Tapping in Ontario 2010

[BryanEx]

Learn something new (almost) every day. I never knew that maple syrup sold in Canada could only be sold in specific sizes. According the the Department of Justice...

SCHEDULE V.I

(Subsection 10(3))

CONTAINER SIZES FOR MAPLE SYRUP


1. 250 mL or less (sizes in whole numbers)
2. 375 mL
3. 500 mL
4. 19 fl oz (540 mL)
5. 750 mL
6. 1 L
7. 1.5 L
8. Any whole-number multiple of 1 L

I don't see any issues with it though. Just try to find a bottle that is not one of those sizes and besides, what other size would you want to sell? I just never knew it was law.

[Jerome]

It's slow here. The trees have been tapped for five days of what should have been excellent running weather but only 15 gallons from 18 taps. lots of snow still on the ground though.

[cheesegenie]

Past couple days here, perfect conditions, but a cold north wind during the
day is holding it back. But don't forget, we are still at least two weeks earlier than normal.

[DrewCP]

Hey Everyone. Just found this site last night. Looks like lots of good info.

Have not tapped our bush for years. Decided to throw a couple on this year. A couple turned into 34. We used to run 50-75. Typically we used to boil only once per season when we hit 200-250 gal of sap. The best our small bush has produced was 35:1. The worst was 50:1.

We tapped late in the afternoon on Mar 5.
+/- 40 gal on Saturday
+/- 40 gal on Sunday
+/- 25 gal on Monday
+/- 25 gal Today
I suspect we'll see another 20-25 gal tomorrow.

We are going to boil on Thursday. 1 single boil is all we need to keep ourselves in syrup for the year. Hard to believe that we will have tapped, collected, boiled, pulled the taps, buckets, cleaned and put everything away in only 6 days.

[Bruce L]

Hi Marty,looking forward to hearing more about your new evaporator and how well it works.

We started tapping on Saturday morning and we had 4,000 taps in by 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. It ran really well Saturday and Sunday and we fired up the Force 5 yesterday - after an emergency trip into town to get our RO membrane adapter machined down to the right size. This put us hours behind yesterday and we had to boil very late to catch up. Lots of learning still to do so we can get the most out of the evaporator!

[CastorMaple]

Howdy all,

Great site, and great info, glad I found it.

I've got 20 taps running since the 5th, and so far we've got about 10 litres of finished syrup. The first boil was Sunday, and I'm hoping that we'll have enough to fire it up again this weekend. The sap has slowed down to a trickle the last few days. I hope it'll pickup (cool down) next week.

This is the first year on a 2x3 flat pan on wood, and what a difference from the big pot on propane I was using before that. Starting to dream big now...uh oh.

[DrewCP]

Collected another 35 gal this evening. Should be a long day tomorrow with about 160-170 gal to boil off. We have double the amount of sap that we wanted. Our intention was to simply do a nice easy 80 gal boil. We were not expecting to collect 1 gallon per tree per day over the last 5 days.......

[Brent]

We've brought in about 1000 gallons over the last 3 days. Yesterday I put it through the RO and let is sit all day. Tonight we decided to see if the sap was still good because I'm still getting the evap back together.

Still good. Phooey. I wanted to "let it work a little" in hopes of getting medium or darker syrup.

We boiled a bit down in the kitchen tonight. I wouldn't darken up. You can tell its not corn syrup but the stronger maple flavour just didn't happen ... yet. Most of our customers want dark strong stuff. Maybe if we let it work another day it will come out better.

There's another 1000 gallons in the bush tanks waiting to get hauled in... in the rain that's coming. MUD

[Brent]

Just noticed the new names. Welcome guys.

Where is Beckwith ???

[mtbguy]

Brent, I know that you have a small evaporator for the # of taps you have but if you're looking for darker/stronger syrup wouldn't you be better evaporating rather than running it through an ro first. I'm very new to this, it's only my 3rd year but the older guys i've talked too say that time in the evaporator creates darker/stronger syrup. That's why kettle syrup is so dark. Again, I'm not an expert by any means but it seems like you're trying to get old style syrup with new style methods. If I've p***ed you off pm me and ream me out, but not too badly as I'd like to see your place in the off season when I'm out camping with the family.