South Central Ohio early taps in sap running

[bowhunter]

i had a monster run Saturday night. It looks like a good solid 2 gallons per tap, unfortunately I'm done so it's all going on the ground when I pull the taps later this week. i've never quit this early before and have never, ever dumped this much sap. i soap washed and stored my ro membrane today, also emptied the pan. I haven't filtered anything yet but it looks like I've got a good 17-18 gallons of syrup. More than enough for us and our family this year.

[buckeye gold]

Done 2019, I pulled the plug today. Sap was still running, but it was starting to discolor and I didn't want to get into making slimy stinky syrup. I cooked off my last run from last night and made a little shy of two gallons of bonus syrup. It was a really rich dark syrup. The wife has already tagged it as Momma's Cut. It's the best flavor of the season, but my flavor profile was great all year. Also this was the easiest filtering year I have ever seen. I have never boiled past March 10th and most years I am done between March 1st and 7th. I did not get as much sap this year off the 3/16th but my sugar was up from an overall average last year of 1.4 to 2.0 this year, so I still made about the same amount of syrup. I finished with 16.5 gallons and was shooting for 18-20, so close enough. I will now flood the pan with this discolored sap and let it set for 6-8 weeks. In the next day or two I will pull taps and flush lines with Calcium Chloride. Tomorrow I'll finish breaking down the gear in the shack and washing the head tank, pump lines ad anything else.

For all you old sugarers just starting I hope for you a great and blessed season.

[bmbmkr]

We finished up Sunday night, 52 gallon for the season, pretty much sold out already, have 13 gallons left to filter and bottle, going down to Paintsville KY to borrow a filter press later this week. Dana, my niter has been TERRIBLE this year then again I'm concentrating 600-800 gallon at a time and running in a little bitty pan- I've been pluggin my cone filters and pre filters so fast-drawing off over a gallon an hour this year. The last 13 gal I've drawn off straight into 5 gallon kegs.

It's been good talkin to all a y'all this season, Dana, Dave, Rick and the rest- Thanks for all the info, inspiration and conversations. First time I've boiled in march! Very happy about it. Lots of lessons learned and some insight for the upcoming years!

Ben