Introduce yourselves....

[Smokeshow]

Howdy all y'all,

Signing in from Halton Hills in southern Ontario. We are a family of 4 with a 6 acre wood lot that consists of 95% sugar maple. We just finished our second year of maple syrup production with 7 litres our first year and 16 litres of finished this year off of 30 taps and 900 litres of syrup collected. I've definitely got the bug and sharing with family and friends is almost as much fun as evaporating.

Thank you all for the wealth of information on this forum (I've been a creeper for about 16 months) and i look forward to contributing when i can.

My real name is Paulo but all my good friends call me Smokeshow.

Cheers,

[ChasinSmoke]

Hi Folks,

Been reading and learning since mid season (our first). Figured it was time to start writing and asking more questions. I am a shop teacher at a public high school so I have this wonderful thing called Summer vacation (actually unpaid time off - but I am NOT complaining), that said, it's time to start building my new arch. We have 20 acres in central Wisconsin, all wooded. This past Spring we put out ten pails because I felt I needed another hobby ;-) and boiled sap on a last minute thrown together block arch made from the metal crate my bandsaw mill came in and some concrete blocks and sand. We BLEW through a bunch of old pine from when we cleared a small 2 acre portion of our land so we could build our house, long story shorter.. didn't take many 12+ hour days feeding wood to start researching a better way! That said, it was fun and very rewarding, our syrup is excellent (not bragging - just appreciating our labor;-) So, ya.. hi ~Jo

[maple flats]

Welcome aboard. My first suggestion is to put Wisconsin for the location, It helps others better know how to answer some questions.
At this point, if you had a faster way to boil, how many taps might you consider? If thinking a small maple rig, there are lots of choices. A good way to start is to look for a small used rig where a producer has out grown it. Best prices are now and as the season gets closer the prices go up. I suggest a welded pan(s) or lead free soldered. Rigs made between1990 until the late 90's can have lead solder.. If by chance you get a lead soldered evaporator, do not clean the solder to a shine, leave a dull coating on it.
Even if you get an evaporator rated for 100-200 taps, you could build a reverse osmosis machine which would remove much of the water to reduce boiling time.
Again, welcome!

[SpokaneMaple]

Hi All,

New hobbyist way out west here in Spokane, Washington! My parents visited Vermont last fall and I got inquisitive enough to read up on Maple tapping and thought I'd give it a whirl on the huge Norway Maple in my front yard. Just one tap for now, but our temperatures have been ranging 25-45 for the last 3 weeks straight. In the last 2 weeks the tree has produced about 12 gal of sap from the tap and I've produced about a two cups of syrup. I feel like I'm learning on the fly out here with zero locals to ask. Hence signing up for the forum. Any tips for running just a couple hobby taps would be much appreciated.

- Adam

[ComoClyde]

Sweet greetings: I have been sugaring as a hobby since visiting Vermont in 2013. I have nine trees - two of which are taking a rest -- within walking distance to downtown Columbia, MO. I collected 10 gallons Sunday and boiled it in a homemade evaporator. It produced a bit under two quarts.
Strange weather year. It was =-6/7 F Wednesday, but jumped to 22/55 Friday and then 32/62 Sunday. The sap has stopped for now, but we should have a few days of freezing/thaw at the end of the week.
2019-evaporator.jpg

[Crik]

Hi, I am very new to sugaring. I got into this by way of my stepson. He spent several years in High School and College helping a good friend of his with his operation.
Recognizing how much it interested him, I asked him and his mother if they would want to try it for ourselves. So in February 2018 we put in 125 taps on our property, gathered 2,500 gallons of sap, and as a result WE GOT HOOKED!
Last year we didn't have a sugarhouse or any equipment for processing so we brought all of our sap to my stepson's High School friend. For 2019 we have a brand new sugarhouse, new 2x6 D&G Raised Flu Evaporator, new 400gph D&G RO and will have somewhere around 400 taps.
This has been so much fun for us as a family and we have just begun. Looking forward to many sugaring seasons to come!
P.S. This Forum has been so helpful!! Thank you!S3.jpgS4.jpgS6.jpg

[Jjuhl54]

hey the wife and I are newbies from southeast Missouri so far we have got 15 gallons of sap

[Snowmad]

This is me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYh1REdVJOY&t=89s
Love 3/16, it works great for me!

[UPventrure]

Hi I'm a fellow sugar maker from the U.P. of Michigan. I've been tapping with a fellow member ( Plungerke) since 2013. I've often read a lot of content on here and finally figured I would make myself a profile here.

[Louie]

Hi I'm a fellow sugar maker from the U.P. of Michigan. I've been tapping with a fellow member ( Plungerke) since 2013. I've often read a lot of content on here and finally figured I would make myself a profile here.

Is this your state of the art operation?
https://www.ironcountyreporter.com/o...old-open-house