2016 results ?

[Hannah]

How do you like your new Mason 2x4 XL? About how many gallons per hour will it evaporate? And how much does the blower help? I'm considering getting one for next year.

If this question is aimed at me I can't answer this, I plan on ordering one this next year. I have been advised to get the blower and to expect around 12-15 gallons an hour.

[highlandcattle]

This is the second year with the Mason 2x4 xl with blower. Tapped end of January as we had no snow. Making syrup by early Feb. Up to 3,000 gallons of sap. Stayed around 2%. About 55 gallons of syrup,robust so far. On 450 taps. We've had snow and temp 17° today,so frozen up. Going to see what happens this week. Ron boils from about 7 am to 5 pm. He's retired and nothing else going on. Sold excess sap. Mason easy to use,quality workmanship and great price. No complaints.

[Cedar Eater]

I'm up to 8 gallons of syrup from 54 taps. I've pulled about half of them. I lost track of the gallons boiled, but I'm pretty sure that I came in around 60:1 on the sap/syrup from all reds, some on 3/16" natural vaccuum.

Next year, I plan to have about the same number of taps and make around the same amount of syrup, but I won't tap as many trees in the cold swamp. I can develop at least three more 3/16" saplines and I will have supplies to do that, but I will only do that if it looks necessary. I might build one more electric evaporator and power it from my welder circuit outside my garage door. I would like to boost my gph to around 7 as needed, but I can't see myself bringing another 50A up to my deck.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

Buckfever,
Overall we are happy with our Mason 2x4 XL with blower. The preheater is less then to be desired, but I Bill has announced that he is changing it for the 2017 Maple Season. Ours will heat 34-38 degree sap to about 42-44 before it hit the pan. The result is the first channel becomes the preheater losing 1/4 of the boiling capacity. I built my own preheat that sap now hits the pan at 180 on average. We also put a restrictor plate on the blower to avoid melting down the stack.
Running without the blower with small dry wood we got about 8-9 gallons per hours. With the blower at about 30 % capacity we get 11-12 gallons per hour. On a long 15 hour boil during a good run I ran the blower at 70% capacity and got about 16 GPH but this was pushing it hard, with small dry wood firing every 12 minutes by a timer.
I also have quit finishing syrup on it. It makes excellent syrup but doing so slows the boil down to 6-8 GPH. We have been drawing off at around 62-63 brix and have gained back our GPH.
The bottom line is overall we are happy with our Mason and we WOULD buy it again today. If you have any other questions feel free to message me, i'd be happy to answer them. I would also add that the quality of the Mason is far better then any other comparable model we looked at, and we looked at several different brands and models.

[wishlist]

I had a good year , figured. 3 gpt with 250 on high vacuum and the rest on roadsides. Bottled 168 gallons and I'm gonna finish the walnut today and see how many gallons that gets.
Pulled taps a week ago, and glad I did. I'm 95 % sugars and it looks like they are really about to open up.

Added 2 membranes to the RO and a Goulds booster pump. With the small footprint of my 2x6 I have no problem adding more taps next year without doing those long marathon boils . Wood usage was way down as well. Overall , a great season but it sure looked " iffy" in mid march.

[Wolfcreek Maple]

We had a good year also ended up with 171 gallons.we were also concerned the season was going to be iffy,sure glad we tapped early. Our sap only averaged out to 1.6% but ended with.3gpt.Sure glad had we had new RO n AOF saved a huge amount of wood.

[Jolly Acres Farm]

Well this year has been a good learning curve. Ended the year with 117 buckets and sap bags, started with 106, pulled all the Reds before the first sap flow due to warm weather and the buds swelling. Was down to 91 in Sugars then went out and tapped 26 more sugars on 03/25/16. This resulted in collection then taking about 3 1/2 hours of carrying buckets, each day in the woods.

We collected 839 gallons of sap, averaging 7.76 G.P.T. resulting in 18 gallons, 12 ounces of syrup. Sap ran from a low of 0.75 to a high of 3.5 brix with a year average of 1.85 brix. Syrup ran from a light golden to a medium amber in color. Wife was looking forward to some darker amber like last year, but none was made this year.......

[Hannah]

Boiling the last 100 gallons today