How are your January taps doing? Still producing?Originally Posted by Ghost
How are your January taps doing? Still producing?
If you think it's easy to make good money in maple syrup .... then your obviously good at stealing somebody's Maple Syrup.
Favorite Tree: Sugar Maple
Most Hated Animal: Sap Sucker
Most Loved Animal: Devon Rex Cat
Favorite Kingpin: Bruce Bascom
40 Sugar Maple Taps ... 23 in CT and 17 in NY .... 29 on gravity tubing and 11 on 5G buckets ... 2019 Totals 508 gallons of sap, 7 boils, 11.4 gallons of syrup.
1 Girlfriend that gives away all my syrup to her friends.
Volume a little less than as trees tapped later, based on drip rate from 3/16. Have not tested brix, they all flow into the same tank.
A while back I read a study from Cornell that trees tapped early never fully catch up to trees tapped later. Still I like your “value” metric to get 80% of a maximum season in 4 or so boils.
2019 LNG fired pot, 20 taps on 3/16, 10 buckets, gave it up after 3 gal.
2020 New Mason 2x4 XL; 30 taps on 3/16
Brix are hanging around 2. Three days of collection have been 2.1, 1.9, and 2. The 30 taps in the woods on 3/16 have been flowing all 3 days really good. The buckets and bags a little less until yesterday, which was good The 11 on 5/16 in the woods just started to flow yesterday.
2024 55 3/16 gravity, 19 5/16 gravity, 40 buckets and bags, RO Bucket rb15 kit, 5ft Phaneuf drop flue evaporator, Mason AUF arch.
2023 35 3/16 gravity, 30 5/16 gravity 53 buckets and bags, RO Bucket rb15 kit, 5ft Phaneuf drop flue evaporator.
Mason AUF arch
2022 35 3/16 gravity, 28 5/16 gravity, 50 buckets and bags, New RO Bucket rb15 kit.
2021 11 on 5/16 gravity, 30 on 3/16 gravity, 69 on buckets and bags. All sugar maples. Mostly large old trees.
Are you implying that if a tree looses some of its sap earlier in the season ( to a person or woodpecker ) it may reduce its brix on the sap it runs today??
What if it runs the sap in January but does not loose it. How would that effect the brix of sap run in March by that tree?
My TTT date was Monday.
Yesterday was my best running sap of the week on about 3 out of every 4 taps and perhaps at 60% to 70% of capacity on those.
Was hoping for full capacity on all by yesterday. A bit more thawing to go I suspect.
My brix on some BIG trees is slightly over 2% have not tested the smaller trees, but I bet a bit less.
Hoping for 3% by early March.
If you think it's easy to make good money in maple syrup .... then your obviously good at stealing somebody's Maple Syrup.
Favorite Tree: Sugar Maple
Most Hated Animal: Sap Sucker
Most Loved Animal: Devon Rex Cat
Favorite Kingpin: Bruce Bascom
40 Sugar Maple Taps ... 23 in CT and 17 in NY .... 29 on gravity tubing and 11 on 5G buckets ... 2019 Totals 508 gallons of sap, 7 boils, 11.4 gallons of syrup.
1 Girlfriend that gives away all my syrup to her friends.
My 250 gallon tote is almost full, expecting it to reach capacity this evening as I'm still collecting today. I was lucky enough to hit 29F last night.
Seems I'll be running the RO tonight and firing up the evaporator for my first boil tomorrow.
I hope the rains stay away tomorrow...
2025 - 160 taps, Shruflo 4048. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 Raised Flue. 5x400 RO - 30 gallons
2024 - 160 taps, Shurflo 4048. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 Raised Flue. 5x400 RO - 19 gallons
2023 - 121 taps. Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 XL, 4x150 RO. 20 gallons
2022 - 103 taps. Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 XL, 4x150 RO. 23 gallons
2021 - 77 taps on Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 2020
__________________________
Trout Brook Valley
Weston, CT
Yes, based on the Cornell paper.
Today’s Brix 1.3, and I don’t have an RO. Oye.
2019 LNG fired pot, 20 taps on 3/16, 10 buckets, gave it up after 3 gal.
2020 New Mason 2x4 XL; 30 taps on 3/16
Collected 450 gallons this morning, ran it through the RO twice and lit the fire of the year. The collected sap was around 2.2 brix but keep in mind I still have sizable ice blocks in all my collection tanks. Didn't test it out of the tree. Drew off 3.5 gallons ready to bottle. Should have another 400+ gallons to boil tomorrow morning. With a sweep I hope to draw 5 or more gallons tomorrow? Guess we'll see!
1980 - 6 taps, stone fire pit, drain pan evaporator, 1 pint of syrup
2016 - 55 taps on 3/16 and gravity, new sugar shack, 2x3 Mason XL, 16 gallons of syrup
2017 - 170 taps on 3/16, 2x4 Mason XL, NextGen RO. 50 gallons of syrup
2018 - 250+ taps on gravity and buckets, 2x5 Smokey Lake arch and Beaverland pan.
2019 - 250+ taps on gravity. A few buckets. 35 gallons of syrup.
2020 - 300+ taps on gravity. 50 gallons of syrup.
2021 - 280 taps on gravity and 40 buckets. 35 gallons of syrup.
I'm not sure what paper in particular you are referring to, but I don't think that is what they were saying, or that is what would happen. I think you are referring to a paper that says if you tap earlier you'll make about the same amount of syrup as you would if you tap later. It is not what all the research has shown. Typically, IF you use vacuum AND you use good sanitation AND you tap early AND there is good weather for a few runs early, then you will make more syrup tapping early. Wilmot (UVM PMRC/UVM Extension) did that research several years ago. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/m0608tappingtiming/ Cornell (Orefice, then later Wild at Uihlein) repeated that https://mapleresearch.org/pub/retapmd1220/ A lot depends on how the year plays out, which you can't tell ahead of time.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
First boil of the season... It was a success.
I cant tell you how nice it was to spend time outside with the kids, especially my son who is bravely fighting cancer for the second time...
Two gallons of syrup, a pan full of sweet, and some fun lessons about RO, evaporation, and what makes sap good on pancakes!
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2025 - 160 taps, Shruflo 4048. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 Raised Flue. 5x400 RO - 30 gallons
2024 - 160 taps, Shurflo 4048. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 Raised Flue. 5x400 RO - 19 gallons
2023 - 121 taps. Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 XL, 4x150 RO. 20 gallons
2022 - 103 taps. Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 XL, 4x150 RO. 23 gallons
2021 - 77 taps on Shurflo 4008. Sap Sucker 4-D. Mason 2x4 2020
__________________________
Trout Brook Valley
Weston, CT
Sounds like you had a perfect day! Just think... this is just the beginning of the season. May you have many happy family boiling sessions this season!
2024 - 16 taps - buckets on our best producing trees, still boiling on a block arch with slight modifications/refinements over the years.
2021 - 25 taps - all buckets
2013-2020 - 30/41 taps: discovering which trees were the best producers
2012 - First year - 21 taps in our backyard - block arch evaporator with 3 steam table pans!
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