2018 Season

[HowardR]

I'm always going to remember this as the long season. I've already been making maple syrup for 36 days, and the forecast for the next 10 days predicts perfect maple syrup weather. The sap was simply pouring out this afternoon, not just sugar maples but red maples too! Wow! That's all I can say. Wow!

[Dennis H.]

I called it a season this morning. There was only 55 gals in the tank from yesterday. The temps were in the high 40's and sunny but hardly any sap to show.

Turned off the vacuum and emptied the tank and headed for home. Boiled up what sap I had in the evening.

Now it is the hard work of cleaning. Tomorrow I will rinse and wash the RO and wile that is doing it's thing I will push water thru the evap to get out as much sweet as I can.
Aiming for the coming weekend to flush out the tubing and bring back the releaser, vac and sap tank.

[Plutoman15]

So most in PA have been reporting very low sugar sap this year. This is my first year and I have been us seeing 1% that has dropped to .5% for my woods Norways, and have seen a consistent 2% or a little better for the open Norways.

If this year is unusually low, how much higher would a more normal sugar amount be? So if you are seeing 1% this year is your normal 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%? Looking for what I might expect in a normal year for my trees. If my open trees are 2% this year, will they be 2.5% in a normal year? Guesstimates are appreciated.

Thanks,
Joe

[helptheold]

I called it a season this morning. There was only 55 gals in the tank from yesterday. The temps were in the high 40's and sunny but hardly any sap to show.

For me that would be a great haul with my measly 25 taps I'm looking out the window right now at a mini snowstorm. This is so weird.

[Dennis H.]

So most in PA have been reporting very low sugar sap this year. This is my first year and I have been us seeing 1% that has dropped to .5% for my woods Norways, and have seen a consistent 2% or a little better for the open Norways.

If this year is unusually low, how much higher would a more normal sugar amount be? So if you are seeing 1% this year is your normal 1.5%, 2%, 2.5%? Looking for what I might expect in a normal year for my trees. If my open trees are 2% this year, will they be 2.5% in a normal year? Guesstimates are appreciated.

Thanks,
Joe

With what I call yard trees, the canopies will be larger and in return the sap volume and sugar content tend to be higher. Now there are always exceptions to the rule.

I have mostly sugar's with a few red's mixed in and they are all woods trees. A good year for my trees will be right at 1.5%, it all goes down from there. This season the 1st 2 or 3 runs I had sap above 1%, just barely. Then they settled in to 1% and stayed there.

[Plutoman15]

Thanks Dennis.

So good year versus bad year of sugar is .5%. I thought maybe there would be more swing than that.

Joe

[Dennis H.]

Thanks Dennis.

So good year versus bad year of sugar is .5%. I thought maybe there would be more swing than that.

Joe

Gentics of the tree has a lot to do also, there are so many factors that go into play on how much and how sweet the sap will flow.
One thing that fascinated me when I was doing buckets was seeing how different the sap flowed from the trees. 2 trees that we next to each other and one bucket would be overflowing and the other would be maybe 1/4 full.
Now that I am on tubing I can not do that.

[sticknstring]

Cooked tonight, got about 20 gallons of sap down to around 3 gallons and next thing i know, im in the middle of a mini blizzard and had to shut it down. Grrrrrrrrr......

[Dennis H.]

Cooked tonight, got about 20 gallons of sap down to around 3 gallons and next thing i know, im in the middle of a mini blizzard and had to shut it down. Grrrrrrrrr......

Sounds like you are getting a good amount of sap. Aren't you glad you put those buckets back out?
This weekend is looking good for you.

[sticknstring]

Yeah, Dennis, doing ok with sap i guess on only 3 taps right now. One tree is pumping it out, the other two are slower going. But for the time and podunk operation i have, 20-30 gallons is a good number to light a fire for. Will definitely be making some changes for next year to be able to boil more sap quicker. Then we can tap more trees and up the haul. Have greatly appreciated the help from you all this year.