ALMOST MAPLE SYRUP TIME that's why you haven't...........

[SwampDonkey]

I'de have to agree with junkyard on that.

But as I understand it, the dark, thick maple syrup may taste the best and is most expensive, but according to grading, the light golden colored syrups are Vermont 'Fancy Grade' or 'Grade A Medium Amber' (or Canada grade # 1). The dark stuff is Vermont 'Grade A Dark Amber' or 'Grade B' (or Canada grade# 2). The grading seems backward to me.  :

http://www.vermontmaple.org/mgrade.htm

http://www.ontariomaple.com/aboutmaplesyrup.html

As long as there are no crystals and not alot of impurities, it all tastes lip smackin good to me.     :P

[junkyard]

The dark heavy is low grade lowest wholsale price. This is not the last of season or buddy syrup. Good old fasioned realy sweet hearty maple flavor. it was what dad made fifty years ago. I grew up on it I like it that is why I  make black pan syrup' put it on your pancakes it stays there. And the crystals are dang good hard candy.
                         Junkyard

[Furby]

The dark stuff is what I have made, and it's DanG GOOD!
The maple cream was something else, and I love those little crystals! ;)

[SwampDonkey]

Junkyard, the last of the season stuff is buddy as you say. As I remember, when I tried boiling that, it was cloudy stuff, and it got tossed. I suppose they do filter that out at the large outfits. We just boiled sap, for what we wanted that season, on the stove. It's not something I eat that often, I rarely buy it.

[Stump Jumper]

well im out of the woods for about a week, its froze back up out there and my knees are sore .we have about 3000' of pipe instaled 9-55gallen pick up points, 40+4 and5 gallen pails scattered through the woods and about 300 spiles.If our evaperator keeps up we will tap more trees next year maybe :D

[junkyard]

Stump Jumper

You got the bug. It gets in your blood like sawdust. You will tap more and more till it gets to be work. Then you make the decision, go commercial or go back to hobby. Any way may the snow be deep, and you be flooded with sap.Nothing like boiling all night to keep up. Oh the rule of thumb here is one quart of syrup per tap for production. The percent of sugar in the sap devided into I believe eighty-four gives the number of gallons of sap to make one gallon of syurp. 
                        Junkyard

[beetle]

I have been ready for 3 weeks, the juice just aint running. Gona be a short one this year.

[Furby]

It was running here, then it stopped.
Then it was running, then it stopped.
Then it was running, now it's stopped.
This coming week it should be running.
The week after.................................
: : :

[OLD_ JD]

5,000 tap's and not a single drop yet >:(
[
]

[maple flats]

Here in upstate NY we havn't tapped yet. Yea we could have gotten a day of flow here and there but our weather is not yet right. We need frost at night and warm days and we have gotten prescious few of them. If you start tapping and then get too many days with no flow because of too cold temps the hole can heal up and the experts tell me you should not re tap. I expect to tap this coming week because the long range forcast looks right. This year I will only tap about 175 but I am growing. The delay this year allowed me to put up some more pipeline. Even though I am small I have 4 pipeline setups. ranging from 72 taps for the longest and 14 for the smallest. My land has little slope and I have no electric at the bush for vacume (and a gas vacume pump would be too cost prohibative for such a small operation) to use sap ladders ( a set up where the pipeline runs down to a low point and a fitting typically with 6 small lines of 5/16 " run up to a higher line and vacume pulls it up into the higher line and then it flows downhill in the new line. These can be run as I understand it to a max combined rise of 15-20 foot max with one setup often rising 5-10 feet) so I have short runs into tanks and I drive my tractor around to the tanks and use a small gas powered pump to go from the tank into one on the tractor and then at the sugarhouse I pump it into an elevated tank on the north wall of the sugarhouse that then feeds my 2 x 6 evaporator. As I grow in size I have designed my sugarhouse to accomodate a 3 x 10 evaporator if needed. I have only been producing for 3 years and hope to get electric this next year or 2 and will then go up to maybe 400-600 taps. Will never go much larger than that unless I get a helper because this is part time for me and I'm too old to boil all night and then safely drive school bus at 6:00 am. If I found someone reliable to boil while I drove in the afternoon I could get a little larger.
Yesterday I set up my 4th short pipeline where I had buckets in the past and today I will rewash my pipelines (I pump water using my transfer pump into a setup I made with an air hose connection which puts an air water mix into the pipeline which the turbulance cleans the pipeline. I have a generator I run to use the compressor for this.) As promised in an earlier thread I will post some pics someday of my undulating land, sugarhouse, pipeline system, sawmill and maybe even me If my camera doesen't break trying the last item ;D . Hopefully I can get this all done soon, but 24 hours sometimes seems to run out before my to-do list does each day. 8) :'( but I sure am having fun doing what I love. 8) 8)

