I started tapping Wednesday and did some more on Thursday. Froze my butt off in that cold and wind. Got a little sap Wed. and then the cold shut everything back down again. But the good news is the season is still ahead of us. I hope.
I started tapping Wednesday and did some more on Thursday. Froze my butt off in that cold and wind. Got a little sap Wed. and then the cold shut everything back down again. But the good news is the season is still ahead of us. I hope.
i got excited and taped about 3 weeks ago, 50 taps, and had about 100-125 gallons, not much since, this week i have about 40 gallons, and will likely boil a little today.
running my own arch, and danielb's old pans. first year for lines on gravity, and a sugar shackish in the woods.
Ok, I tapped my 50 reds this w/e....just got them all in before the rains last night. Most of the trees were flowing. Collected over 50L of sap this afternoon. ~1L per tree.
Will check the buckets after this next little cold sap on Wed or Thursday and hopefully collect a bit more this time.
I plan on tapping this weekend. I am running a little behind this year.
syurp by the sea
you were lucky to get your sap in. i didn't have a chance, it came on so fast here and the wind blew hard enough to knock me off my feet. that cold hit next and i ended with a lot of ice. spent the next couple of days melting ice. good thing though is the ice in the storage tank will keep the sap for a while.
nhdog
Yes, that wind was wicked, cold and unrelenting. It blew a fresh gale for days down there. If I wasn't using ice cream buckets with tubes attached, I would have had sideways sapcicles coming from the taps!!
I did end up going down today to check the buckets and I didn't even bother collecting it. It was mostly frozen and wouldn't have been much more that 10 or 15L maybe?....most of it from less than 10 of the trees. Should stay cold enough to collect later when it warms up next week.
got about 25gal last week from 30 taps, finished tapping and the sap stopped 50 in now. break in the weather coming. fingers crossed everyone had a great season!
Question for anyone out there in maple land:
I should have paid more attention to this in the past, but I'm pretty sure I notice some of my same trees seem to fair much better than others year after year (as far as good sap production). I guess I should keep better notes. Just wondering if anyone experiences the same thing and is it worth tagging them in some way for the following years....and ignoring the ones that didn't produce much for future seasons. Then I could move onto other trees a little further away and test them out. This might be a hard one to answer as I know there are many factors at play, but just wondering if anyone has experienced this. Probably not much of an issue for people with over 100 taps.
I see Galena over there in Eastern Ontario, for example, seems to have a tree that's a great producer year after year.
I have one big tree in my woods that I haven't tapped in two years because the last time I did it didn't produce squat. Its about 3.5 feet in diameter and had never been tapped. Go figure, I'll try it again.
2004 - 2012 2x3 flat pan 25 to 60 taps
2012 2x3 new divided pan w/draw off 55 taps
2018 - didn't boil surgery - bought new evaporator
2019 new SML 2x4 raised flue high output evap. 65 taps
made 17 gal. syrup
2020 - only put out 53 taps - made 16.25 ga.l syrup
2021 - Didn't work out
2022 - 25 taps on bags / 8 taps on 3/16's line - late start
Trees can be a little crazy or weird sometimes. I have some that flow great beside some that didn’t flow to much. Some seem to be good ones every year and others some years good some not. I have a few big boys that have multiple lines on them and when I did buckets they would have different levels in the bucket when collecting. That’s was weird to me same tree same temps different results. I’m sure there is some science behind it but I forgot my lab coat at the house. I’d give it a few years of testing then if it’s just not producing skip it next year if you have more trees. The big boys take a long time to thaw in my bush sometimes by the time they do the season is almost over. I like me a nice 14 inches lol
225 taps 180 on vac 45 on natural gravity lines.
2x6 drop flue with auto draw.
Home built 3 x400gpd ro
2017 kubota M7060hdcc12
2019 can am defender
2017- first year 80 taps 22x36 home made arch and pan.