Some yes and some no Karen!!! Depends on where you are!!! The 2 guy's i know who are cooking say it's getting very dark, the count is down, and they worked some hard for it!!!!
Some yes and some no Karen!!! Depends on where you are!!! The 2 guy's i know who are cooking say it's getting very dark, the count is down, and they worked some hard for it!!!!
Two 2x4 concrete block arches with three steam trays each
Tapping in Mount Vernon since 2016, 30 to 70 taps, 5/16" tube to 1.5 to 3.5 gallon buckets, some trees on collective gravity tubing to 5 gallon buckets.
Mostly sugar maples, a few reds on 200 year old homestead
Once again, I'm proven out to be a liar. It happened three years ago, and it happened this year. I call it taps, we got 3 crappy snow days, and the buckets overflowed. I lugged in 62 gallons and we're on the proverbial encore boil this evening & tomorrow - after I cleaned the finishing pan. In an attempt to lighten the finished product of the late flow, I also cleaned the evaporator pan as well. We'll see how it turns out. Then... with the forecast as it's sitting, can I PLEASE call it taps?... I need to get the house back in order and relax a little.
Last edited by Peeper; 04-13-2019 at 04:02 PM.
Maine Moonshine
117 Sugar maples & 60 red maples on 9 acres, buckets, Leader 1/2 pint arch w/36x24 pan
No shack (...yet??)
When you start to hear the spring peepers, you know your taps have overstayed their welcome.
Encore boil finished and bottled! 1.75 gallons of dark out of 67 gallons encore run = 2.6% sap. Cleaning the pans probably kept it from being very dark?? All in all, that brings the total product for 2019 up to 12 gallons (a new record for me - esp. with 25 -30 fewer taps.) out of 402 gallons of sap as follows:
5.75 gallons Golden
2.75 gallons Amber
3.5 gallons Dark
Tapps.jpg TAPS!FA2DC26C-CD2F-4646-A407-CC558602C7FF.jpg
Last edited by Peeper; 04-17-2019 at 05:52 PM.
Maine Moonshine
117 Sugar maples & 60 red maples on 9 acres, buckets, Leader 1/2 pint arch w/36x24 pan
No shack (...yet??)
When you start to hear the spring peepers, you know your taps have overstayed their welcome.
Good for you Peeper!!!! We still have a lot of snow here, and ice still on the pond, be a few weeks before we hear them singing?? Can't wait!!!
Final boil today resulting in a gallon, quart, and 3/4 pint from 55 gallons of sap, 2.44% sugar content. Interestingly it was lighter than the last batch we did with less solids. I have a suspicion that the previous batch might have been a little old.
So, in total: 498 gallons of sap boiled, 13.6 gallons of syrup, average 2.7% sugar (ranged from 2.24 to over 3); collected 600 gallons of sap for a variety of purposes, so each tree produced on average 15.7 gallons over 38 taps. The last tap I pulled, from a large sugar maple along the road, was still producing 3% ssc.
Lessons learned:
1. Tapping early is OK. I tapped around the 14th to 18th of February thinking the season would be like 2018.
2. Don't panic if things don't seem right. I fretted early on that my taps weren't placed right, and in some cases I added a tap in a tree when the one I had placed wasn't performing well. In the end it wasn't placement at all, just the slow start that everyone was seeing.
3. Even though tapping early was OK, waiting till the weather looks more favorable to sap flow will be something I will do next year.
Improvements for 2020:
1. Mortar the concrete block arch and brick liner. The bricks work great. Two seasons now with no cracked block.
2. Reconfigure the arrangement to add one more pan. I think I need to lengthen the blocks by a half block to make it work. A extra pan could put the boil rate near 10 gph.
3. Get more 5 gallon buckets for storage.
Well I guess that does it. Bees on the way in a month so I best get those hives finished; raspberry beds to re-frame; tractor shed to build; garden to plant; pine logs to get milled; barn to re-side, etc. Everyone enjoy summer and see you all next season!
Last edited by Mvhomesteader; 04-14-2019 at 08:19 PM.
Two 2x4 concrete block arches with three steam trays each
Tapping in Mount Vernon since 2016, 30 to 70 taps, 5/16" tube to 1.5 to 3.5 gallon buckets, some trees on collective gravity tubing to 5 gallon buckets.
Mostly sugar maples, a few reds on 200 year old homestead
Looks like you had a great year Karen!!!!!!