Red Roof Maples 2021

[raptorfan85]

Same here too. Our woods are always exactly the same russ. Our seasons usually mirror each other pretty closely. I have a really cold woods and tap mostly reds, which i believe you do too? I watch your posts pretty closely for those reasons. The sap took all day to run here, but it's rolling in now. I just checked the releaser. I'm pretty sure we'll be waking up to some decent sap.

[BAP]

Same here Russ. We did freeze overnight. But yesterday’s sap run was not too spectacular. For as nice of a day and how late it ran I was expecting more than I got.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Jake I just found and posted in your thread. Your orchard is similar to mine and it helps that most of your reds are in the coldest section. It helps to extend your season and like me you can go as long as the guys with all sugars can before you call it a season. I have never made buddy syrup and I have been tapping reds since 2005 when I told my former "maple expert" son in law that I was going to tap them. I don't get as much sap per tap as the guys with sugars do but what I do get makes better tasting syrup.

It was the same here Bruce, I was expecting the sap to run all night and was prepared for it but woke up to 27 degrees at the house. I'll take the frost over the overnight run anytime. I don't know what time it went below freezing but do know that there was frost on my deck at 4:30 this morning.

[red maples]

I am a Reds tapper too, hence the name, and most of my woods are cold too. Blocked by a nice hemlock stand. I have made some buddy syrup Reds are funny that way mine have budded with ice still in the ground. One maple might run great, another not so much. Sugar is lower, sap amount is lower but I agree with russ 100% that the syrup tastes better. I will go out on a limb (no pun intended) and say I feel it has a little more complex richer flavor to it than syrup made from only sugar maples. but thats just me. although I do feel I have a very educated palet being a chef and all. but just my opinion.

[Russell Lampron]

I agree Brad, the reds produce a richer flavor that I didn't get when I tapped only sugars. It's not my imagination either, many visitors to my sugar house say that my syrup is the best they've ever tasted. I'm sure yours is similar. I've never had anyone refer to a stand of hemlocks as nice. I hate the **** things! It's a tossup as to which is worse, the hemlocks or the beeches. This year it's the hemlock sapplings.

After a nice freeze and a slow start I'm at .7 gpt plus for sap today, the best run of the season so far. The trees were liking the rain that we had earlier. I'm going to have plenty of sap for the upcoming weekend and am hoping for a good turn out.

[Russell Lampron]

We're ready to see what the weekend brings. I've got the sugar house set up and clean and the shelves are stocked with syrup. We've prepared for the weekend like we would for a normal maple weekend in hopes that we get a lot of visitors.

I ran 515 gallons of sap through the RO and have about 130 gallons of 7% in the head tank. I'm hoping to push the dark stuff out of the evaporator and get the grade up to amber. I collected 325 last evening that I'm saving for tomorrow but can single pass it to boil today if the crowds warrant it.

Temperatures colder than predicted again overnight! I woke up to 19 when the forecast was for 23. It's supposed to warm up fast and I'm hoping for a good run today. I've been collecting sap just about every day but have been having to wait anywhere from 8 to 3 days to have enough for a boil. It would be nice to have some consistancy.

[Russell Lampron]

The turn out for the first day of what would normally be maple weekend was less than I had hoped for. Reports from around the area are that it was the same for everyone else. It's hurting us that the NH-MPA only promoted this as just another weekend in maple month. Civid or not this should have been promoted as maple weekend and let the people decide if they want to go visit sugar houses or not. With no promotion I think that they don't know that we're even trying to do it.

Because of the lower than predicted overnight temperatures the sap run got off to a slow start yesterday but when it finally kicked in the trees were gushing. We got a lower than predicted overnight temperature last night too and I hope that the trend continues through next week's warm up.

My syrup grade has been hovering in the lower dark range and no matter what I do I can't get it to lighten up. Hopefully the warm weather next week will bring in bigger sap runs and I can get the dark stuff boiled out of the evaporator. I miss the boils with 1000 gallons of sap or more. This 500 to 600 gallon crap is getting old!

[MapleSaint]

Hey Russ. It is always a pleasure to read your post. I was wondering why the syrup won’t lighting up. Here has been dark and very dark. You always have some helpful information in your post. Hope the 1000 gal runs come for you on you last journey.

[Russell Lampron]

Hey Russ. It is always a pleasure to read your post. I was wondering why the syrup won’t lighting up. Here has been dark and very dark. You always have some helpful information in your post. Hope the 1000 gal runs come for you on you last journey.

This year I think that the dark syrup is because of the small sap runs and not being able to boil every day. Over the weekend I put 1365 gallons of sap through the RO and the highest concentration percentage was 9%. By yesterday afternoon I it was coming out of the draw off lighter than I has been all season. It wasn't light enough to bring my syrup up a grade but got me into the mid dark range. The first draw off yesterday was the darkest I've seen it this season. The sap in the flue pan was a lot lighter colored at the end of the boil yesterday too. I'm hoping for a good run today to follow up yesterday's good run in hopes that I can finally make some amber.

Last season I think it was because of the low sugar content. It was rare to see it higher than 1.2% and it was usually below 1%. This season, other than the first run it's been running between 1.5 and 1.8% which until last season is pretty much normal for my trees.

[Russell Lampron]

Well maple weekend turned out to be pretty good when all was said and done. I had a lot of visitors and only one or two that didn't buy anything. The leaches that were only looking for free samples didn't come this year. I had a steady stream of customers coming through all day with no lull from open to close which never happened in the past. I was supposed to close at 4 but stayed open until 5:15 when the last customers left. Sales were just shy of what I would normally make on an average maple weekend which was real good considering how bad it was on Saturday. A lot of people said that they had seen the article in the paper and some of them said that that was why they came.

My shelves were full at the start of the weekend and are pretty bare now. I'm off to jug up some syrup and get things going for the boil this evening.