I had stored and it has gone bad, guess I'm gonna pull the plug on the season. At the end of last year we set a goal of 26 gallons, twice of 2013. We ended just shy at 23.4375 gallons. We had around 125 taps all in the woods on buckets and did buy 450 gallons if sap. Overall a good year, hopefully next year we can upgrade to make things a little faster.
Dark
37 qts
12 pints
6 1/2 pints

Medium
21 qts
18 pints
11 1/2 pints

Fancy
10 qts
9 pints
8 1/2 pints

Have a great summer everyone!!

[abbott]

291 gallons. No Light, lots of Medium, plenty of Dark, a bit of Ex. Dk., and plenty of C. Approx. 760 taps on vacuum and 85 on gravity. It's been a hard season, but we came out ok in the end.

[RollinsOrchards]

We finally got all the way up to a poor year at the end. 157 gallons from 1100 taps. That is 0.143 gal per tap.

[briansickler]

We had low sugar all season 1.5% had 1.7% one day. Total of 192 gal on 800 taps. 30 gal med. 157 gal dark. 5 gal B. Last year we made all light and our sugar content was never below 2% usually higher. Ended up better than I thought we were going to. Glad we added those 500 taps on the north slope. I saved 40 gal of light from last season....good thing.

[Revi]

We didn't make much syrup, but this season was a lot of fun.

[eagle lake sugar]

We had our last boil last night, April 30th. We ended up with 455 gallons, all dark and extra dark. I'm thankful we even got that much in a 3 1/2 week season.

[sg5054]

I ended up with 21 gallons against 110 taps. Half was on 7 5/16 pipelines. Something I have never done before. Didn't have a choice as the snow was to deep for the ATV at the beginning. I was getting averaging 75 gallons a day from the buckets. That would jump by roughly 50 gallons every other day when I collected the barrels hooked up to the lines. All my syrup is dark right from the beginning.
Learned several things this year. The pipeline is definitely the hot ticket. Unfortunately I had to take them down as the house where they were set up has gone into foreclosure. It will be very painful if I lose that location.
I have to find a way to preserve the sap far better than I do now. I have a 300 gallon SS tank on the north side of the shack but still struggle to keep it cold. I also have had it freeze solid. It is under an open shed roof with a cover on it. Gravity feeds to the pan. I'm thinking that enclosing it may help as it would lessen it's exposure to the outdoor temperature swings. Any thoughts out there? The idea of a cold plate in the tank hooked up to a refrigeration unit keeps running through my head.

Second one is what we all wrestle with. Time. Even taking off Wednesday afternoons once the sap started and boiling evenings and weekends too, I struggled to keep up with it.
I'm happy with the yield although I wish it was a touch lighter. Most of all this was a very educational year.

[Ridge777]

Bringing this thread back to life as I was too busy last season to post. Not a great year for me as I missed the first 3 runs of the season. Best run of the season was around 200 gallons in 24 hrs off 225 taps. 75 on 3/16 and balance of buckets. My Red Maples ran at about 2% all season and the few Silvers I have ran at 4% for a week and were done. I had sap envy all season long, as my Red's were very finicky with this seasons temp swings. Only had one batch of medium and the rest was dark. Should end up with 16 gallons or so as I left my 75 on 3/16 hopping for enough to chase the sweet out this weekend. Best thing this season was being able to see my woods with no snow for 2 months and make a real plan for 3/16 next year. Hoping to be at 300 taps 3/16 and maybe 50 on buckets. Way to much labor for one guy with 150 buckets in the woods!!! The fun is over and now it is time to clean up...