Last weekend I thought was it, with the forecast of nothing below freezing. I planned on collecting my buckets on Monday, and lo and behold, there was sap! So my last boil was Monday night, March 4. Early end to the season.
Last weekend I thought was it, with the forecast of nothing below freezing. I planned on collecting my buckets on Monday, and lo and behold, there was sap! So my last boil was Monday night, March 4. Early end to the season.
2017 - 20ish taps on buckets, boiling outside in two baking pans
2018 - 70+ taps, 14-buckets, 50+ on tubing, homemade arch from oil tank in my barn, 17 gal syrup
2019 - same set up, 20 gal syrup
2020 - less taps, short season, but RO kit was fantastic! 6 gal syrup and a maple cat!
2021/22/23 - expanded into the neighbors yards! 50 taps on buckets and 40 taps on tubing
I pulled and washed buckets yesterday and cut all my tails and washed and rinsed them out. Will pull taps this week.
I've had almost nothing running in three of four days.
Sad season.
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 all done too, my last 75 or so buckets came down today. Wound up with right around 1850 gal/sap boiled, close to last years 2000, so i'm ok with that. Have to boil down whats left in the evap. - then [ugh] clean all this stuff.
My season
I did not tap until the 23 of February. Wanted to tap earlier but could not.
Made 7.5 gallons in two separate runs by March 3 ( 9 days ) A record rate of production for me.
Had hardly a single night below freezing between the 5th of March to the 20th March* ( every bit of 15 days and then some )
Left my taps in anyway because I really did not get any of those "festering" temps for sap lines during those 15 days.
Had a run of clear sap from about the 23rd of March to the 26th of March that allowed me to make 1.5 gallons of good quality syrup. Most drops to buckets were dry at this point and all reds on runs were dry but all sugars on runs ( about 35 ) were running well with one of them at peak flow for the season. Sugar content of this sap was down a bit to 2% on large trees to 1% on small trees. Now of course my taps were only 4 weeks old at this point. In this run I pulled about 85 gallons off 35 taps on tubing runs that form some natural vacuum.
Ended with 9 gallons of an expected 15 gallons. ( 1 quart per tap ) Less than expected for the season but the least amount of processing work per gallon of syrup of all of my seasons.
Several lessons learned for me this year as they are every year ... The big one for me this year is, do not give up until temperatures dictate. And that does not mean freezing temperatures.
Happy seasons to all.
Last edited by Sugar Bear; 03-30-2024 at 09:49 AM.
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.
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