Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where's the Sap??

[PhilNH5]

Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Alan40, Youare, Sugarmaker or anyother NE tappers,
I set my taps on March 9th. Beautiful day followed by a week of cold. I boiled down 5 gallons on Sunday. Got about 10 oz syrup.
I have collected one gallon from the 5 taps on Mon and Tuesday making a grand total of 6 gallons so far. Monday and Tuesday were 50+ degrees and hardly any sap.

How are your taps running? Should I just be more patient? I understand the low yield for the first week as it was just about 32 daytime highs. But the weekend and Mon, Tues were perfect sap running days. Is it due to the late winter?

I figured I could ask the other NE sugarers (is that even a word?) how their taps were doing?

Thanks, Phil

 

[sugarmaker]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Hi Phil,

By my standards, it's still quite early in the season. Erratic and unpredictable flows are part of the game. The only thing to do is talk about it. To wit...

Nobody nearby here has had a great run yet. Got half buckets full over Sunday and Monday. No freeze overnight probably was the main contributor. We did get a good freeze last night (16F), but it may not get warm enough today to take advantage of it.

I'm in the same town as the University of Vermont's Proctor Maple Research Center. They have hooked up sensors to a handful of sugar maples and display real time temperature, sap pressure, and sap flow on their very cool web page. Check it out if you want to see what's going on here in Northern VT.

 

[alan40]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Hi Phil, just some hit and miss oppertunities here. Gathered enough to come up with about half a gallon of syrup. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif My homemade rig worked well but about 10:30 last night the wind came up from a different direction then normal and I kept losing my boil. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif Finally got tired of that and stuffed the drum full. Boy did it boil then. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I can see were I'll need a shack next year and a square pan but this rig is a big improvement over a open fire. The boys and I are going out to check the buckets in about a half and hour if I get much I'll let you know. Already have my marching orders from my oldest. Pancakes for breakfast. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[JohnMiller3]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

<font color="blue">have hooked up sensors to a handful of sugar maples </font>

Thanks Dave... for that site... very very interesting...

Never had the time to do any tapping... until maybe this year with a friend... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[ejb]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

This is my first year, so I can't offer any advice, but I put out 10 taps about 3-4 days ago and have collected about 25 gallons of sap so far...much more than I expected so soon, as I am not really prepared to store much more than that and haven't setup a place to boil it outside yet...guess I could have worse problems...is a regular trash barrel (new of course) an OK place to store the sap? Right now I have filled up all my clean food grade 5 gallon containers already...I'd be concerned about chemical residue in the trash barrels..any other suggestions?

As far as boiling it...anything I should know? How do I know when it is done? (Besides by expereience which unfortunately I won't have until it is too late for this year /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif)

Thanks.

 

[PhilNH5]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Folks,
Thank for the replies. Dave thanks for the web link. The PMRC site is interesting and useful info.

I was feeling pretty good that Dave and AL were somewhat in the same boat on the "hit or miss" of sap flow. Then I read EJB's post. His trees are doing great. I must say I am envious. I was hoping to get more syrup than last year now that I have a clue as to what to do. But it doesn't look that way. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Regarding boiling down. Read the link TBN Maple sugaring 2002 I started it last year and got a lot of help from Dave and Youare.

Basically you are boiling of lots of water. I scooped out any foamy stuff and added more sap to keep the pan full. When you run out of sap or time boil down until it becomes syrup /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif . At this point it can foam over. You can throw a little snow in to stop that.

I transfer to an 8 qt pot and go inside to finish it off. You can measure boiling point. Needs to be 7 degrees above waters boiling point for your area. You can use a densiometer. I can't tell you about those as I don't have one. Or you can boil until it "sheets". I dip a spatula into the syrup and watch it run off. If it forms discrete drips it is not done. When it falls off the spatula in a sheet it is finished. At this ponit 'tis better to err on the side of caution. If you undercook it you get gerat tasting but slightly watery syrup. If you overcook it - it can crystalize and you get sugar rocks. The batch I boiled down on sunday is watery so I am still learning this part. But it tastes great.

Hopefully this will help.

Phil

 

[ejb]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Thanks Phil for the advice/link. I'll need to re-read that thread.

Just for the fun of it I boiled down 2 gallons of sap last night inside on the stove just to get a feel for how it might go....gotta tell you it came out really great /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif..not sure why I am so suprised but it really is delicious...endd up with about 8-10 ounces of very nice tasting maple syrup. My guess is I under-boiled it a little bit, because it is a little watery texture, but the taste is great and the color is nice too..

What a lot of fun...today I am going to work on the other 25+ gallons I have collected; going to try and boil it on my woodstove out in the shop.

If this works out as well as it seems I may just need to build myself a little sugar shack this summer for next year. I am lucky, I probabloy have 500 (at least) trees on my property I could tap...I only did the easiest ones this time around.

I'll report back on my results /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[sugarmaker]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

EJB,

Now you've gone and done it. Bigger sugarhouse, more buckets, more trees, bigger pan, more firewood, maybe run some pipeline? Now that the maple bug has bitten you there's no going back. Kidding aside, it is a lot of fun, isn't it? Congratulations on your success!

I still like the spatula method that Phil mentioned. Syrup of the proper density will slide off a large spoon or spatula in sheets; underboiled syrup will drip off like water. You won't be able to tell from the thickness or viscosity whether it's done; hot maple syrup runs just like water. Even room temperature it is thinner than the ubiquitous Aunt Jemima.

Don't worry too much about making it perfect; you're not selling it, so if it tastes good, it is good.

As for your 25+ gallons, just remember that you're going to put 24.3 of those gallons into the air in your shop. Wallpaper, posters, photos, etc. may not be the same afterwards.

 

[ejb]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

>>you're going to put 24.3 of those gallons into the air in your shop

Well my shop is just a shop with two big 10ft doors on either end and no finish materials so I have no concerns about it...but I did decide against doing it in the kitchen for just that reason.

Just fired up the woodstove stove about 30 minuites ago and the first large batch is just warming up.

You are right about the bug bitting...its just too much fun...maybe once I add up all the costs of setting up a "real" sugarhouse (small scale) the bug will pass...my total investment this year was less than $20..perhaps that is part of the reason it is fun. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Youare]

Re: Alan40, Youare and Sugarmaker - Where\'s the Sap??

Sorry I did not reply sooner, been out looking for all that sap myself, was hoping someone else was getting what we don't have.

The first trip gathering Saturday produced a bunch of frozen chunks of sap, each bucket was about half full and the sap was running pretty good. Sunday I was too busy other places to gather. Monday with the warm temps. I thought the buckets would be running over, not.

I think it stayed too warm Sunday night for the sap to run on Monday. Tuesday we checked hardly a drop, Wednesday we gathered about a 1/4 of a bucket full per tree. I don't really know what is going on.

The trees we tapped are in a deep snow location where there is not a lot of frost in the ground but the snow is still 12 to 18 inches deep. It looks like this season being that it came a little late may not be long. The weather today is cloudly and rainy which will keep it from running.

I know others in the area have not gathered a great amount of sap either. I have not heard what the sugar content of the sap is yet this year, I bet it is on the low side.

If I had to make a guess why things are like this I would have to say the dry summer last year is the contributing factor. Most trees really suffered from the dry conditions around this part of the state last summer.

I think this year may be a low volume year.

Randy