2024 Tapping Season

[Balrog006]

We put in our 20 taps Tuesday afternoon while the daughter had the day off for mid winter break. About a third were running or dripping as we set the spiles. Haven’t collected yet as it’s been mostly frozen since then, some of the buckets have a half gallon or so in them. Figure with tomorrow being warmer we should see some flow and I’ll boil Monday-government holiday. The 10day looks decent for flow, high 30’s and 40’s for the day time temps, some sun and most nights down into freezing.

Good luck everyone, happy sugaring!

[ScottT]

Did a first boil in The Thumb yesterday. We had 27 taps we put in last weekend and had about 30 gallons of sap collected, but most of our hanging buckets were frozen solid. 5 gallon ground buckets had about a gallon on most. Some trees in the deeper low areas of the woods were dry. Earlier in the week my uncle went to collect sap, but dropped the 65 gallon tank off the Gator. So that was almost frozen solid with about 12-15 gallons. Then he and my brother dropped it again and broke the spigot off. Ugh! Lost a little but salvaged most because it was frozen.

Ended up boiling about 20 gallons and the syrup came out very light. Tried the new inverted cone holder "Cone Optimizer". What a difference that makes. My Sap App said the syrup temperature was 217.89 yesterday for my location, but we had to keep boiling a while up to 220 degrees to get Brix. Was a struggle. First time finishing in the shed rather than taking it home to finish in the kitchen.

Wasn't able to use my RO Bucket for the first time. Sap was too frozen. The upcoming week looks good for sap flow so hoping to get a ton of sap by next weekend.

[Balrog006]

Solid run today when the trees finally thawed out from the low teens the other morning. Wonder if they’ll continue into tomorrow as well or if two nights over 32° is stretching it…

[ScottT]

Great Boil on Saturday. We collected 50 gallons. A lot of frozen sap. (we only collect on Wednesdays and Saturdays). First time using our RO Bucket RB5. What a difference that makes. Made over a gallon of syrup.

We've been using a Murphy Compensation cup this year for the first time. First batch last week was a little thin. It was our first time finishing in the shack (I used to take it home). So we were a little nervous on a small batch. Yesterday's batch was nearly spot on at 60.5 brix at the right corresponding mark on the Murphy Cup. Still feels a little thin to me, but last year (our first really year) we were probably running a higher brix than it should be.

Our color is still golden after two weeks. Most of our trees are sugars and don't look close to opening yet (can barely see the buds). We are located In Michigan's Thumb. Silver Maple buds are swollen but still not open. Some sugars are still rather slow in different areas of our property. Others were overflowing.

Had one bucket that did not produce both weeks. Turns out it was an oak tree. D'oh. The tree identification app helped me with that one.

Hoping for another good run this week. The following week looks terrible with highs int he 60s and lows only in the 40s??

[toquin]

Well, does anybody believe the 30 day outlook? Says some low 20s middle of month. Got a new bush with 53 taps I would like to try.

[ScottT]

I'm just taking it day by day at this point. Trying to squeeze out every last drop I can. I am in the Thumb. Trees still look good, but night-time temps are struggling to get below freezing the next week to two weeks. I follow Mark Torregrossa on MLive. His forecasts are pretty in-depth and correct. His prediction is much warmer than normal temps going into March but a possibility of some colder temps late March, but by colder he means highs of 45 and lows of 35.

[littleTapper]

Well, does anybody believe the 30 day outlook? Says some low 20s middle of month. Got a new bush with 53 taps I would like to try.

Over across the lake from you, I have given up on the long-range forecasts. All year I've watched the stuff more than two weeks out look nice and cold, but then inch up once we get to about 10 days out. We have no freezes in the 10-day forecast now here in SE WI but still that long-range shows dips down near normal around March 15th. If I had to guess, it's not a forecast at that point and just using historical averages as a larger weight in the guess.

I hope we all get more season though!

[ebliese]

We got about 50 gallons today which is way below normal for collection. Hoping the sap will run more tomorrow. So far we're about halfway to 25 gallons of syrup. At least for me it will probably be a good thing there won't be much sugaring during the upcoming week as I've got a busy work week with a big job.

[dugit]

Pulled my taps on 2/26 and 2/28. Tapped on 2/1 and 2/3. Made 47 gallon with 220 taps so we did o.k. Had some dry taps and a couple running yellow and enough syrup so decided to give it up. Made a lot of dark syrup this year and no matter what we did it kept getting darker. Time to move on.Get things cleaned up and be ready for next year. Trying to get educated about tubing and hopefully have some next year. May your buckets run full.

[toquin]

New bush 60+ taps tapped Fri. 3/1. 150 gallons of clear sap. Got 200 gallons from 700+ taps ,drilled 2/4 some. Barrels had 2" some 10 gallons, some nasty.Crocus are blooming and daffodils are close. If buds break on hard maples we will be done. Still looking for the low 20s middle of month.