Originally Posted by
Boomer
I boiled another 40 gallons of sap on Saturday (3/31) and had just over 1 gallon of dark syrup. Anybody else have dark syrup? It seems a few years ago I had really dark syrup but thought it had more to do the temperature being so warm and later in the season. That sure isn't the case this year. Wondering if anyone knows the reason for nice looking amber syrup one year and the next year coffee dark syrup.
Well you pretty much said it, we have not had much warmth this spring. I have made no dark syrup yet thanks to the cool weather and snow on the ground. With that being said, last Friday when I picked up my south woods that has been outproducing everything this year, the sap was starting to get a little murky. The sap temp at the tank was 44 degrees and every time before that it was below 40 and once down to 36. 6-8 degrees difference in sap temp will mean all the difference in what the grade will be. This last boil was a strong medium which was the 2nd darkest out of 6 boils. I'm at a tad better than 1/3 gallon per tap, considering that my north woods hasn't done much yet, I'm pretty fortunate compared to others. The people an hour north of here have only boiled once or twice and that is right from Steve Anderson last Friday and of course we all know nothing has ran since.
Mark
Where we made syrup long before the trendies made it popular, now its just another commodity.
John Deere 4000, 830, and 420 crawler
1400 taps, 600 gph CDL RO, 4x12 wood-fired Leader, forced air and preheater. 400 gallon Sap-O-Matic vacuum gathering tank, PTO powered. 2500 gallon X truck tank, 17 bulk tanks.
No cage tanks allowed on this farm!