how much longer till we can tap?

[RyanFarms]

I plan not to tap until the 28th. Here's my logic, based on the linked article...

http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/tapping.pdf

I am only able to dedicate about 3 weeks to the season, and based on the article I think you get better flow from a fresh tap than an old one. The article alludes to bacteria as the reason for a tap "slowing down" and being on gravity with old timey metal taps, I think I will get the most, best syrup if I wait for the stronger consistent sap runs.

Thoughts?

Dan

[swierczt]

Interesting article. I've always tapped about mid Feb....and always seems to work for me. I think you can tap too early. You may miss a run or two with weather like we are having today (50 deg. on Feb. 8), but I like the tapholes as fresh as can be during late feb. and march when the big runs come.

[ctjim]

i held off for another week or so, i did however see another local guy tapping this morning, on my way to do some work for my dad.

[markct]

well saturday i saw a guy tapping the maples on the church lawn downtown so i guess some folks around here just cant wait! i put out two buckets today just to see what would happen, the south facing one gave maybe 2 quarts of sap and the north one gave nothing at all so i think it may still be a little early. but i got all my tanks in place and hooked up, just gota wash my kegs for syrup storage and finish cleaning the sugarhouse, and run some water thru the evaporator to make sure all works well, and clean out any last bits of off flavor possibilities etc

[sugar man]

boiled tuesday afternoon made about a gal of light syrup. the adjustments i made to my little barrol evap work great.boiled 75 gal of sap in 6 hours had lots of fun cant wait till i can boil again...

[sugar man]

collected 75 gal of sap this morning,boiled from 12 to 9:30 made about 1.5 gal of nice clear light amber.new sugar house works great.i will boil most of the day tomarrow.

[dhbiker1]

Just tapped a test tree in Salem (southeastern CT) and it was running good. Made me get very antsy but i'm still holding off until next weekend if it looks good.

[ebourassa]

i put out 4 bucket yesterday and they arent really running that well, holding off till next week. still have some loose ends to tie up, i spent last week end fixing a whole bunch of lines, some kids thought it would be fun to take a lighter and burn through my lines and main line, what a mess, took about 8 hours to fix and find everything, i am glad that is done now. hopefully i can run a test boil this week on the evap.

erik

[JasonS]

I tapped last weekend, the 14th, 15th, and 16th. This was a couple of days earlier than some other years but I had the time, which has been hard to come by lately.

The trees were running very slowly, I still haven't needed to dump any buckets, maybe this weekend

[sugar man]

out of my 75 buckets about half the trees are giving me 3/4 full buckets.I have boiled every other day.I have made 25 16 oz sugarhill containers. Its great to be boiling again,everything works great.