Has anyone checked the sugar content? I've got a refractometer sitting on the kitchen table but forgot to take it out and use it.
Has anyone checked the sugar content? I've got a refractometer sitting on the kitchen table but forgot to take it out and use it.
Greetings from the Great White North (still). We put out 29 taps last Wednesday (3/18), and collected 64 gallons of sap in the day and a half before it froze up. Cooked about 2.3 gallons of syrup on Monday. As of yesterday noon, everything was still frozen up. Looks like the initial burst was it, until maybe the ground thaws a bit more by us? Hopefully this week will flip the switch to On.
Sunday I collected 72 gallons on 25 taps for the past week and then Wednesday morning collected another 70 gallons from the past few days, been running good. all ready at my sap amount from last year, due to the safer at home policy in effect my dad will be pulling taps early next week and that will be it for the season, we travel 3 hours to get to our cabin where we tap the tree so figure best to call it a season would be a great one if we could do the whole season.
Bryan
Holy sap-o-rama, Batman. Went up to Winchester area this week, to find every 5-gallon bucket, and even the 18-gallon drums overflowing. Collected 157 gallons on 29 taps, and who knows how much went on the ground. Funny side story. When I went out in the morning to collect sap, there were 25 deer milling all around. Strangely, they did not all scatter when I started clunking around buckets, walking on the crunchy snow, and talking to them. One even came CLOSER when I turned my back to attend to a bucket, getting to about 15 yards. It just stood there while I did my business and talked to it. Best I can figure, they had been licking the sap that was accumulating on the lids of the overflowing buckets, and they were worried about the human messing with their candy supply. Sad to pull all the taps, but a guy can only cook so much sap. Good luck to everyone who is soldiering on as the northwoods finally thaws out. Looks like a great season for the crazy few.
Neighbor has taps in.................sure is early for us this year. I'll give it a try this week and see if my early trees drip????? Jay
Zucker Lager
Tapped 30 trees 2/27 collected 3/5 for only 42 gallons on the week, still lots of snow in the woods hopefully the warm weather this week will take care of that and really get it flowing. We did our first boil in our new Smokey Lake Dauntless Evaporator, very nice made quick work on the 42 gallons in 3.5 hours.
Bryan
2017 7 taps cinder block arc
2018 17 taps
2019 25 taps, 7 gallons of syrup
2020 25 taps, 8 gallons of syrup
2021 31 taps, new SL Dauntless Evaporator
We did 4 test taps on 3/5, thinking that the ground and tree bases likely were still too frozen by us to allow much sap production. Looks like it is still too early for us -- only got a few cups of sap from Friday through Saturday.
Merrill area
I don't have a good count, but put in somewhere around 90 taps on 3/16 Saturday. Had decent flow and vacuum starting already when I left. Tuesday eve my brother checked gauges. 11 (low) 19, 14, 0. Found a blocked tee and cleared. Took gauge off the one that was low because leak relates to the gauge line. Typically the vacuum ranges highest at first line and similar from there dropping slightly the further in and north. Looks like a bit over 100 gallons Sat thru Tuesday eve. Would really like to see about 320 total for the weekend but that's probably wishful thinking. I'm sure they went all night last night, but I suspect they slowed or stopped today thru Thursday. Doesn't look much like it will freeze overnight tonight.
2017- 80 taps on 3/16 natural experimenting with Sap Sucking options
The original Homemade XLE 4040 RO http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...RO-suggestions on a dolly
7" short stack filter press w/air diaphragm pump
Still pretty frozen up by us. We installed 4 taps last weekend, just to see. Produced only about 3 gal sap total for the whole week. But the forecast looks so bueno here, we're jumping in today.