2018 Season

[Dennis H.]

The smell I get is a yeasty kinda of off smell. The syrup will taste good that you make from it but if you try to reheat it to a boil at a later time to say make sugar that smell will return.

Sap has improved a little. Boiled off what I got today and yesterday and it was nice to smell that that buddy smell went away after about 20 min of boiling. So these cold nights are helping the trees a little.
Still cloudy and sap volume still well below a normal days flow with these kinds of temps. I'll still stick with it till the weekend and make a decision then if I want to continue.

[Paddymountain]

I'm back in the game too. We collected a little over 225 gallons tonight of 2.1 percent sap. Some was a little cloudy, but overall not bad.
It was a pleasure boiling tonight as I probably pulled off about 4 gallons of syrup. Sugar content is higher because, my 92 reds on vacuum at the house are done.
So everything else is sugars. Sap from 112 taps was running in my one cage tank a fairly good clip. No freeze tonight ,but I believe trees are going to
run all night. The weather for the next two weeks looks like the best it has been all season.
Dennis H: I've boiled 2400 gallons of sap, but don't have near enough syrup to show for it.
Howard R keep at it ! if we keep going back in time we'll be a little younger too!!!!

[HowardR]

How do you know if your sap is buddy? Some of the buds on the Norways I am tapping aren't as firm as they were but the sap is clear and tastes good. The sugar is also decent at 2%. Does it get cloudy or is it clear but tastes bad? Does it have a smell? Joe

Last year, the season ended with a long end-of-February warm spell, during which I did my best to determine if the trees were budding. (They were!) I even posted a thread with discussion of the pictured stages of leaf bud growth (flower buds don't matter). I concluded:

Before I posted this question to start this thread, I thought that you could look at the buds and tell if the sap would still be good. My conclusion, based upon this thread, is that the only way you can tell is by smelling, tasting, examining, and/or by boiling up the sap.

But there was one common sense tip to follow. Try to keep batches separate so that questionable sap doesn't contaminate good sap. Dr. Perkins wrote:

Bud stage is really only a secondary concern. The main thing is the flavor of the syrup. If you detect buddy off-smell or flavor in the sap or syrup, it is time (or past time) to stop. Typically by the time buds reach the V4 stage the sap has been buddy for some time. We normally detect buddy at the V1-V2 stage and try to catch it before it affects the syrup flavor. That way we can process the sweet still left in the evaporator. If you go too long, you might as well dump the whole thing.

[sticknstring]

Holy Sap!!! Checked the 3 trees at the ground on Sunday morning, only had a gallon and a half total maybe after 5 days. Went up tonight and two of the three buckets were full, one was overflowed. The third tree totally shut down so i pulled the tap and tapped a different tree. With temps looking perfect for 10 straight days, highs upper 30s to mid 40s and lows from low to high 20s, my buckets are staying out. To be honest, i was expecting to pull everything tonight. Sap tasted sweet and it looked very clear to me, maybe just the tiniest tint of off color but not cloudy. Rejuvinated!!!!

[Plutoman15]

Yup, things ran well the last couple days. One line of 2 trees gave me 3 gallons in 24 hours. Should keep running too. Some of my woods trees are even lower sugar than before (.25%) but I tapped some more open trees which are still averaging 1.5-2%. I might quit collecting the woods sap.

Unless things get buddy seems we will get another week of sap. My sap is very clear and tastes good still though some buds have softened.

[Dennis H.]

Sticknstring, way to hang in there. Sounds like you may have some longer boils waiting for you.

It is odd how it was an up and down season when it came to temps then, bang, right at the end when we were going to end we get some of the best sugar'in weather for the longest spell forecasted.

[Sugarmaker]

Folks ,
Looks to be a cold week ahead for trying to make syrup. Sunday will get above freezing but not much. Hoping for some sunshine to get another run then. Have some sap to boil this afternoon. Some trees have started to shut down, other running better than before? Have been visiting others making syrup or getting started.
Regards,
Chris

[TPosey]

I just put 400 taps in on 3/16 natural vacuum Saturday and as of last night had 1500 gallon of sap collected so far. All clear and @ 3%. Will start to boil tomorrow . I have all sugar maple tapped. Was worried that I was going to miss it this year tapping later but I think we might have another good week coming up. Its funny how the sap flow occurs with sugar makers that are not to far from you. This is the first year with 3/16 and so far I am amazed how good it is going and we did not even have really good weather to see it at its best.

[HowardR]

My maple season is divided into three parts, with approximately the same amount of syrup for each:

1. February 9-18 -- Normal run to start the season but raining almost constantly and sugar content is just 1%, much lower than usual beginning-of-season run.

2. February 19-26 -- Huge but short run. Highs up into the 60s and 70s with no frosts at night. I wake up every hour and a half at night to keep my RO and evaporator running 24 hours a day, because, otherwise, the warm weather would ruin the collected sap before I could process it. Sap soon slows to a trickle and silver maples just 60 miles south of me are reportedly budding.

3. February 27 - March 7 -- Perfect maple weather. Highs around 40, lows around 20. My challenge is to run the RO every second that it is possible (as I must wheel it into the house whenever there is a frost). Some days I can only run it for six frost-free hours. But I'm not complaining. This late season run has saved my maple season. I'm so glad I retapped some of my sugar maples. I already have bottled a normal amount of syrup -- enough to satisfy my customers, friends and family. And last week's excellent weather is forecast to continue for another week.

[Dennis H.]

HowardR, I could cut and paste that for my season also.

This Sunday will be the end of week 7 and it looks like I may even get an 8th!