[OLD_ JD]

hi maple flat
iam not realy that far from where u live,about 3 hours drive up ,my operation is just at the border of N.Y state,at 20 mile from malone n.y...about the tap's they can last about 6 weeks bfore the start to heal out,the fact u dont use vacum it can last even more.
i do run 5.000 tap's and like to get up to 8,000 but right now the $ is just not there :(
ure washing set up is like what i use,it realy does the job
what size are ure main line? 3/4 or 1"?
i do have some ladder like ure talking we call them spider ladder aroud here they work fine wit vaccum,this wood is full of up and down :-\..i have to use a "reverse slop" set up whit a tranfer tank in the bush,and a domper,i will post some picture of it later when it will "run"

as long u have fun doing it 8)that all it matter ;D

[maple flats]

  8)Old_JD, thanks for the info. My forcast just went to Saturday for the right temp instead of Thursday. Seems they don't come very close on the long range forcast. How about the post Ernie made about planting a sugar maple about 15 yrs ago and already has 12", Too bad we can't grow them that fast, but then he grows 12 months and we grow about 6-7 if we're lucky and without freezes he can't make syrup.  8) 8)   8) 8) 8)8)

[maple flats]

Forgot to answer one thing, my main line is 3/4" and my runs are small enough that I will never need 1" on my place. Someday when I start renting bush who knows. I have been offered two different bushes so far, one is about 7 miles, looks good, about 75 taps. The other has a potential for about 300-400 taps but I would need to haul sap about 35 miles, haven't decided about that yet. I may find more closer and will be looking as I am ready to expand, not ready this year. If I saw enough lumber this summer I may expand to a larger evaporator and sometime even an RO (reverse osmosis)

[OLD_ JD]

hi maple
RO are very good (we do have it here coze we use oil burner) if u have manny tap's others wise u wont be able to boil long enough to caliber ure evap..that the prob we face here whene we have few day whit slow run. the set up we have here can support 20,000 tap's and i run only 5,000 ..but maybe one day i will be whit the big boy 8)

[KiwiCharlie]

What a facinating subject.  All I knew was that I liked the stuff!  I never knew what went into making it.
My stepmother sends me a tin each year from Canada.  The pure stuff, as its hard to find here.  You can buy syrup here thats got water, sugar and maple flavour added to it.  Not nearly as nice!  :D
Charlie.

[asy]

Some of the problem with chewed piping is by quill dogs too.

OK...

Um...

What's a Quill Dog?  And why do they Take your tyres?

Now, not being a total dill (just a partial one) I 'assume' they are Porcupines, and they eat tyres, but, I gotta tellya, I did have a chuckle imagining a dog with quills stealing tyres and rolling down a hill with them, or making little dog billy carts outta them...

Well, I'm not entirely sure I should admit this, but here goes:  I've never tasted Maple Syrup.

We have stuff here called 'maple syrup' but it's just an imitation one, and it's very sugary and watery...

