South Central Ohio early taps in sap running

[bmbmkr]

Far northern Perry Co. Up on a small mountain. Boiled till 2 am this morning, ran about 50 gallons in 6.5 hrs, roughly. I have a 2x3 Leader 1/2pint supreme setup. have another 80 gallons waiting.. Sap is just pumping out. We’re stopping at 40 taps this year. Sugar content is avg above 2.5!

2.5%!!!! That's awesome! Our trees are up on the hill too, north side, takes em a while to thaw out, but they run good. Lack of sun due to competing with the oaks, Ash, Beech and hickory, we were very thankful to have 1.5% this year- last year 1.1%. Working on thinning the wood lot to get some a these maples some more sun, it's goin to be a slow process. You aren't supposed to thin too much too fast or the trees will actually suffer. Keep up the good work, hope we keep winter here for a bit longer. We are up to 29 gallons, hope to make 50 more!

[esetter]

I believe Im done down here but really envious of you guys who are just getting going good up there. I ended up with about a gallon on my homemade arch and tube to buckets system. If anybody has any good sap left over , give me a shout!

[buckeye gold]

I'm thinking about pulling the plug today. I might wait for a chance to boil a couple days next weekend, if the weather cooperates. I'm sure it's over by the 10th of March as we have tulips up and daffodils with flower heads. I'm only a couple gallons shy of my goal and I've had a really good season with higher sugar content and low nitre. My regular season has gone very well, but my fall taps failed miserably. If I had made anywhere near my normal fall syrup I would have had my best season ever. I only made 54 ounces of syrup off 38 fall taps, that is one short boil! My goal was 18-20 gallons and I'm at approximately 16 gallons (I have to drain and finish my sweet for a final). I had a lot of damage in my 3/16 lines this year and I had constant leaks and trees falling on them. My production of sap was half what I got last year off the same lines. I'm sure that having them so broken up hurt my natural vacuum, sanitation and flows. Next year will be a year to replace at least 2/3 of my lines. If this is a trend I will rethink my use of 3/16th. I am hoping that I just had an abnormal year of damage.

[bmbmkr]

Buckeye, I'm holding out til the end of the week, we'll be freezing up tonight and I'm hoping for some decent sugar when we thaw out. I haven't boiled since last Tuesday, have collected some sap this week but it's .8% and contaminated with some buddy sap. I have been out cutting the reds out of my tubing, figure next year I am going to have all of them on the same lateral. These are right behind my house, I missed a couple last week and bottled 5 1/2 gallons Tuesday night, 1/2 pints and pints, every drop of it was buddy! I was so disappointed in myself- tasted good out of the pan and filter. My daughter wanted a taste Wed morning when we were cleaning up and I gave her some out of the filter can, she loved it, I tasted it and sweet for a second then taste like licking the bottom of a hot coffee pot. I Liked to never got that taste out of my mouth. I only had two reds in my dads woods, and 12 or 13 here behind my house and 2 in my lower woods, I guess it's like one bad apple. I checked almost every one of my 400 sugar maples with binoculars, they have buds but none are swelled or open. If I can get on more boil I'll be happy, if not, my pans are soaking in Permeate and oakite right now. 37 Gal of Good syrup so far. I just ordered $400 worth of frames and foundation for the bees, already shifting gears just in case it really is over.

[buckeye gold]

bmbmkr, I done the same thing one year, then I learned to taste syrup cold. Hey I have the number of a guy who wanted some Grade b or commercial grade syrup. I won't have any dark I'll send you his number if you want to see if he'll buy it. He called me last summer, so I'm not sure if he will still be in the market. Other than that you can try glazing nuts with it. depends on how bad it is. I think I'm going to finish my sweet today and I have a few gallons of sap I'll hold to see what happens this weekend. If I don't boil I'll dump the sap in the pan to ferment for cleaning.

[bmbmkr]

It's so bad the bees were flying Wednesday, but they weren't interested in it. I'm just going to chalk it up to experience. I'll see if it will vinegar up, might just dump it. It's bad, real bad.

[buckeye gold]

bmbmkr

Yeah if it is that bad there's nothing you can do, just dump it. I dumped what I had the time I did it. Feel free to call the guy I sent you the number for if you want to see if you can sell him some syrup. All mine is spoken for I won't be calling him.

