Southwest PA Tapping 2022

[DRoseum]

Time to start the thread. Forecast looks like we might have a thaw and first runs Tuesday - Thursday. Very tempting to tap right before that.

[HowardR]

I hope you get a nice run! I live in Armstrong County and I'll be missing this run. My son's coming up from Virginia and we'll tap the trees together on February 10 and 11. Meanwhile, I still have a lot to do in order to get everything ready.

[aunt stellas gardens]

18 buckets yesterday, sap was running on all but 1.
I had a short season last year, it got warm during my second week and I pulled the taps because of the mold specks accumulated in the buckets. I only got about 3 gallons of syrup.
Syrup season... Can't wait to start and can't wait to clean it all up. The busiest 4 weeks of the year!
New 2x3 evaporator in 2019

[SRM]

Tapped in Amity, PA. I built a new sugar shack 16 x 20 with a new 2x4 divided pan Corsair arch. That was an improvement from the propane tanks and burners last year. Today, the wife and I boiled 30 gallons to learn the process of the new arch. Well besides
the 10" stainless steel chimney pipe turning bright orange nothing much out of the ordinary happened. The blower on the Corsair by Smoky Lake Maple was fantastic, almost too fantastic. I loaded the arch like the instructions said and lit the kindling. Then I started the blower and the fun began. The steam seemed to start within a few minutes and the boil followed. Then the nice attractive orange color of the pipe shown in the darkened shed. My wife wasn't too happy with the color so I shut off the blower and the stainless orange turned to a nice shade of purple. Well after a short 2 hours of adding wood without the blower on we were out of sap. The shed did not burn down and there was a nice gradient in the divided pan when we ended. I got another 20 gallons that afternoon, but will wait for about 60 gallons before I fire it up again. I didn't think that it would boil so quickly. Time to tap a few more trees. 70 gallons of sap. some boiled on the old propane burner and some on the new arch and some yet to be boiled.

[HowardR]

It took us three days, but my son and I finished tapping today with help from a granddaughter, two grandsons and a friend. I leave my tubes out in the woods. I can't remember a year with more squirrel damage.

If the forecast holds up, there will be a huge run on Wednesday and Thursday. I'm ready!

[Pdiamond]

SRM, Congrats on the corsair arch. I have had mine for four years and love it. I have the raised flue pan set. I usually do not even think about firing it up until I have a minimum of 125 gallons of sap. I can boil close to 50 gallons an hour with the blower on. Don't worry about the stack color it just means you have the rig working correctly.

[sbedilion]

SRM...I'm probably just down the road from you. Lone Pine.....Shipe Run Road.

[sbedilion]

All tapped. 81 taps. Collected 150ish gallons on Saturday and boiled down to about 10 gallons worth of concentrate. I'll probably finish that off tonight or tomorrow.


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[Skeller001]

Sbedilion

cool photo!

[HowardR]

Low of 11 degrees last night and a high of 59 forecast for tomorrow! I can't remember a maple syrup season when the temperatures went down and up this fast.