I suspect the stuff you guys make is a little nicer than that.

asy :D

[maple flats]

Try just one time and about 95% or more of the people don't want anything else for syrup after that. The real stuff is absolutely GREAT. I'd offer to send you a sample but being so small I do not deal out of state. There's something about federal licensing or something ( part of a new homeland security law) and I don't get into that. I do what is needed for in state sales according to New York State Ag. And Markets but that is enough. Besides that I drive school bus and sell at the bus garage to other drivers and have sold out completely just with that, so no advertising etc. Maybe when I get bigger I will need some adv. but now all I need is more syrup. Many drivers keep comming back for a reorder, either for them or as gifts for their kids for christmas or birthdays (seems almost all bus drivers here are retired from other jobs and have grown kids and grand kids) If you want some I'm sure many others on this thread who are bigger do ship.  8) 8) 8) 8) 8) Oh, and yes quill dags are pocupines, they love for some reason to chew rubber and plastic.  8)

[SwampDonkey]

There is an outfit here, calling themselves organic, that taps over 40,000. No more organic than anyone else in my opinion, but it's a marketing thing. They have several full time staff and seasonal workers. Dang lot of taps to tend.  :

http://www.canadianorganicmaple.com/Aboutus.html

[maple flats]

Just returned from my woods. Too cold, 26 deg. F in the woods, no flow. This week end still promises to be good. I'll keep you posted. If they don't change the forcast I will be starting this Friday. Will take my 11 yr old grandson to tap, he really enjoys that part and the local schools are off that day for superintendant's day (teachers go to meetings). I should then be in for at least 3 or 4 days. At this point I just need about 125 gal sap to start my first boil, after that I can boil smaller amounts if the flow slows but I need enough sugar in the pan after first boil to keep it from freezing, If I had more taps that would be easier, the problem is being at the lower end of an evaporators capacity in gal/hr evaporation. I can boil away about 25 gal/hr and 100-125 gal sap gets the sugar concentration in the pans high enough to protect from freezing. Last year my average sugar % in the sap ran at 2.8% for the entire season. It'll be interesting to see if I can get that this year since the norm throughout the northeast is considered to be about 2% according to the books I have been reading. 2% for sugar maple or black maple and 1% for most soft maples. I do not tap any soft maples, do mostly sugars with a few black (3 trees, 5 taps) Still final washing my pipelines, got one section done but the second section froze and water would not flow, I pump an air water mixture, need to wait for a delivery of degrees I guess, maybe 33 tomorrow and sunny, might work then. 8) 8)   8) 8) I love pure maple syrup  8) 8) 8)

[Corley5]

Black Maples ???

[OLD_ JD]

about "chewed piping" wa have several damage by squirrel before, we resould the prob by stoping using pre-made wasing formula(who it contien cloride) and use clear water whit vinager...we cut down are damage by 75% 8) 8)...every time a saw a fisher tracks in the snow ,make me  ;D...I wish him good lunch  ;D

[maple flats]

Corley5, yes there are black maples, the leaves have 3 lobes. Try looking it up and if you can't find it I'll try to get a picture of the leaf to show you. I might be able to find one on line or I'll need to wait for the leaves to develope on the trees (not sure my memory will last that long) 8) 8) I first discovered it when I read the North American Maple Producer's Manual, a book all about maple syrup production.

[Ed_K]

 Well its not much better here in western ma, I washed my mainlines today, but haven't put up the 5/16 line. Will start tomorrow on them. I run 300 + taps and boil on a 2 x 8 waterloo raised flue, with steamhood and preheater. Its wood fired as we have lots of slabs  ;D. I think this is going to be a short season :'(.

[farmerdoug]

There is a neighbor down the road that taps and sells maple syrup.  I asked him today how it was going as we have had the perfect weather for the run since Friday.  8) He said that the run is really kicking in but with the late break in the winter weather he figures that the run will end very quickly as mother nature likes to makes up for late starts in the growing seasons.   >:(With the busted season last year here it will be hard to get local syrup if you do no have it ordered already. :

[Bro. Noble]

Well we've had frosty nights and warm days this last week,  but,  we only had one maple tree and sold it to the Arkansawyer :D :D

We used to make shorghum though.  It's cooked down in pans much like the ones pictured,  except the sap winds it's way up and down the pan in little channels that you can dam up.  You continuously skim the green foam off the top,  letting it progress through the pan.