I did drain my sweet and finished it, so I'll see what come later this week. I may be done.

We have bees in my wife's old homestead house. it abandoned and I been thinking about trying to get them out of the walls, but it's been years since I messed with bees and i have no gear left. I never tried to move any, I just got swarms.

[bmbmkr]

I've enjoyed the break the last few days, catching up on other farm chores, happy the mud has been frozen enough to get around on a little easier. It's been 12-20 hour days the last month. I'm at a pint per tap average so far, finally figured out that it's my low sugar content that's hurting my production and not my sanitation or sap per tap average. Squirrels have definitely been a pain to deal with this year, they are always chewing a hole at the top of a lateral. This coming year maybe I can get some more 3/16 in 1 ft rolls to go between the splices instead of the 800' rolls I've been buying.

We should have a good run tomorrow and Friday according to the weather, I doubt they'll start running until noon, so I plan on boiling Friday morning and Saturday morning. I've got everything clean and ready to go.

I'm sure I'll have plenty of bees visiting the sugar shack Saturday as it is supposed to hit 58F.

I ordered a couple hundred frames and some more foundation this past weekend, it's gettin time to transition to the other sweet production here on the farm. Still looking for a sorghum mill too.

[bmbmkr]

Lessons learned this year"

Draw off syrup a little heavy and thinning with boiling permeate is easier than drawing off light then finishing on gas and filtering again.

We put up some gauges this year and laterals with 15 trees do not pull near as much vacuum on 3/16 as laterals with 25-32 taps. A few extra feet of tubing is more productive than saving tubing and putting less trees on a lateral- our hill sides are strewn with ravines and hollers. Our Sugar maple density is pretty low, sometimes 100' between trees, even traversing laterally across the hill to another tree and back again pulls more sap than splitting and making another lateral.

Tubing is cheap enough to put the red maples on their own lateral. When I started this venture 3 years ago I literally put every nickel I had into it and tried to save some $ by not doing it right the first time. Red's budded last week and I missed a few, boiled and bottled 5 1/2 gallons of buddy syrup, not to mention contaminating the 15 gallons of sweet that was in my pan. I had went out and cut the red maple drops out of the lateral and spliced the tubing back together- wasted splices, time and added further restriction to the tubing system, not to mention the 24 half pints and 32 pint bottles.

Due to our wide temp swings in southern Ohio, and after watching a buddy a mine draw off ropey syrup after leaving his sweet in the pan too long- I started running my permeate into my flue pan after my concentrate all went through. Takes an extra hour or two of boiling, but we have tons of wood- and pushing that permeate allowed me to reduce the loss of any sweet by pushing it to the syrup pan, so I could drain it into a soda keg or two and keep it cold until the next boil.

Check and double check valves and cam locks on everything, RO, pumps, and pump lines. We are pumping sap 1100' from the collection tank to the dairy tank in the sugar camp, I pumped about 87 gallon of 1.5% sap onto the ground a few weeks ago- a little over a gallon if syrup, when one of my cam locks- wasnt cam locked!

Check and double check your tubing system- went two weeks before I found two tees in the lateral that didn't have drops on them- in my best lateral, 32 taps- well 30- with 100' drop after the last tree. That lateral was dumping sap into the mainline at the saddle every time I checked it got out and walked the lines and found those 2 tees just a hissing, could have got a lot more sap from that line I'm sure.

Just a few things that might help someone new out, from someone new!

[buckeye gold]

well I held out for one last run and I think I'll get to make a little bonus syrup the next couple days. I had a good run last night and the sap was good. Since I had drained my pan I had to rebuild my sweet, but I still made a little over a quart of syrup. To my surprise the sap tested the highest sugar I have ever seen from my trees as a combined lot. It tested 2.5%. So if that holds I'll get a couple more gallons of syrup made the next two days, providing the quality holds up. It's 58 right now and I'd say this ole boy is rounding third and heading home on this Maple season. I'm shutting down no later than Wednesday anyway. If all you Northern sugar makers do as well as us southern boys did this year you'll be happy campers.