I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your tap holes will be fine Brad. It's been so cold, that there really hasn't been any microbial growth
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that your tap holes will be fine Brad. It's been so cold, that there really hasn't been any microbial growth
10th year in….
100 sap sacks...Actually, I hope to never have to use them again!
1000' feet of 3/16th on gravity (not sure how many taps yet)
14x14 sugar shack
New 2x5 Hybrid Drop flue from Smoky Lake
5" filter press from Daryl
Sap Dog Chloe
Brad, I don't know this from decades of personal experience, but a scientific paper I read (I think from a guy at University of Vermont) concluded that the holes start closing with the formation of certain types of bacterial. That bacterial growth depends upon warmer temperatures. So my educated guess is that if it hasn't been warm enough to give us sap, we don't have to worry about the holes closing from this mechanism.
I continue to experiment with this and different methods. I haven't been on here for a couple of months and took a lot of heat for posting results last year. We started tapping January 29th and finished last week of March. Our first boil was February 4th and our last boil was March 25th. The season was good temps and very conducive for sap flow except the third week of February we had 7 straight days of temps in the 60's and 70s and highest temp was 78. Some years, we haven't even hardly made any syrup by them so this really hurt a lot. We ended up with 579 gallons on 2,320 taps which is one quart shy of a quart per tap. Not impressive numbers but that was is 1.16 average sugar for the year or 75 to 1 sap to syrup ratio. If sugar was 2%, we would have been right at 1,000 gallons, well you get the picture. This is 2 years in a row I feel re-drilling has been a huge benefit to us. A majority of the taps and/or tap holes had huge chunks of pink and/or white yeast in them, some completely plugged with them. Temps in the mid to upper 70s in the first third of maple season is really tough and 2 years in a row, the same week. If not for that week, I am confident we would probably still be making some syrup.
What the re-drilling did was it completely cleaned out all of this huge chunks out of the tapholes and we slap whip the taps and drops against the tree to dislodge most or all of it out of the taps. The freezing and thawing helps clean out the rest and the lines, but if not for re-drilling, I don't think any of the syrup would have been table grade, likely all off flavored because of the instant contamination. We dumped a fair amount of sap which we didn't measure and let quite a bit more run on the ground by the middle of these crazy high temps and other times to help flush out the junk. We produced right at 300 gallons in February and another 280 in March.
Brandon
CDL dealer for All of West Virginia & Virginia
3x10 CDL Deluxe oil fired
Kubota M7040 4x4 Tractor w/ 1153 Loader hauling sap
2,400+ taps on 3/16 CDL natural vacuum on 9 properties
24x56 sugarhouse
CDL 1,000 2 post RO
WEBSITE: http://danielsmaple.com
When we re-drill, we go 1/2" deeper which is 1.5" to 2" and some less on trees around 10". Since I am tapping 9 different properties some of which are adjacent to each other, we will try something different next year. I plan on tapping about 40% of the trees which are mostly west and south facing earlier than normal and only going 1" deep. Around March first, we will likely go to 1.5" deep and then around March 15th, go back and go take these taps to 2" deep. I really think this would provide the best production results but hopefully we will know more next year. What I see also, the timing with re-drilling is everything. I think it works best if you do it in a deep freeze between runs 1 to 3 days before another good run. I don't think it works as good doing it when it is warm or when it will be frozen up for a week or more.
We will also try going to 1.25" on some of the trees next year and when we re-drill, we will go 3/4" deeper instead of 1/2" deeper and the remainder we will go to the normal 1.5" when we tap initially.
