Tapped in Chester... sorta

[berkshires]

Berkshires, I have questions about boiling on your Mason 2X3. A) What kind of maples are you tapping? 2) When you draw off, are you doing it by temp or density? c) What depth do you keep in yours? I try to maintain depth to just over the thermometer stem. I ask because I always produce a dark, heavy syrup (that tastes very good) but I am wondering if that's a function of my sap (mostly silvers/norways at -2%) or my boiling technique. I have never produced a golden and only rarely an amber. I usually draw off when the gauge says 219-220 and then fine finish on the stovetop to density.

Hey eustis22. Happy to answer any questions. This is only my second year on the Mason, so I'm sure there are things I haven't quite gotten dialed in yet, but I'm happy to share my current practices.

A) What kind of maples are you tapping?
All sugar maples, but average sugar content in the sap is 1.7-1.8%. And that's only because I skip the many many trees putting out 1.2%!
2) When you draw off, are you doing it by temp or density?
Temp.
c) What depth do you keep in yours?
Generally the same as you - just above the thermometer, which is about an inch, inch-and-a-quarter.

What elevation are you at? I'm at nearly 900', and drawing off at 219 is often too heavy. Usually for me it's in the range of 217.5-218, depending on the barometer. Certainly if you draw off too heavy you'd wind up with darker syrup. But you'd know that when you finish on the stovetop.

Do you boil a lot of cloudy sap? I only get darker syrup from cloudy sap. Does your RO warm up the sap to the point it starts getting cloudy by any chance?

GO

[eustis22]

I'm only at 106 ft but maybe I am drawing off too heavy. Something to think about for next year. I have another season with these maples but after that I'm off to maine with a lot of sugars on the property. Thanks for the answers. I only get cloudy sap after it starts to warm up. I haven't gotten my RO quite tweaked out yet so its all still raw sap. However I do preheat on a turkey fryer to boiling and then ladle that into the preheater.

[bigschuss]

Berkshires, I have questions about boiling on your Mason 2X3. A) What kind of maples are you tapping? 2) When you draw off, are you doing it by temp or density? c) What depth do you keep in yours? I try to maintain depth to just over the thermometer stem. I ask because I always produce a dark, heavy syrup (that tastes very good) but I am wondering if that's a function of my sap (mostly silvers/norways at -2%) or my boiling technique. I have never produced a golden and only rarely an amber. I usually draw off when the gauge says 219-220 and then fine finish on the stovetop to density.

I might be wrong about this. But here's my take on amber and golden syrup. The longer sap spends over a fire the darker it comes out. For example, I used to batch boil on a small 20"x20" pan and my sap would spend days cooking until I eventually had enough sap boiled to make syrup. And all of my syrup was dark. On small evaporators that boil 10 GPH...it would take 4 hours to boil off 40 gallons of sap to make your 1 gallon of syrup. On a larger 2x6 evaporators, that same 40 gallons of sap will only spend 1.5 to 2 hours cooking...and thus has the potential to be lighter. On the huge professional evaporators that same 40 gallons is probably cooked in an hour.

I boil on a Mason 2x4 and, like you, I have never made light syrup.

[UB29]

I went to Mason's 2x4XL a few years ago. Until this year, I have regularly produced all three grades. This year, no Golden. It is my belief that the ending grade of our syrup is more under Mother Nature's control, than ours. I run my Mason hard, with very dry hardwood (wrist size), and about 1-1/2" deep......seeing 12-15 gph evap. My maples are about 75% sugar / 25% reds. Draw off a little heavy, using a Murphy cup and usually need a splash or two of permeate to get to final density at bottling.
Bill

[berkshires]

Just finished bottling my sixth and final batch. Here's a photo. Hard to tell, but the first three batches are each a tiny bit progressively darker. Dunno if any of them are technically golden delicate, as I don't have a grading set. What do y'all think?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AX7iz3iGZeboGXm48

My final tally for the year was 5.5 gallons of syrup for 0.24 gallons per tap on 236 gallons of sap for 10 gallons per tap.

It was a challenging season due to weird weather, but I've been through much worse in the last few years. Overall an average season in terms of sugar percent in the sap, and gallons sap per tap. But with more to show for it because I tapped more trees and boiled faster. So I'm happy.

Two trees with four taps that were total duds, one because it produced very little sap, the other because it produced 1% sap. Couple other dud taps too means the taps that were producing did a fantastic job. Glad I tracked that all this year, so next year should be a big improvement as I weed out the duds and add (hopefully) better taps in their place. Also figured out which are my best producers, so I can put the bigger buckets on them, and hopefully not show up to so many overflowing buckets.

Hope those still sugaring (Bigschuss?) have a great end to your season.

Gabe

[bill m]

We collected and boiled sap yesterday for the last time this year. We will package it today and finish off the sweet from the evaporator tomorrow. We will finish at about 1/2 gallon per tap this year. I have one tree that was still at 2.3 % yesterday.

[bill m]

So, I just checked my monitoring system and we still have sap. About 300 gallons ran overnight. I may wait and see what happens today. I really need at least 1000 gallons to make it worth collecting and running it through the RO.

[berkshires]

We collected and boiled sap yesterday for the last time this year. We will package it today and finish off the sweet from the evaporator tomorrow. We will finish at about 1/2 gallon per tap this year. I have one tree that was still at 2.3 % yesterday.

1/2 gallon per tap is great, congrats! What do you usually produce?

GO

[bill m]

1/2 gallon per tap is great, congrats! What do you usually produce?

GO

That's a tough one to answer. Our production has been going up every year for the past 10 years, maybe longer. Our tap count has not gone up substantially in the past 3 or 4 years. We did add vacuum to one of our sugarbushes a few years ago and I am sure it has contributed to the increase in production. Totals for the past 3 years is:
2020 - 331 gallons
2021 - 420 gallons
2022 - 606 gallons This number will go up after we finish off everything in the evaporator.

[bigschuss]

Hope those still sugaring (Bigschuss?) have a great end to your season.

Gabe

Glad you had a good year Gabe. I am done too. Not the worst year I ever had, but not the best. The lack of snow shut me down early, which may sound weird. But without frozen ground and decent snow pack, the trails to my sugarbush to gather sap become muddy messes that I don't want to tear up.