2017 Year in review

[DocsMapleSyrup]

I didn't know if anyone else wants to share information about their syruping year, but thought I would post how mine turned out. I tap in NE Minnesota. This year has been my absolute worst year. Here are some numbers.

Total taps: 225
Total Sap: 492 gallons
Total Syrup: 9.14 gallons

I have 50 taps on 3/16 nat vac which gave me 285 gallons or 58% of my sap. The remaining 175 taps gave me 207 gallons. That comes out to 5.7 gal/tap with nat vac tubing and 1.18 gal/tap on bags. Natural vac out-performed the bags 4.83:1 which saved my year. I collected 3 times and boiled 2 times. Needless to say, on the upside, I have a lot of wood and glass bottles left.

Anyone else care to share? I know some have had banner years depending your location and the weather in your part of the state.

[djblech]

I am located in East Central MN just S of Duluth. This was my 1st year and I only had 36 taps out mostly reds
. I collected about 220 gal of sap and ended up with 5 1/2 gal of syrup.

[Joeyhowe]

I live and tap in oak grove mn (central mn) I had 18 taps on buckets. I had a pretty good year don't know the exact amount of sap I collected but ended up with 5.25 gallons. This is my 3rd year sugaring and I'm addicted. I just got permission to tap the next door neighbors 10 acres so next year I'll have about 40ish taps. Time to fabricate a bigger evaporator pan.

[North!]

We tap right around 24,000 in the highlands above Lutsen. We produced about 6500 gallons of syrup, all on tubing. Not a great year by any means but could have been worse had we not been prepared for the mid February run. Lousy sugar content and a warm early April made it tough. We began pulling taps a day ago and the sap is running as hard as any time this spring, absolutely gushing out.

[CampHamp]

Best year of the 6 that I've been tapping, here in Southern NH. 68G produced on 120 taps. I'm on a mix of 3/16 and 5/16 (no buckets).

I use check valves and a diaphragm pump for vacuum. I keep a bottling log (attached), but do not track sap volume.

Final week was a flood. I ran out of wood, which won't happen next year (I promise myself, again)!

2017-summary.jpg

[Urban Sugarmaker]

Best year of the 6 that I've been tapping, here in Southern NH. 68G produced on 120 taps.

Attachment 16423

That's really good. Love the spreadsheet tracking.

[TooManyIrons...]

Installed test taps 01.30.17, installed remaining taps 2.10.17. Removed taps 03.22.17. Had three distinct runs, one in mid February, one in late February/early March and one in mid/late March, each separated by around a week of single digits/teens for lows and teens/twenties for highs. Tapped 25 trees, 52 taps. Collected 710 gallons of sap and got 25 gallons of syrup for a 28:1 ratio. Average 13.5 gallons sap per tap, 28.5 gallons sap per tree. Average .5 gallon syrup per tap, 1 gallon syrup per tree.

Breakdown
Season First Run Yield: 5.5 gallons syrup
Season Second Run Yield: 13 gallons syrup
Season Third Run Yield: 6.5 gallons syrup

I am not set up for these kinds of processing numbers, not interested in doing this much again as it stopped being a fun hobby at a certain point and turned into a lot of work and drudgery. I am glad I kept going, though, because my best batch of syrup came at the beginning of the third and final run which I was suspecting might happen. I also don't want to just quit and let the sap go to waste, I feel if I tap the trees then I am obligated to collect and process from those taps as long as they provide good quality sap for processing.

Not interested in upgrading or expanding the operation, hopefully things will settle down next year so I can get back to my typical season goal of 10-12 gallons of syrup as that amount is more than I need the way it is. It was a highly unusual season regarding the sap yield so I can't see reducing the number of taps but I will probably stop adding more.

Hope everyone had a safe season, will see you next year if all goes well.

[Cpausch]

This year was our worst year for tapping. We tapped early March and missed the first good run In Feburary and only got Three good days in March

[2stack]

We ended up with a little over 1/2 ga of syrup/tap on 3/16 tubing. We boiled in Feb. Mar. and April with breaks in the middle. Sap was 2.4-2.8%
Made some light syrup in mid Feb. some amber/dark amber late Feb & Mar. and only a little very dark at the end. We will call it a win I guess.

[TooManyIrons...]

Cpausch may I ask what is the approximate location in Minnesota where you tap trees? Just curious where the general areas were in MN that did not have a good season.

Welcome to MT! The more MN folks that join here and post of their experiences good or bad the more interesting the site and this state-specific forum are...