Brandon
CDL dealer for All of West Virginia & Virginia
3x10 CDL Deluxe oil fired
Kubota M7040 4x4 Tractor w/ 1153 Loader hauling sap
2,400+ taps on 3/16 CDL natural vacuum on 9 properties
24x56 sugarhouse
CDL 1,000 2 post RO
WEBSITE: http://danielsmaple.com
70 in February then 3' of wet snow and 20+ days in March with no real sap flow I had no choice but to refresh my warmer sugarbushes. Cv spouts did not hold up well to those conditions and completely stopped, and even the antimicrobial spouts slowed considerably. After pulling out the bit from the refreshed hole it's like Christmas every time with sap pouring out. I'm back to getting a gal/tap from all my trees.Cold bushes at higher elevations with new drops and white spouts or antimicrobial spouts were/are still flowing well. Most of my trees were tapped in January.
Redrilling. Interesting topic. We tapped Feb, 24 so we've been tapped in for 6 weeks. Weather has been cold but fortunately here in the Plymouth area we've had enough warm days to have some good sap runs but no gang busters. Because of the seasonable cold weather, the taps holes are still running. We just need to be patient. One thing I've noticed, because of the cold temps, is that the syrup batches have been consistently the same color throughout the season. Also, lower sap totals so far but much higher sugar than normal. Just my observations, and no opinions. If the season ended at the end of this week, we would be happy with our totals.
150 on 3/16 gravity 2018 and 120 sap sacks
14 x 20 sugar shack
2014 New custom 2x6 arch "The Firestorm" w/ preheater, AUF & AOF
Smokey Lake pans and water jacket bottler
2024 new 2x8 set of drop flue pans and hood from Smoky Lake. Lengthen our arch.
Just a hobby but seems like more work every
year
3 generations working together
Wife that guards our syrup
43.74° N
As I've said a couple of times, this is the subject of an ongoing study at UVM PMRC, so hearing these reports is useful.
A couple of questions....did you ream (bigger diameter hole), drill a deeper hole, or both? Also, when did you retap (how many weeks after initial tapping, and how much time after the warm spell)?
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
I posted all of my information above but we re-drilled the first week of March and made syrup until the 25th. To be able to go almost 8 full weeks after going through 7 straight days of 60's and 70's the third full week of the season, I was very happy. We would have been close to the same gallons per tap as Proctor the last 2 years if we had gotten the same sugar content as they do. I posted this last year and again this year simply to help others. We have had great results 2 years in a row and while it may not be considered "RESEARCH" it has helped me tremendously and others too. We have used a polycarbonate spout 2 years in a row and the re-drilling if timed correctly will give you a couple more good weeks. The results this year were very satisfying, but the results in 2017 were mind blowing from all the years I have made syrup. We use a 5/16 bit for the first drill and the exact same size bit and same spout for the re-drill.
What I look at is that for the most part, we have a different climate than Proctor or Cornell and deal with some crazy temp swings they seldom see especially early in the season. I look for ways to help producers in the southern part of the maple belt to keep going for another 2, 3 or 4 weeks longer than when others have thrown in the towel. "When life gives you lemons, you have to make lemonade".
Last edited by WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER; 04-08-2018 at 08:01 PM.
Brandon
CDL dealer for All of West Virginia & Virginia
3x10 CDL Deluxe oil fired
Kubota M7040 4x4 Tractor w/ 1153 Loader hauling sap
2,400+ taps on 3/16 CDL natural vacuum on 9 properties
24x56 sugarhouse
CDL 1,000 2 post RO
WEBSITE: http://danielsmaple.com
Hey Brandon you don't want your season to go too long, cause then you'll run into another problem.....rattle snakes!!!!
Jake Moser
Moser's Maple
2 beautiful little girls
1 wife that's become her mother
www.facebook.com/mosersmaple
Mark
Where we made syrup long before the trendies made it popular, now its just another commodity.
John Deere 4000, 830, and 420 crawler
1400 taps, 600 gph CDL RO, 4x12 wood-fired Leader, forced air and preheater. 400 gallon Sap-O-Matic vacuum gathering tank, PTO powered. 2500 gallon X truck tank, 17 bulk tanks.
No cage tanks allowed on this farm!