Maple syrup

[Peeps]

Tapped 46 trees today, still have 20 more to tap but need to pick up more buckets. Enjoyed a few cocktails with my neighbor tonight while I cut hose and attatched taps to the tubes. Tomorrow I’ll be setting up my cooker. Temps look good next week and even better the following week. A few of the trees spit out some sap when I drilled even tho it was well below freezing. Hoping for a good run.

 

[Peeps]

I think I'd enjoy the hell outta the syrup trade. I've got some maple on my place, but I don't know if those are the right ones. I know they're not silver or red, beyond that, not sure.

You can tap any maple, they all produce sap. The only difference between them all is the sugar content. So you might have to boil off more water to make your maple syrup. Still is fun.

 

[Peeps]

Did our first boil of the season today. Trees are still waking up so flow was sporadic. Collected about 30 gallons of sap. Boiled down to 3/4 gallon of tasty syrup.

 

[Bowsnbucks]

Question for those in the know -
If you tap both sugar AND red maple trees, must you separate the two sap varieties to boil separately - or will a mix of both "find it's own way" through the divided pans?? How would a mix of both maple varieties cook off??

 

[chucker66]

From my experience it doesn't matter. Sugar Maple has a little more sugar that red but it really does not matter. I tap just about every maple by my house and they are all different. Just boil it down until you are between 119 and 121 degrees and you have syrup.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Did our first boil of the season today. Trees are still waking up so flow was sporadic. Collected about 30 gallons of sap. Boiled down to 3/4 gallon of tasty syrup.

Sounds good Peeps. We haven't even tapped yet...still got a solid 2' of snow and it has been COLD! Thunking maybe tomorrow I'l begin to start tapping. Looks like a decent warm up headed our way this coming week.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Question for those in the know -
If you tap both sugar AND red maple trees, must you separate the two sap varieties to boil separately - or will a mix of both "find it's own way" through the divided pans?? How would a mix of both maple varieties cook off??

It will just take you longer to boil that mix, that's all. We are fortunate to have enough sugar maples that we don't have to tap our reds. I think down the road if I ever put in a reverse osmosis machine I might consider tapping some reds.

 

[Apple Junkie]

I think Mama Nature is about to turn on the sap-spicket in the next few days here in NY State. At this time of year, it’s fun to see the steam rising from sugar-shacks, and from behind barns and houses.

 

[Bill Loser]

cooked around 80 to 85 gallons on saturday. Got 3 gallons to finish off of that run. Yield seems to be down a bit. Sap sugar content was only around 2 1/4 -2 1/2 , depending on the day. Been weird so far. Trees run great for a little bit then stop, days when historically (weather wise)trees would have produced they dont, the when they shouldnt they do. Should be a slow week with lows in the 40s around here.
New stove worked good, I have a few tweaks to make before the next run but so far very happy with it.

 

[Peeps]

Did my second collection and boil yesterday. Trees were inconsistent on their flow ranging from 1/8 to 3/4 5 gallon pail of sap. Temps have also been all over the place. Ended up with 2 more gallons. I noticed this run made pretty dark syrup while my first boil last Saturday was light colored.

 

[Bill Loser]

Peeps ,how often do you collect?
Last year i was collecting everyday. This year i can go 1 or 2 days.
Going to start cooking tonight, hoping for 100 to 125 gallons to cook this weekend.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Just tapped my trees finally on Wednesday with my son. Still a foot and a half of snow. But mild temps. had the sap flowing a bit. Don't think I'll have enough to boil this weekend. Suppose to get get cold again this weekend and early next week so that will slow everything down. This has been my latest start to a season in the 20 years or so that we've been sugaring.

 

[Bill Loser]

Hopefully you have a better season than we are natty. Temps are too mild and no freezing overnight has got my flows sporadic at best.
Going to get cold tonight and for the near future, im just hoping its not to late for us.

 

[Peeps]

Peeps ,how often do you collect?
Last year i was collecting everyday. This year i can go 1 or 2 days.
Going to start cooking tonight, hoping for 100 to 125 gallons to cook this weekend.

Really depends on my schedule and the weather. My land is 1 1/2 hrs away. So far this year flow has been slow and sporadic because of the weather.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

up until this past week our sap flow was fantastic this year. It's looking to cool off a bit next week so hopefully we'll have another week of good flows. "we" (my uncles mainly) boiled down about 125 gallons last weekend. I haven't heard/seen what they ended up with.

 

[Apple Junkie]

Two good runs here, boiled down about 75 gallons so far and hope to boil another 35 today. That will give me a couple gallons which is all I need. After that, we give away the sap to other guys around the area that continue to boil. Good luck gents.... the weather is likely to cooperate for the next 10 days or so, at least around here.

 

[Natty Bumppo]

Hopefully you have a better season than we are natty. Temps are too mild and no freezing overnight has got my flows sporadic at best.
Going to get cold tonight and for the near future, im just hoping its not to late for us.

Yes, I agree Bill. Overnight it went from bitter cold here to well above average. Have yet to see the typical low 20's high 40's sugaring weather. It's coming though!

 

[chucker66]

We had a bit of a warm up and a thunderstorm roll through which stopped the flow for a day or 2. Knocked down an old oak accross the road so I have that to cut up now. Sap is really flowing today and should be good for the next week or so. I am cooking today and have about 75 gallons from 24 taps. I usually do 3 or 4 gallons which is more than enough for my family and friends.

 

[Bill Loser]

I have around 50 in sugar maples and another 12 or so in some box elder.
Im doing a test in one of my boxes to see how many taps will kill it. Its about 16 inch diameter and i have 4 in it so far. Thing runs like a faucet , i got 2 gallons off of it in 12 hours when we first tapped it.
Sugar content of the sm trees, 2.5
Sugar content of boxes. 2.75
Thats about normal from what ive seen here. The difference is later in the season , the boxes just drop to nearly 0 after a couple weeks, whereas the sm seem to fade down gradually.

 

[Peeps]

This is still really early for us where we are. I checked my records and the past 2 years we didn’t tap till end of March and best flow was first week of April. If it does pick up I may be swimming in sap. I tapped 25 more trees this year. I think I have around 100 taps in this year.