NW Corner of Lake Mille Lacs - planning 3rd cook tomorrow. Grand total of about 390 - 400 gallons on 67(?) taps. Curious to see if this upcoming warm spell will curtail the good runs that we've had.
NW Corner of Lake Mille Lacs - planning 3rd cook tomorrow. Grand total of about 390 - 400 gallons on 67(?) taps. Curious to see if this upcoming warm spell will curtail the good runs that we've had.
2023 - 130 taps, 90L from 4,000L as of mid March
2021 - 84 taps, 50L from 2100L
2020 - 100 taps on buckets, 21L syrup from 2700L so far (FEB 26-Mar 13) and then the pandemic hit! End of our season!
2019 - 62 taps on buckets, 95L syrop from 3215L sap
2018 - 62 taps, collecting by hand, 90L syrop from 3200L sap
2017 - Lapierre Waterloo Small mini pro with 40 taps
2014 - 2016 40 taps making one or two batches on a 2x6 flat pan over an open arch as it would have been done in 1900
What an interesting year! (as always)
In SW MN, the epic snowdrifts made the tapping the most difficult its ever been for me; and then flooding made sap collection at times impossible. But boy this past week the trees really let loose and made up for lost time, thank goodness my RO is humming along! No records here, but looks like we are going to end up solidly in "average" territory for the year. No complaints! Flower buds are opening now so I'm about to start pulling taps. Looking at the potential snowstorm later next week I might leave a few in just to roll the dice. I think those of you farther north may be able to squeeze out another week or two...
Dan
-15 years sugaring and counting - hoping to create a tradition my kids will always remember
-400 taps, mostly buckets (Silver Maples + a few Boxelders just for the heck of it)
-Custom-built 2x6 evap with Smoky Lake Maple raised flue, boiling in dad's old farm granary, now converted to sugar shack
-Cobbled-together RO with XLE4040 membrane
-New in 2021: experimenting with 3/16 tubing & a Shurflo pump.
We had a couple of good runs over the last few days with the freezes. Made 10 or 15 gallons of light syrup, which we haven't seen for a few years here. Some of our earlier syrup had metabolism off flavor, and I am trying the Proctor Mitigation, to see if we can recover the syrup. Silvers are beyond budded all around here and our Sugar sap is starting have a bit of a smell. We stopped collecting, but if the snow comes through might try a small batch. Well over 50 gallons for the year so far.
John
2x8 Smokylake drop flue with AOF/ AUF
180 taps on sacks
75 on 3/16 tubing with shurflo
Eden Prairie, Minnesota
We have 750 gallons of sap to cook down tonight and tomorrow (20+ hours). It's been a great year and we will probably run out of wood before the sap quits running.
2017 160 on 3/16th
2x6 homemade arch
2x4 copper drop tube flue pan
sawmill shed converted to sugar shack
Sugar decreasing, sand increasing, syrup darkening. Will pull the taps on this last collection and call it a season this weekend.
JC
44° 55' 23" N
2x6 smoky lake divided pan custom arch ‘The fire truck’
Our Syrup has been consistently dark this year. So far we have canned 31 gallons but have over 700 gallons of sap to cook. We are hoping for another couple weeks as the frost is still in the ground. Trying to get the most out of the season !
4th Generation Maple Syrup
Our Group consists of 7 families (and growing) on 5 properties.
Every year we seem to add more taps....
70 gallon flat pan
2013----56 gallons of syrup made.
2014----50 gallons of syrup made.
2015----73 gallons of syrup made.
Strange year here.
Ended up with about 10 gallons of syrup.
Trees were very slow here. Had one run on 3/16 and it out produced another run of 3/16 8 to 1.
Checked that slow run multiple times for leaks and to no avail.
No metabolism and I’m not that far away from Maple John Riley.
The slow run has a few big trees that have just started to produce.
I didn’t even get the RO dirty this year...
Less cleanup with that anyways...
Sap tested tonight at 4 brix and syrup ended up very light which is nice.
Did not tap the black walnuts due to lack of time.
Those do make great syrup.
I made a lot of progress in the operation this year but l sill have some updates to do next year.
I still have my lines up and will see what I can collect before things head south
2019
60 on natural vacuum
Smoky Lake StarCat with Hybrid pan
Smoky Lake Auto Draw
Home Made RO
Did not tap black walnuts this year as I ran out of time...
2018
75 on natural vacuum
Modified barrel stove with AUF
Home Made RO
10 Black Walnut
2017
25 buckets
Barrel stove