First Year Maple sap collector

[netsplitter]

Hello,

I am a first year tapper (or will be soon ). I have built a little arch evaporator outside that should be able to boil around 15 gallons at a time - and I have identified around 20 trees that I can tap.

I am excited to get started,

In my area, the weather forecast starting on 12/6 and going on for the rest of December are all low 20's and high's min the low to mid 40's. Looks like at least 3-4 good weeks of sap weather.

I was planning on starting in January, but this December temperature looks perfect to get started. Anyone else considering tapping in December?

[bmbmkr]

Hey NetSplitter,

I'm lookin at that same forecast. I'm about 15 miles North of Ashland, KY in OH. This is our second year, and we are expanding quite a bit. I am so tempted to tap net week, but I'm really no where near ready.

Not sure where you are in KY or if you've seen this post, I had a great time with these guys last year and learned a lot at the KY/VA Maple School.

Here's the link: http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...ghlight=school

[netsplitter]

Hi bmbmkr,

Thanks for the reply. I am in the Somerset, KY area, about 50 miles south of Lexington.

I don't have a big production, just went around my property and marked 20 of the maples.

I had read that the sugar content in always lower in the early part of the season, which makes me nervous. Given the weather last year, I had a friend whose production spoiled due to the weather we had in Feb/March this year.

I think I may try to tap 5 trees and see how they do.

Just out of curiosity, Do you tap every maple you can find, or just sugar maples?

I had not seen that, and it looks really interesting - thanks for showing.

[maple flats]

A combination of maples is good. I tap mostly sugars, but at one woods I have about 25% reds, at the other it's all sugars. As you get towards the end of the season, watch the buds, the soft maples open bud a few weeks earlier than sugars. You want to pull the soft taps when their buds open, then keep going with the sugars until they open. Last year I got 3.5 weeks on the sugars after the reds popped, more commonly it's about 2-2.5 weeks.

[Mark B]

Up here in Belmont, Maine, the property is about 65-70% reds. The rest is Sugars with a handful of silvers between their and my other accessible trees. As long as they are healthy, I'm tapping. I was taking advantage of our "warm" spell up here to run some new lines on trees my uncle never tapped.

[netsplitter]

Thanks for the great answers.

I think I am going to set my taps up tomorrow. I put a tap out on one of my red maples closer to my house and got about a gallon today - close to 2% sugar content. It is really going to warm and thaw everything tomorrow and Thursday. Then the extended forecast looks great. May be a little early, but I am just ready to go.

[bmbmkr]

Hi bmbmkr,

Thanks for the reply. I am in the Somerset, KY area, about 50 miles south of Lexington.

I don't have a big production, just went around my property and marked 20 of the maples.

I had read that the sugar content in always lower in the early part of the season, which makes me nervous. Given the weather last year, I had a friend whose production spoiled due to the weather we had in Feb/March this year.

I think I may try to tap 5 trees and see how they do.

Just out of curiosity, Do you tap every maple you can find, or just sugar maples?

I had not seen that, and it looks really interesting - thanks for showing.

The KY/VA Maple seminar is geared for both first timers and small to medium production. I started in 2013 with buffet steam pans, a propane burner, the kitchen stove and finally a cinder block arch- tapped 15 sugars and reds that year, took 2 years off to move back home from eastern NC. Last year I built my arch by welding 2 1/2 55 gal drums end to end. I purchased an 18x42" drop flue pan and a 18x30 front pan. I tapped a little over 100 last year, with about 20 of those being reds and Freemans- a hybrid red/silver. I had everything on 3/16 tubing, and had to pull the taps out of the reds because they budded out even earlier than usual due to the crazy warm weather we had. We also dumped almost 1000 gallons of sap that spoiled before we could get it cooked. Pretty crappy ordeal for my first "real" season- but we got 11 gallons of good syrup and priceless experience. I tapped on 6 & 7 Feb last year, looking to tap about that time in Jan this year. I bought an RO so I'm goin to go up to about 300 taps this year, 90-95% Sugars. My trees are on the north slope of a pretty steep ridge, they say that lowers sugar content also, but I averaged 2.1% last year. Good luck with your season, the guys here on the Trader are a valuable resource, I have learned a lot from them in the last 5 years- can't wait to put some more of it to practice next month!

[Jim Brown]

Just a FYI guys not a good idea to tap the same trees in the fall that you plan on tepping in the spring ! Really hard on the trees

Jim

[netsplitter]

Well I tapped a bunch of reds, and one sugar maple.

I have two large reds and one large sugar close to my house. They were dripping really well yesterday. I have collected around 6 gallons just from them. (the sugar maple has around 3.5% brix, the red's are around 2%.)

The rest of the red maples that I tapped are up a mountainside, and sadly they have not dripped at all. I am not sure what to make of it. I figured they would not produce as well, but I expected something.

I have some monster sugar maples that are all the way up the mountainside, the sun exposure is better there, and I expect they will produce really well. I think I am going to wait until around next Friday to tap those.

Since I will not have enough to boil, I am just storing the sap in 5-gallon buckets, and placing them in a chest freezer. I am so paranoid about ruining the sap, I hope there is no such thing as freezer burned sap .

[maple flats]

Give them time, the ground is likely still frozen there. In general, in years with good snow cover, you will not get much sap flow until there is a bare ground ring around the tree, at least that's what one oldtimer told me.