Tapped in the Berkshires

[berkshires]

Question is it just too late to hope for quality sap? 26 Taps with 5 gallon buckets, I tapped early Feb 5th ish and I have collected about 240 gallons of sap, avg. 9.3 gallons per tap. Some of the smaller trees seem to be done. In Richmond MA.... A Rookie.
Michael

Hi Michael, and welcome!

Is it too late? Well if your trees aren't budding, and the weather is still giving you nights below freezing, then it's just a matter of your trees. At this point it's probably getting close to the end, but there will be a lot of variability. In my experience, open taps, and taps that get a lot of sun, dry up first. Taps with tubes on them and taps on the north side of trees tend to dry up later. If you're still having fun, and the sap is flowing, go ahead and keep at it. I've tapped into early April many years, so that's not out of the question.

Cheers,

GO

[berkshires]

Sorry for the late reply on this Gabe. Yeah...I hear you. Whenever I start thinking about "have to's" and "should haves" I always remember this is just a hobby for me. If I get sick of it half way through and want to call it quits despite more good runs I just call it quits. I never want it becoming a burden.

I drained my pan last weekend and finished the sweet and ended up with 7.5 gallons of syrup over a very short 3 week season. Boiled right around 380 gallons of sap.

Blair

I think there are two issues for me that make it hard for me. One is that I was raised not to waste, and I feel like if good sap is running on the ground... And the other is that I feel competitive with myself - trying to have the best season I can. I'd even take that a step further to say that I feel a note of pride when I make a ton of syrup for the number of trees I'm tapping, without vacuum. That comes from hard-won experience about know which trees to tap, when to tap them, etc. So I'm letting myself down if I don't make the best of it.

That said, I can also forgive myself for moving on to other priorities, especially when the wife and kid want to have nothing to do with syruping.

GO

[Dusty Road Maples]

Thanks Gabe,
That is helpful and encouraging, I think I will let it go through most of next week. It looks promising as for the weather and I am using tubes into five gallon buckets. I will start pull some of the light producers and see how it goes throughout the week. I collected 40 gallons yesterday and it was mostly nice and clear. Will do my third finishing boil tonight with any luck. I am interested to see how it grades out, the sweet in the pan is significantly darker than my earlier batches. Definitely having fun with it!
Michael

[Dusty Road Maples]

Wondering: This past week I boiled 120 gallons over 3 boils with a 2 day break between the 2nd and 3rd boil. It looked a little darker while boiling than my earlier batches. I cooked it down to 1&1/2 inches in the pan and let it sit overnight. I finished it the next evening and I got 1.4 gallons of syrup. It taste great but is quite dark and the amount of black sludge in my filter was stunning. The sap went through some hoops before it got in the pan. 60 gallons were frozen for 2 weeks and then 40 were refrigerated for a week at 33 degrees and then I boiled it all over 3 days/boils adding another 20 fresh gallons of sap. Is this just too much to hope for a medium or light amber syrup? I know later in the season it will be darker but I feel like the way the sap was handled as described probably was not the best practice. Why did store it for so long? I tried to sneak a trip to Myrtle Beach in for a couple weeks of golf. So I guess the question is can leaving the sweet in the pan and then coming back to it for multiple boils yield a lower quality syrup. I never reached the draw off stage with this batch of syrup in the evaporator. The hottest it got was 4 degrees or so. My previous one I did draw off at 8 degrees and that syrup was a nice light amber. I had a great week collecting this week and I got 50 gallons on Thursday night and expect another 50 today. I am just going to boil all of this and then finish it and see if I get a better result. It has been bright and clear with no yellow tinge to it.

[Aaron Stack]

Hi Folks, sorry for the late reply, worklife called.

Still haven't boiled the sweet but have 5.5 ready for bottling and will get a bit more than a gallon from that so a little over the .25 estimate. Not too shabby. Finished scrubbing the buckets today (they were thoroughly rinsed already), and lids tomorrow. Then tank and pan before bottling.

433 gallons collected and 6.75 gallons puts me at 64.15 per gallon of syrup in 9 boils. 2 good weeks of sap with 151 and 197, 2 weeks of ice and 2 weeks of hot.

