thoughts on how much longer things will run? it's been up and down here, we seem to get one good run a week, then the temp stay's up for a few days...
thoughts on how much longer things will run? it's been up and down here, we seem to get one good run a week, then the temp stay's up for a few days...
same thing here on the south shore. the wife talked to a friend over in Barss Corner and things are slow there too. last thursday and friday were half decent runs but the rest left a lot to be desired .
I boiled 2 weekends ago and only made a bit more than 2 litres of finished, from about 175L of red maple sap. The syrup is great but the ratios are not the best. Although red maples have lower sugar content, is anybody else seeing a lower count this year in their area? Might be due to the really dry summer we had last year and some stress on the trees. My sap flow has slowed as well lately.
i finished off what i had this am and got another 5 gts. my ratio this year is none to good either. i only have 4 sugar maples the rest all red and half of them are in the woods with small tops. i,m running about 65/70 taps and have put up 7&1/2 gal. so far.
syrup by the sea,
for the heck of it tonight, i checked out my log book and for the year so far i've gotten 1 gal syrup from 47.8 gal. of sap. which is a higher ratio of course than those folks with all sugar trees. i use u.s. because all my collection and storage tanks are in gal. and also when it goes into the pans. (of course in metric it is the same ratio, 47.8 lt. to 1 lt of syrup.)
i seem to think perhaps you may have gotten rain water or snow into your sap. what have your other boils looked like ?
i'm going to pick up a sap hydrometer this summer just for the heck of it and check my sap next year after i collect.
Yeah, my ratios have been much better in previous years from what I remember but I'll have to look at my past records to verify. I now use ice cream buckets with a sealed lid to collect the sap, and the hose is in the side of the bucket, so not much of a chance for any significant water to get in there. All of the sap was very clear as well. I donated ~60L of fresh sap to a friend last weekend so he could do a small boil and he ended up with 550ml of finished, so ~1:100 ratio, almost like tapping birch!!
my ratios are defiantly worst this year. a lot more dirt/sugar sand as well ( usually attributed to a bad growing season). I have 37 taps out and 30 are sugar maple. 14L of syrup so far this year.
we seem to get 1-2 runs per week, the rest of the week is too cold/too warm... didn't expect much this weekend, but the temp is -3 right now, hoping to get one more boil.
i had 15 taps, added 4 more last week, so far we have almost 2 1/2 gallons of syrup, not sure how much sap, but it's 1/2 gallon more then last year
Bill, hope the new evaporator is working good still.
I'm looking at pulling my taps today or tomorrow. Have been getting some cloudy syrup lately, and a lot of my taps are drying up. Should have between 12 and 14 gallons once I finish off what is in the pans. Wouldnt call it a great season by any means, but it'll have to do.
2019 season - 11 taps, 2.5 gallons
2020 season - - 2x4 homemade oil tank arch, homemade raised flue, and syrup pans.
130 taps, 15 gallons of syrup
2021 CDL 2x6 pan set with real raised flues. Hoping to hit 400-500 taps on tubing
i pulled my taps sunday. most of the red the red maple pretty much gave up, plus had a couple already clouding up. left my taps in the sugar maples ,but today they too don't show much promise. i'll give them a day or two and see. i have some sap in the tank so i'l boil off and call it quits for the season, this will be the shortest season in a while. did a little over 8 gallons so that more than takes care of a few christmas presents and a whole lot left over for our self. i had low sugar content and it seems a lot more niter this year too.
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