Checking what VT sugar makers are doing

[blissville maples]

Slowed way down yesterday afternoon once sun went behind clouds. Need freezing night again! That's the problem down here in the valley we lose our freezing nights quick but they're on their way back. Managed to make about 100 gallons of Amber rich putting us up at 2275. Usually we're into the dark by now but not yet. We still have a fair amount of snow cover which is a bonus I'm thinking we have at least another 10 days down here in the Southern Champlain valley

I'm wondering if it's going to be a good season for the higher elevations?

[ecp]

Only time will tell if colder bushes come out of this season with a decent crop. I am higher in elevation and cold. It's not been a great year, but my neighbor on the other side of the mountain (north facing) is having it worse (only boiled 2 times so far). Funny thing for me is the sap is hardly running but isn't the sweetest sap like everyone else is seeing.

[DrTimPerkins]

What's the proper amount of airspace to leave in the top of a barrel? Is there a standard? We use rigid 15 gal kegs and regular 40 gal drums. I shoot for around 1/2" of space at the top but am sometimes slightly over or under.

As little as possible. You want all the barrel to get heated by the syrup to kill anything in there. Also, any amount of oxygen in the headspace will cause the syrup to darken (from the top down).

[blissville maples]

Only time will tell if colder bushes come out of this season with a decent crop. I am higher in elevation and cold. It's not been a great year, but my neighbor on the other side of the mountain (north facing) is having it worse (only boiled 2 times so far). Funny thing for me is the sap is hardly running but isn't the sweetest sap like everyone else is seeing.

We're down to 1.3 after the 2 warmer days with no freeze and marginal Thursday night. A small freeze last night forecast said 24 but I woke up to 30.

Out sugar hasn't tested over 1.8 all year as far as I know, if was higher wasn't for long!!

[blissville maples]

Only time will tell if colder bushes come out of this season with a decent crop. I am higher in elevation and cold. It's not been a great year, but my neighbor on the other side of the mountain (north facing) is having it worse (only boiled 2 times so far). Funny thing for me is the sap is hardly running but isn't the sweetest sap like everyone else is seeing.

We're down to 1.3 after the 2 warmer days with no freeze and marginal Thursday night. A small freeze last night forecast said 24 but I woke up to 30. Definitely a better year for us in lower elevation

Out sugar hasn't tested over 1.8 all year as far as I know, if was higher wasn't for long!!

[Mooneybc]

Surprise run last night during that gnarly wind storm. 1.7 gal/tap sap at 1.5% for the last 24 hours. Should be a good week for us NW folks.

[tcross]

sap ran well for me yesterday between 10 a.m and sometime last night. was kind of neat watching the sap run while getting a 5-6" snow storm. picked up 3/4 gpt testing 2.25. making some tasty amber syrup. sap should run well today!

[DrTimPerkins]

Decent run over the weekend. Picked up another 13,250 gal, running 2.3 and 1.8 Brix in the two sections of our woods. RO is running now to concentrate the 12k gal of sap from Friday and the weekend. The guys are boiling now (about 825 gal of 35 Brix concentrate they banked up in the bulk tanks last week).

Had a good freeze last night in the mid-high 20s, so the sap should run well today. About 31 deg F now...expected to be 42 deg F, sunny, no wind. Forecast for the next 10 days looks excellent with the exception of 1 day that'll be too cold...which is nice to get to give everyone a little break before it starts up again.

Sapwise we're at about 3/4 of a minimum crop (0.5 gal/tap syrup). Syrup totals always lag behind due to storing concentrate in a bulk tank.

[tjanson]

We had a good week. We collected 185 ga Monday through Saturday morning. Tested 2-2.25%. Boiled all weekend with the sap still running and ended up with an empty tank and 4.5 gallons syrup canned in jars. That puts us at 8.375 ga for the season that already beats our previous record of ~7 gallons on 40 taps. What we thought was a "reach goal" of 10 gallons should be achieved next weekend!

[tcross]

pretty good sap run for us yesterday. picked up about 1 gallon per tap. sap tested 2.5% which was very nice! it ran really hard from 9 a.m to about 4 or so, then slowly petered off. very happy with the sugar content this year! the nitre... not so much. made for some very tasty amber syrup!