Eastern Ontario 2016

[JeffB]

One more question how do you get the small bio about taps and equipment to post along with any questions or reply"
' i make here on maple trader

[BrutemanAl]

Hi JeffB welcome to the wonderful world of Maple Trader !! If you click on " Setting's " in the top right hand corner area, then click go to " My Setting's" and click on "edit Signature". When done putting in what you want click" save" , and wallah your done.

As for your other question's about when to tap, keep an eye on this page and everyone seems to start in around the same time, you can also keep an eye on Acuweather and the long range forecast to help. Don't do what I did my second year and start to early, it turned into a pain in the rear end. Spent more time dealing with frozen taps being pushed out of the holes and loosing what sap was running. I keep an eye on this forum and it pretty much lets me know the date that I will start, or pretty close to it.

[67HEAVEN]

One more question how do you get the small bio about taps and equipment to post along with any questions or reply"
' i make here on maple trader

Jeff,

To add a "signature" of your taps and equipment, you can click on SETTINGS (top right) and then on the left margin, click on EDIT SIGNATURE.

To include the person's post that you wish to reply to, click on REPLY WITH QUOTE.

As for when to begin tapping here in Eastern and South Central Ontario, I'm on the ledge with you. Hold my hand, because someone with a lot more experience will be along soon.

[BrutemanAl]

I need to up my production this year, ran out of syrup a few weeks ago, and the trees I tap are on someone Else's property, the property was owned by an older greek couple and they didn't mind that I used the tree's, well in late fall they sold their house and moved and the new owner doesn't mind if I use the tree's but wants syrup in exchange. So with the help of 2 little boys we went back in the forest in the fall and marked more trees to tap this spring. Then the new property owner saw I marked more trees and made sure there was trails cleared and I had good access to them lol, I think he wants syrup in a bad kinda way lol. We also had freezing rain a few weeks ago, and the day after, he went back to check the trees and came right over to my place to tell me all my trees are fine and not to worry .

[67HEAVEN]

www.geco.ca

By the way, BrutemanAl, I'm one of your customers running a whole-home Honeywell (Generec) natural gas generator. During the big ice storm a few years ago, it kept us warm and in lights for 54 hours straight.

[Big_Eddy]

My question for the veterans and hobbyist is "What month should i really start to think about tapping ,middle of Feb ,late Feb or even March.
....
Maybe a little insight to this problem of WHEN TO TAP will talk me off the ledge i goning to jump from !!!!!!! LOL
Any input would be great .

Depending on where you are, typically late Feb to early March. The larger your operation the earlier just because it takes longer to get tapped. Pipeline sometimes ahead of buckets. If you have more trees than you can boil the sap from you can tap early then add more trees later if sap yields drop off.

Tell us more about where you are and how many trees you are planning for this year.

[JeffB]

Feb 2016
Well did my first test boil today on my homemade evaporator with Patrick Phenuef 2x4 hybrid pan. I think I need more volume of air under fire for my air tight couldn't get stack temperature above 500 degrees till I cracked open the door a few inches then jumped to 800. I am using a furnace direct vent blower with about 90cfm plumbed into 1"ID piping that branches off into 5 foot long pipes with 6 5/8th holes drilled into each one of them. Any ideas how I can increase volume of air with a cheap higher CFM blower, I even tried the shop vac exhaust but this was noise and to much it blew the heat out the 10 foott high 8 inch diameter stack. Other then that the pans work awesome, sure beats flat a bottom boil. The boil in the drop flues will really decrease evaporation time a lot, not to mention my GPH will increase greatly I hope.
To answer your question I am located east of Peterborough and have gone from 50 taps first year to just over 100 this year with a max of about 150 for next yr,

[Ontario Ian]

you may need to up your pipe size, sounds like a lot of restriction there. I have a 2.5'x12', there is one 3"x24" rectangle duct feeding under the fire and three 3" round ducts feeding over the fire.

[Galena]

I need to up my production this year, ran out of syrup a few weeks ago, and the trees I tap are on someone Else's property, the property was owned by an older greek couple and they didn't mind that I used the tree's, well in late fall they sold their house and moved and the new owner doesn't mind if I use the tree's but wants syrup in exchange. So with the help of 2 little boys we went back in the forest in the fall and marked more trees to tap this spring. Then the new property owner saw I marked more trees and made sure there was trails cleared and I had good access to them lol, I think he wants syrup in a bad kinda way lol. We also had freezing rain a few weeks ago, and the day after, he went back to check the trees and came right over to my place to tell me all my trees are fine and not to worry .

Hehe, I would say that the new neighbours definitely want syrup in a REAL bad way!! Hope the new trees are big enough to help accomodate the increase in demand :-) Maybe you can also get this neighbour trained up a little bit, so if you have to go away, they can reliably collect sap for you ;-)

Oh and fwiw...last year I tapped a friend's trees, in addition to my own (I refer to it as the virgin bush). I supplied all the equipment, checked all the buckets 2x a day at least, picked up all the dropped buckets *fR$&*(T# plastic spiles*, brought all the sap home, boiled it up on my equipment, all at my cost. I asked for nothing in return and sure enough, got nothing back for all my hard work.

At the end of season I gave her her share of the syrup. And she said, 'Well gee, that was fun, let's do it again next year!' And this from someone who never so much as even walked out to check the trees once; I was there 2-3x a day during the season. And I was often up til early morning working on this extra sap.

So. Should she ask if we can tap her trees again this year, I'll smile brightly, say 'SURE! I'll bring over the equipment, drill new holes, set the spiles and buckets...then the rest is up to you. You have to find the time each and every day to collect the sap, bring it in and boil it down. I'll be happy to help out when it's at nearup stage. Have fun!' :-)

[Newbie18]

Hi: I,m over in Warkworth and in somewhat of a dilemma with this warm weather. When do you think we might be able to tap this year? Last year I had about 45-55 taps and only used an old barrel burner outside. This year am working on a new evaporator and have a 2x4 pan. Would like to put about 30 trees on vacuum (natural) and hang about 40 buckets.