2020 season

[Keitha333]

Pulled the taps Thursday and did the final boil. Have a little finishing left to do but the season will close just over 13 gallons on the new rig. The limiting factor this year is bottles because my sugar supply in Michigan shut down until at least mid April from covid. Learned our new problem is not enough trees for this giant rig! When building it I listened to the advice someone posted which was build as big as you think you can grow into and we did. Guess I’ll have to get to know a few more neighbors

Good to hear you like your new rig! I like you pulled my taps to and am now finishing this morning my last batch. I was considering going longer as well but with the covid order and stuff going with it I just decided to to pull. I have to drive a little ways to get my sap. My last 80 gallons I brought to a vet friend who usually taps but did not due to his mother's health, but now he can't go see her and had to give all his med supplies to the state and is limited at work. Nonetheless he now has time and something to keep his mind sane. I will report back my final counts.

[Keitha333]

Just got done finishing and got 6.25 gallons. Total for the year is 11.25 gallons on around 375 gallons of sap boiled down. I will take it!

[DocsMapleSyrup]

A little update from Esko. We gave our first 95 gallons of sap to a fellow sapper due to work, weather outlook, and a little too big of a rig. Since then we've collected 210 gallons which is boiled. Sugar content has been from 2.5%, 2.8% and 3.2%. Syrup is the lightest I have ever had. Hopefully our season north of the cities will be a while longer. Looking forward to tubing next year.

[RileySugarbush]

We finished boiling yesterday. The trees are still running, at least those on tubing. But there is a whiff of buddiness from some of the sap from trees on top of the hill and I don’t want anything to do with that. So I’m pulling the plug.

What a crazy season! Our production is near twice our record on a bit fewer taps. I think it can be explained by lucky good weather and all new 3/16 tubing, drops and spiles. The shurflo was very effective with a pretty tight system. Regularly pulled 25 inches of Hg on 78 taps. I kept it running 24/7 even through freeze with one or two exceptions.

Syrup is lighter than normal for us, no terrible flavors like last year, most very good.

Totals are 108 gallons from 78 taps on tubing and 162 on bags.

Tapped Feb 29 and pulling on 29 March.

Good luck to all of you further north!

[warners point]

We are up to 20 gallons for the season. We used our Deer Run RO for the first time and absolutely loved it. It was nice to not have to cook for 14 hours. We got 6 inches of heavy wet snow that knocked the power out but it will result in some amazing sap runs this week.

[Schnep's]

WE are at 28 gallons and hope to get a couple good days to finish up a record year. We taped the first week of March(it has been long).Syrup has been all dark but good flavor. We had 10" of snow and a lot of wind(lots of branches and some trees down) lost power on and off yesterday.On the south end of Mille Lacs.

[warners point]

We've collected 500 gallons this week. Saturday and Sunday are shaping up to produce another 300. We will end up having a record year after last years record year of 40 gallons. It's been a strange year. Three out of the 4 weekends that we cooked we have had to deal with temps of 15 or colder.

[Keitha333]

Keitha333, How far north are you? I'm 15 miles above Duluth and having only meager flow so far. Like almost none.

Wondering if your trees ever started? My Brother in Cromwell said not all of his trees deep in the woods have let go a drop. The trees with access to sun have been running for him.

[rcarlson]

This is our 4th year of Maple Syrup. We did almost 13 Gallons of syrup on 80 taps.

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[BigPine]

At about 100 taps, sounds like we are similar size. I do mine alone, the Wife supports and does hands on when we bottle.
My biggest bottleneck was cooking, and although I can get up to 15 gph evaporarted, the start up and shut down makes for a long day - I'm 67yo.
BIG change this year! I bought the 'r/o bucket' and it has cut my cook time in HALF. You can google it - they even have an Ad on here, as well as a 'thread'.
I almost never get 3% sap, so you can imagine what this does as far as cooking goes.