5000 taps, one man

[Stanbridge]

I'm thinking of taking the plunge on a 5000-tap piece of land. The land itself slopes down to the sugarhouse site, which has roadside power. The plan is to operate it mostly on my own, as my kids are still too young to help. I'll have the occasional helping hand, but probably only about one day per week. Reliable hired help is just too hard to find. The savings on labor cost would be invested in time-saving equipment.

To achieve this, I'm thinking of going the refrigerated bulk tank route to store concentrate and limit the actual boiling days. Oil-fired evaporator is a must. Perhaps a monitoring system in the woods. All of the production would be put into bulk barrels.

Any thoughts, suggestions?

[Sugarmaker]

Sounds like a plan,
Several things:
I can tap at a rate of 150 per hour, Some folks can do way more than that.
Also woods monitoring sounds great. Woods maintenance will be even better and that may take some time.
10000 gallons of sap on a great day. Thats a plie of sap. Most systems need some monitoring/work through the process. The right system may work for you. Good luck keep us posted with pictures!
Since I am old and only a small producer this is beyond what I want to do. I have enough to do to tap 650 road side maples and make 150 gallons of syrup per year! Yea I can do that and still have some fun too!
Regards,
Chris

[collinsmapleman2012]

I'm doing 4000 with only off season help, a day job, and hauling sap to SH, so its pretty doable. if i had monitoring and a bigger haul tank i could probably do 10,000 that way.

[DrTimPerkins]

It is certainly possible. We have 2 people in our 5,000 tap sugaring operation, and my involvement is primarily in end-of-day RO operation (purge, wash, rinse) and boiling. Plus we do a LOT more record-keeping for data than the typical operation.

One guy does the vast majority of the tapping here...he typically starts mid-January.

Key thing with a refrigerated bulk tank is to concentrate as high as you can to get the volume down to a manageable level. We have a 650 gal bulk tank and a 300 gal insulated overflow tank. We'll concentrate until the bulk tank is full (and the concentrate is cold), then fill the overflow tank with cold concentrate...where it'll stay cold for a day or two. Makes for really long boils, but we have a lot of time in the intervening days to clean, prep barrels, check the woods (which we don't do a lot of since we have an extensive monitoring system). If you don't concentrate as high, your boils will also be longer or have to be more frequent.

[ennismaple]

Monitoring will be a must because you won't have a lot of spare time/energy to walk lines unless you can target your efforts on specific sections of the woods.

Tapping 5000 on your own will be a challenge. If you have heavy snowpack getting 800 taps done in a day can be tough because snowshoes suck!

To limit the amount of boiling you should consider a high brix RO or at least 3 towers on a standard RO. We are at close to the limit of what 2 towers can handle. If you are storing concentrate it must be refrigerated.

The biggest problem I see with the solo operation is the "unplanned" time you need to spend. What do you do in the middle of a boil when your vacuum pump breaks down? The releaser malfunctions? You need a $1 part that is a 20 minute drive away? Or you are simply exhausted and need someone to give you a break.

I know in Quebec you can only sell farm gate and that is significantly better profit than selling all in bulk. I would consider selling as much syrup in retail containers as possible given you are immediately adjacent to a road. Cash in your pocket at the end of a day's boiling is a good thing!

Good luck with your endeavor.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Two of us run our own 400 tap operation but we do the woods repairs and tap pulling for a 5400 tap operation. We have full time jobs so are mostly weekend warriors with some days off spent in the woods. There is another guy that does the tapping for the 5400 tap operation. This setup is mechanical vacuum, 5/16" tubing and a total of 24 mainlines of variable length.
Over the last 4 years we have averaged around 300 hours of time each season to do repairs, cut up trees, replace drops/taps, etc and tap pulling at the end of the season. The guy that taps spends about 60 hours tapping and 20 hours checking leaks at the start of the season to get the vacuum up to 24-25". This bush gets a lot of snow, there is still 3-4 feet in the woods still today so snowshoes are used at least 2/3 of the time and was 100% of the time this year as we got snow early. That make a huge difference in time. I feel like we would cut 30-40% in time off the repair work if we weren't battling snow but it is what it is so know what you're dealing with. 5,000 taps is alot for one guy when the sap rolls in. It may be hard to keep with any vacuum issues during the season so I would highly recommend a monitoring system. An RO is a must for that size operation. If you can dedicate 100% of your time to the operation during the season and keep up with maintenance before the season goes, I think you could do it but you will be a busy man. Good luck in whatever you decide!

[maple flats]

Much of how many taps you can put in on any day will depend on the conditions, is the land flat or gently sloped? How much snow is on the ground? Another will be what other responsibilities do you have? What is your health condition too, at 72 I move far slower than I did at 40. It's not too much of an issue on my flat home bush, but on my lease there are parts that require something to hold onto just to get up the 45-60% slope. Think about all possibilities before you make the move. You might even be wise to line up a possible helper ahead if you can, just in case.

[motowbrowne]

A couple thoughts, one, why that size operation? I assume because the revenue is a good amount, or has the potential to be. My question though, is if you already have the capital to set up that operation, why not invest it in something less risky? Though, perhaps I misinterpreted your post about not needing to mortgage your house to get established.

Second, just some food for thought for you. After the 2016 season I bought a bigger cooker and added tubing and vacuum to my woods. Used cooker, and the tubing is a 3/16& shurflo setup, so not a huge investment, but it was a lot for me. Then, right before the season started, on February 17th I fell on the ice and broke my ankle. Farming, which this is, is risky business, especially if you need to service debt or if you rely on the income. What happens if you get hurt or get sick at the wrong time?

[Stanbridge]

I think we're getting off-track a bit here with the economics of such an operation, might be a good subject for another post. I do welcome the comments however. I do have another stable source of income, so I can live with the occasional off-year. This project is more of a lifestyle choice, as I am unable to sit still.

[maplenutter butter]

I say go for it. You only live once. I would hate to look back in a few years and say if only i had... I run 2000 taps by myself and work fulltime on top of it. It can be easily done in my opinion. It will require alot of preparation before you start, which im sure you have started already. My advice is to not skimp on anything. Buy good pumps. New ones. When they are down your not making any money or syrup. Simplify things as much as possible. Ive been doing this at this scale for 4 yrs now. I love it with alot of passion. If you have the work ethic and can forgo many things in your life during syrup season, then go for it. Who cares if you fail. We all fail from time to time. You wont have any regrets. Sorry if this got off your topic but I will always support people who want to go for it. I hope all the best for your goal.