New Brunswick Tapping 2015

[Marvel26]

I bumped into a guy from my lodge who taps recreationally as well. He does 2 gallons of syrup then calls it quits and normally he's done by now but he doesn't even have enough for a boil yet.

Is it wrong to feel a bit exonerated by the failure of others? ;-)

kidding, I don't wish any ill will on him or others but I am glad its not necessarily something I am doing incorrectly.

[dscanuck]

I bumped into a guy from my lodge who taps recreationally as well. He does 2 gallons of syrup then calls it quits and normally he's done by now but he doesn't even have enough for a boil yet.

Is it wrong to feel a bit exonerated by the failure of others? ;-)

kidding, I don't wish any ill will on him or others but I am glad its not necessarily something I am doing incorrectly.

For sure, that's a good way to know that it's not you, it's the trees What do the bases look like? I found my sap started running way faster once the snow melted around the base of the trees to allow more heat to reach it thus allow the pressure built up during the cold nights to release easier during the day.

I tapped a tree around 4:40 and when I went to check on it around 7 pm, I had 400-500ml in the bucket.

I'm sure you're going to have a sapnami in the next few days and then you won't know what to do with it all.

[Marvel26]

Only a couple have more than a foot or two of open ground around them. Most of them still have snow up the trunks at least a little bit.....I may have to do some shovelling ;-)

[Marvel26]

Well, I had some activity yesterday afternoon....not much but when added together probably close to 55gallons of sap.

Today looked very promising as everything was dripping at 9am. my clump-o-tree was gushing, it has 6 large trunks all 18"+ in diameter so I have one tap in each. the 6 taps go into 2 five gallon buckets, 3 in each. At 11am, I dumped one bucket into the other for easier transport and when I got back with the empty bucket not more than 10min later there was already about 1/2 to 1/3 of a litre of sap in the bottom. I wasn;t able to check the barrels but hopefully they did well!

Unfortunately, I also had a setback tonight....I noticed that the floor was sticky beside my pan, this lead me to discover that my float box has a small leak. It had been sitting since Monday so I lost everything above the level of the leak, about 2/3rds of the semi syrup in my 2X5 hybrid pan, probably close to a 1 and 1/3 gallons of finished syrup....on the floor.

I was sick to my stomach when I saw the extent of the syrup lost

[Rob Walton]

Marvel, that sucks about the crack.

Pretty good collection with 55 gallons!

I finished up the latest batch last night. Started with 48 litres, ended up with approx 1250 ml syrup.
Potentially could be my last boil this year. Off to Cuba this afternoon but am leaving the buckets/lines out. So if the saps doesn't spoil, I will be boiling next weekend.

Good luck everyone.

[Marvel26]

Have fun in Cuba and remember you can tap palm trees ;-)

¿Dónde está el jarabe de arce? = "Where is the maple syrup?"

[dscanuck]

Well, I'm doing my first boil today. Tress have been flowing faster than I can freeze it. My 75L roughneck that fits in my freezer is full with about 200L of sap concentrated down to 75L and my buckets are full on the trees. Going to be a long day.

I'll let ya's know how I make out! Good luck to all those boiling!

And Marvel, sorry to hear about the crack. I hope you get it fixed ASAP.

[Marvel26]

Thanks DScanuck. good luck today and remember if you get too much syrup you can always do what I do and pour it on the floor ;-)

[dscanuck]

Here's the tally from my first boil. Roughly 4L. IMG_20150412_213632.jpg

[Run Forest Run!]

Good work dsc. Any pancakes in your future?