Tapping the 2015 Season

[unc23win]

I didn't get very much sap yesterday I don't think I would have gotten any had it not been for vacuum, although it was a nice day for working in the woods my brother who was visiting from TN helped add on taps. Right now it is snowing and tomorrow looks to be the next good sized run for me. Hoping everyone on the Potter-Tioga Maple Weekend Tour has sap to boil for the weekend. I'm planning on getting out to visit others.

[Gary R]

Another super day for us. Over 2/gal. per tap yesterday. I pulled a Hardy and both of my 3/16 tanks were overflowing Boiled late and left some sap for today. Bulking and cleaning pans before we get back to boiling.

I have a question for anyone in western PA. I apologize for bringing this up on this thread. I figured I would reach the most of you on this one. I'm wondering if anyone is interested in buying bulk syrup for retail. I have it in 5 gal. and should be able to offer 30 gal. per year. The price of wholesale syrup is falling a lot. I understand the whole business of supply and demand. However, I'm hoping a retailer looking for a few extra gallons would be willing to pay a little better than the wholesale buyers. Bulk prices may fall under $2 per lb. For that it does not pay to make syrup. I have looked at going into the retail market. It costs too much to be fully insured for the amount of syrup I produce. If this doesn't work out I'll just cut back to 20-25 gal a year for family and friends. The rest of the sap can go on the ground. Please PM me if your interested. Sorry for the post and I hope the sap is flow for you!

[Sugarmaker]

Gary,
Nice job making syrup! Continue to have fun and the rest will fall into place.
Things have been moving along slowly the NWPA. Sap qty did not reach 1 gallon per tap run yet. Came close again yesterday with 500 gallons of 3% sap collected. Had sap from previous night also. We boiled 850 gallons of raw sap, made 21+ gallons of nice Amber syrup. Checked the evaporation rate on the new pans and seems to be about 140 GPH. About 40+ gallon per hour improvement!
Puts our current syrup pile at about 50 gallons, or 1/3 of normal. looks to be syrup weather for awhile.
Regards,
Chris

[Dennis H.]

Hey Gary, your message box is full.
Can not send you a pm.

[pennslytucky]

sun is shining! my aquatec sap sukka is already pulling water through the ice in the lines. glad i boiled all day yesterday and got the tanks emptied. gonna be a good day

[Gary R]

Sugarmaker, thanks for the good word. In the last two weeks we've gotten 2850 gal of sap and made 30 gal of syrup. That's about half of a banner year in two weeks. I boiled 8 hours yesterday and still have sap in the tank. Sap has been at 1% I think I'll boil for a couple of days and call it quits. Good luck to all!

Hi Dennis, I cleaned it up.

[Sugarmaker]

Small run of 265 gallon last evening @ 3.2%.
Boiled and pushed 10 gallon through the rig before noon today. 60.5 gallon to date. Grade is right at Golden. I may have one of those bad grading kits (2014) that I have heard about, where the light is too light???
Regards,
Chris

[pennslytucky]

whats the problem with the low sugar some of you seem to be getting? i havent checked mine, but it must be decent. im getting a quart out of every 9-10 gallon so far. made 3 1/2 gallon of beautiful medium syrup that tastes better than i ever remember.

saps running some today, but im still scrapin the barrel to keep boiling. pretty slow i think

[Gary R]

pennslytucky, I think mine has to do with tree genetics, soils and they are woods trees. I have tested individual trees both sugar and reds at 2% sometimes. I don't think at has that much to do sugar verses reds. Jim Brown has a red in his yard he showed me yesterday tested 5.5%. My 3/16 tubing has 50 sugars and 10 reds. The best I've seen the sap all together is 1.8%. This year it is lower than normal and all have dropped to 1%. If you had to boil that you would understand our frustrations. A couple of years ago I sent in foliage samples to Penn State to have analyzed. They checked for mineral difficiancies. I even share this with Dr. Perkins for advice to improve them. I limed and fertilized. Waste of money.

Hug your trees, they seem to be working well.

I forgot, as for this year, I think it's because we had a cold wet summer last year. We never had a 90* day here.

[pennslytucky]

i know im kinda takin off topic a bit, but you hit on my theory just now. i really think the bland weathr over the past 2 years has a lot to do with it. plants in a greenhouse with extra heat and humidity do twice as well as plants outside. (up to a point). i think our extra cold winters and cool mild summers the past 2 years is causing a slow production of carbohydrates in the trees, especially in places where the conditions are a little less favorable, like north and east faces, or sandy/gravelly/acidic ground.

anyway, i got 28 gallon from 12 taps on vac today....33 taps on gravity gave exactly 2 gallon of sap. sad stuff even with good sugar. sorry to hear all the guys struggling with 1% sap this year.