2009 Season WestVirginiaMapler

[markcasper]

Go Brandon, GO BRANDON!!!!! GO!!!! 100 gallons here you come!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

Would be cool to reach 100 gallon as I haven't ever made that much. 97.5 gallon last year and about a gallon that came out of the press that I boiled down to candy, but that was as close as I have been. Last three years have been 92.5, 92.5 & 97.5.

Wish the weather we have had this season, I never expected to get to 90 gallons so if I get above 90, it would be tremendous.

Forecast still showing 27, 22, 28 for Thurs thru Sat nights, so hopefully a few hundred more gallon and we are about 250 gallon of sap to reach 90 and at 50 to 1 ratio, anything above 250 gallons will push the number higher.

[Sugarmaker]

Brandon,
Hope you hit the 100 gallon mark!

Chris

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

03/21/09(Saturday)

Collected 190+ gallon of sap today as we have hit the perfect sap weather now that the season is over. Today is day # 44 since I tapped first 237 taps. Got to 27 Thurs night and low 40's on Friday, 19 Friday night and close to 50 today and supposed to get to low 20's tonight and 57 on Sunday and monday and upper 20's Sunday night. Go figure, been waiting for that kind of weather for 6 weeks, LOL. Sap quality was good and hope to get another 200 to 300 gallon by Monday evening and boil it all off on Monday. Canned 12.125 gallons of Dark A which I thought would be B but had so much sludge in it I had to change papers 3 times to get the stuff filtered. Had a light flavor and very good syrup, but finally figured out I had to load it full of filter aid and the third time I still only got aprox 7 gallon thru the press. Appears with what is in the evaporator and what I haven't canned yet, we are at about 85 gallon and hope to make a few more tomorrow, depending on how much sap we get. I would imagine sugar content will be low, but we'll wait and see. So far, I have canned 81.625 gallons of syrup with 69.5 being light and the remainer being Dark. I can't believe we are still making syrup with all of the warm days in the 50's and 60's we have had over the past 6+ weeks, but the sap is still running. Most of my sap is coming from the north side bush and the were tapped less than 4 weeks ago and we still running good this past weekend. I did refresh some of the taps on Thurs and Friday to keep them fresh for this one last run. My smaller south bush with 115 taps was shutdown Wed morning when I pulled all the taps and flushed all the lines.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

03/23/09(Monday)

Today is day # 46 and collected another 295 gallon of sap that ran from Saturday evening thru about 1 pm today. Boiled off 490 gallon and sugar content appeared to be really low and probably only got 7.5 gallon of syrup max. Canned off another 7.875 gallon of Dark which puts it at 89.5 gallon canned so far this year and hopefully boil another 100 or so gallon tomorrow and that will be it for the year. Appears year end totals will be somewhere around 95 gallon for year.

[Tomahawk]

Congrats Brandon on a successful year, I enjoyed following your updates all season, thanks.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

03/24/09(Tues)

Day # 47 and it ended today. Collected another 75 gallon of sap and boiled it down and chased out sap in flue pan with about 40 gallon of condensate off of evaporator from yesterdays boiling. Canned off 4 gallon of extra dark/Grade B and probably another gallon from what came out of filter press and pans once I get it boiled down and canned at home in a few days which should put season total at 94.5.

Been a tremendous year especially considering drastic swings in temps nearly every week. Made aprox 57 gallon of sap from two basically 3 day runs Thurs thru Sat the last week of Feb and the same the first week of March and made aprox 37 gallon the other 5 weeks combined.

Appears we made 69.5 gallon of light, 20 gallon Dark A and 5 gallon of Extra Dark Syrup. Second highest total I have ever made behind last year which was 97.5 gallon and by far the most light syrup I have ever made. I have calculated sugar content, but it is even better than last year, so the best yet. I keep tweaking tubing every year and it seems to get a little better each year.

Good luck to every up north still going!

[220 maple]

Brandon,
Congrats' 92.5-92.5-97.5 and now 94.5. I'm placing my vote now for you and your trees as the most consistant producer on the Mapletrader.com web site. If we all could keep a average like that we would have something to crow about. I'm sure you want to make more each year, but to be that consistant for the past 4 years is something to be very proud of. Next season I hope you make over 100 gallons, because when that happens and it will, you will probably start a streak of several years where you avg. 100 plus.
Again congrat's

Mark 220 Maple

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark,

Thanks and over 100 would be good, but I am pretty happy with what I am averaging. My biggest south side bush has 237 taps on it and they only run about 1/2 of what normal taps do because they are on hillside with lot of slope and all woodland trees and a lot of smaller trees, so they only run about 50 to 60% of what normal trees do, so considering that, I am running closer to 400 taps in terms of production than 500. I have access to probably 300 more taps and may add a few more before next year, but just debating it at this time. It's fun to walk around in the woods and put orange flagging tape on the trees.

With a 2x8, living 30 minutes away and working full time, only so much I can do. I couldn't do as much as I do if I didn't have some good helpers. I got to thinking about what I posted about my production and in 2006 was the first year in the new sugarhouse and I made 73 gallons off of 425 taps. 2007 thru 2009 was 92.5, 97.5 and 94.5, so very consistent the last 3 years.