[berkshires]

Wondering: This past week I boiled 120 gallons over 3 boils with a 2 day break between the 2nd and 3rd boil. It looked a little darker while boiling than my earlier batches. I cooked it down to 1&1/2 inches in the pan and let it sit overnight. I finished it the next evening and I got 1.4 gallons of syrup. It taste great but is quite dark and the amount of black sludge in my filter was stunning. The sap went through some hoops before it got in the pan. 60 gallons were frozen for 2 weeks and then 40 were refrigerated for a week at 33 degrees and then I boiled it all over 3 days/boils adding another 20 fresh gallons of sap. Is this just too much to hope for a medium or light amber syrup? I know later in the season it will be darker but I feel like the way the sap was handled as described probably was not the best practice. Why did store it for so long? I tried to sneak a trip to Myrtle Beach in for a couple weeks of golf. So I guess the question is can leaving the sweet in the pan and then coming back to it for multiple boils yield a lower quality syrup. I never reached the draw off stage with this batch of syrup in the evaporator. The hottest it got was 4 degrees or so. My previous one I did draw off at 8 degrees and that syrup was a nice light amber. I had a great week collecting this week and I got 50 gallons on Thursday night and expect another 50 today. I am just going to boil all of this and then finish it and see if I get a better result. It has been bright and clear with no yellow tinge to it.

Three things:

1 - Yes, keeping your sap for a long time will produce darker syrup. As I understand it this happens both because the bacteria in the sap eat some of the sugar, resulting in having to boil a larger volume of sap to result in the same volume of syrup (so everything is more concentrated) and also because the bacteria converts some of the sugar to a type that caramelizes more as you evaporate.

2 - If I'm reading correctly, you batch-boiled. That means you keep adding sap to one batch, and it all finishes at the same time. Batch boiled syrup will be darker than syrup that goes through a pan with dividers, has a gradient, and is drawn off on one end as fresh sap is added to the other. This is because you are essentially adding fresh sap to syrup all the time as you batch boil, so the molecules of sugar get boiled longer.

3 - Unless you lost a lot of sap somewhere that you didn't mention, you had almost an 85:1 ratio of sap to syrup. That is very low sugar, and will result in a darker syrup.

All that said, many people (myself included) prefer a darker syrup, so don't feel bad.

Cheers,

GO

[berkshires]

Hi Folks, sorry for the late reply, worklife called.

Still haven't boiled the sweet but have 5.5 ready for bottling and will get a bit more than a gallon from that so a little over the .25 estimate. Not too shabby. Finished scrubbing the buckets today (they were thoroughly rinsed already), and lids tomorrow. Then tank and pan before bottling.

433 gallons collected and 6.75 gallons puts me at 64.15 per gallon of syrup in 9 boils. 2 good weeks of sap with 151 and 197, 2 weeks of ice and 2 weeks of hot.

Nice. Any season where you get over .25 gallons per tap is not bad, especially if you're averaging 64 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup!

I haven't even seriously started cleanup. So many other priorities. Oh man, it's gonna suck. LOL

Cheers!

GO

[Dusty Road Maples]

Waiting for it.... I have made some upgrades this year. I built an RO System, added 3/16th Tubing in our back woods for about 25 Taps. Purchased to 275 gallon IBC Totes to collect and then transfer the sap up the Hill, purchase a gas powered water transfer pump, plus 500 feet of mainline for transfering, purchased 4-55 gallon Blue sap barrels, and have been given permission from the neighbor down the street to tap a nice row of mature sugar maples for about another 20 Taps. So I will be around 75-80 Taps when all is said and done this year. And of course No Sap weather in sight ! Are we all in the same Boat? What do the big guys do? Just wait? Does a vacuum system overcome the cold weather at all or is it just one of those factors you can't control. Sap won't flow until the weather is right, right?

[Aaron Stack]

How does this impact the back end of the season? My seasons end near March 20 or 21 like clockwork. Some of the Sugars are still going, but down to a one-hand count. Should I expect the ending to remain consistent?

[berkshires]

How does this impact the back end of the season? My seasons end near March 20 or 21 like clockwork. Some of the Sugars are still going, but down to a one-hand count. Should I expect the ending to remain consistent?

Do you stop because buds are breaking, or because the trees have shut down? If the latter, if you tap later, and we still have good weather, your trees should still be running. But if your trees always bud then, I guess that's how it goes.

Whenever I run into April, I test all my sap, but I haven't hit buddy sap yet. In 2019 we had a warm up for the first week of Feb (which I missed) and then it got cold and stayed cold - like this year. That year I didn't tap until March 10, which is almost a month after my average tap date. But I still made better than a quart per tap. So who knows. If the season doesn't start until March, and then in late March we have a warm spell, we could be screwed. Only time will tell.

I hate waiting.

GO