When should I tap?

[Klonce]

Can't wait to tap, tomorrow is the day gonna tap 84 maple west, probably 12 taps gonna save 84 maple east based on the results of the west. Keep everyone posted. Feels like Christmas but sweeter!!

[PoseyCoMark]

We were expected to get showers Wednesday so I set out to tap on Tuesday. I ended up with 19 taps with about 60 degree sunny weather, but it dropped down to low 30's that night. Checked last night and there was slight sap flow on 5 taps. Hope you all have a good season.

[Tapping Wolf]

Next week looks like a good time to all in up here...if the forecast holds.

[dsaw]

I had a learning, but frustrating weekend. On a good point, the 3/16" was really flowing. I collected about 300 gal of sap and one of the 55 gal drums was overflowing when I got there. Then I tried to fire up my RO for the 1st time, and I couldn't get my high pressure pump to stay on. It kept shutting it-self down, and I'm not sure why (although I'm leaning towards electrical imbalance from running a 110v 3/4 pump and a 220v 2hp off the same drop; that or I'm falling in a strange point on it's performance curve that it doesn't like). So I figured out I could run it just on the feed pump, I just couldn't get the thru-put I wanted and it really fell off after concentrating to 5%. But when you're starting with 1.5%, that's still a huge help. Once I resigned myself to a limited RO, I thought I was doing good. I had my little 2x3 pan ripping through 12+ gph with a very crude AUF and a preheater; when I drew off too much syrup and burned my pan. So I drew off about 1/2 gal of good syrup, but the rest is relegated to cooking duty. I finished the burnt syrup this morning in a finishing pan while cleaning the main pan and froze the remaining concentrate for next weekend. I also heard peepers this afternoon, and I'm wondering if the season is about done looking at the weather.

[Andrew Franklin]

Dsaw, I learn a lot from your posts because we have had parallel growth and both have to travel to collect and boil. How are you preheating before evaporating? I use a bucket heater to warm some of the sap to boost the ro, but need to preheat before boiling...I'm only getting 2/3 to 3/4 of the pan boiling. You had double my volume of sap this weekend!...I was at 150 gallons or so (it comes into 3 containers and I am terrible about tracking it to the gallon). Granted, three of my 3/16 lines don't have 30' of fall from the last tap, and they crawl compared to the two that do. I want to try a vacuum on them next year. Boiling on Saturday I was in shorts and hot, 74 degrees...flies around the sap and peepers at night... not good sign. but I like next week's forecast. My stats: Help - none, Miles walked - 26, pounds lost - 5, hours of sleep Friday night - 2, gallons of sap - +/_ 150, homemade ro rate (with warmed sap) 5 gallons of water removal every 38 minutes, exactly 3 gallons of syrup bottled.

[dsaw]

Thanks for comments Andrew. My preheater is pretty simple right now; I managed to pick up a Leader finishing pan on e-bay cheap a few years ago that's about 18" x 28"? (one of my best syrup purchases it turns out, it came with a duel burner stand and I can bring it home to finish boiling there if I need to, a portable evaporator). Before finishing, I put that pan above my 2x3, but angle it with a 2x4 on one end and two thin pieces of plywood on each corner up front and it barely overhangs the main pan. So with the angle, condensate runs along the bottom of the pan and drips off in front. I'll try to get a pic up later. I had a portion of my slave labor force out there; but they didn't prove much help. They washed buckets; but a) I didn't have time to tap any more trees and b) don't think we have any season left now; but I had to have them do something. They did occasionally feed the fire, but they're not real reliable at it. The kids are off this coming Monday, so I'll have everyone out for a 3 day weekend. I just hope we have some sap.

[dsaw]

What I plan to use (every time I go out to do it, something comes up and I don't get around to it) is Sodium Metabisulfite, bought off Amazon. I researched the "advertised" preservatives, and this is all it is. I need to look up the concentration again, but I plan to use 4" pvc as holding chambers. It was on my to do list today; but planting apple trees took a lot longer then planned. Hopefully next weekend. I have cycled water through them post season to keep them wet.