Maple Syrup 2019

[btulloh]

I second MM's sentiment.  I've learned a lot reading this thread.  For some reason, I usually get a hankerin' for some pancakes when I'm reading it.  

[thecfarm]

The gallon amounts WOWs me.     
I use to do it,but on a very very small scale. Can't get enough verys in there.    I mean only about 20 taps and get 2 gallons. But I have fun doing it. Well I  should say we,the wife and I.

[SwampDonkey]

My cousin here only does about 2500 taps. But they have been boiling and not using reverse osmosis. They have one, but apparently it has given them troubles.

[Ron Scott]

Yes, some great effort has been displayed in the enlarged commercial systems developed to maximize production and quality. A real science for sure.

[maple flats]

I can't even fathom how much celliott and company do in a day. They made almost 2,200 gal of syrup in one day at 1 sugarhouse, and then Chris says the season has been slow. By the way, they have 2 sugarhouses too.
I will visit their big one someday, but not likely during my season. The good part is that much of their season runs 2 or more weeks after mine has ended most years.

[CJennings]

I hit about 5 gallons of syrup this season this past weekend with probably my last real boil. The red maples were starting to put out bad sap for me so I tossed a lot of buckets of sap. The sugar content noticeably dropped too. A few weeks ago I boiled 35 gallons of sap to a gallon of syrup. This weekend I boiled 90 gallons of sap down and got a gallon and a half of syrup which was a bit disappointing but that's the nature of things. I ran out of firewood (I got way behind firewood cutting last year for various reasons plus it was a bad winter so a double whammy) so if I do a small boil this weekend with sap from the sugar maples it'll be on a gas burner and given the declining sap quality and the fact I have enough syrup for myself for the next year or more, probably boiled down to sugar instead of syrup. 

This year was an experiment for me playing with 3/16 tubing (still doing buckets close to where I boil), a small sugar shack and a home built evaporator. I also filtered and bottled the syrup the way you would to sell it. I did 50 taps and couldn't keep up with the sap once it got going good with a 2x3 pan. I wasn't there all the times I wanted to be either so lost quite  abit of production that way (sap had to be dumped when I got there a few times after warm days when I was away). I might go bigger on the evaporator. I think I could go up to 200-300 taps in my woodlot and have a small commercial operation if I'm not too busy with normal work. Not big but enough to perhaps cover the taxes and then some besides on good years. I won't be buying any syrup this year either which is good. 

[Corley5]

Last boil of the season on going.  Got less than 600 gallons of sap left.  We're over 250 gallons of syrup.  We'll inventory tomorrow.  Made over 35 gallons today.  We're ready for it to end.  Michigan Dept. Of Ag inspected us Monday afternoon.  We passed with flying colors.  Just have to pay to license fee and we're a licensed, inspected Michigan maple syrup producer 😎😎😎

[Stephen1]

CJ, I'm suprised to hear you dump sap. How cloudy was it? Did it smell bad? We have been a hobby operstion forever, come up and gather on weekends and boil saturday nights. We boiled a lot of cloudy sap over the years.( We had to do something while drank beer and socialised) It just turned out dark.
I am amazed at the numbers of syrup produced in 1 DAY!
There goes the little guy and the ma and pops operation.  All good thing come to an end, and maybe it wasn't such a good thing. Now we have operations that support and keep people employed full time!

[Chuck White]

Near the end of the season, the syrup will have a bit of a bitter/nasty taste and it isn't good for much other than a byproduct added to other food items!

We now have our woodshed about half full for next season, some of it was leftover and we brought some other in, but we'll fill it over the next few days!

[SwampDonkey]

I believe it has ended for my cousin as well, no one was hauling sap today and it would have ran at 50 degrees and 30F overnight.

[celliott]

I can't even fathom how much celliott and company do in a day. They made almost 2,200 gal of syrup in one day at 1 sugarhouse, and then Chris says the season has been slow. By the way, they have 2 sugarhouses too.
I will visit their big one someday, but not likely during my season. The good part is that much of their season runs 2 or more weeks after mine has ended most years.

Come on up! We’ll be boiling till at least Saturday. 
That day we made 2200, they did 1400 in Cabot, and set a new record, pushed the evaporator to 180 gallons of syrup per hour. That’s cranking!
We did 1400 gallons today, boiled 9-2, just ran out of concentrate, RO was down for rinsing. I expect at least 1500 tomorrow, sap is going as hard as it has all season. 2% still.
We may just salvage what looked to be a grim season after all!
I know I work at the biggest operation that is posted about on the forum, but I do enjoy reading about the smaller operations and the hobbyists. Brings me back to hanging milk jugs on the yard trees and boiling for hours on the grill
The process of making maple syrup has changed quite a lot, but the end product is still the same as it was years ago.  We have huge operations that concentrate to 35%, we have guys using no RO and firing with wood, we have guys doing buckets and homemade arches, and we all make the same thing, maple syrup! It’s a wonderful product and a great industry and I’m glad to be apart of it and doing something I enjoy every day. 

[CJennings]

CJ, I'm suprised to hear you dump sap. How cloudy was it? Did it smell bad? We have been a hobby operstion forever, come up and gather on weekends and boil saturday nights. We boiled a lot of cloudy sap over the years.( We had to do something while drank beer and socialised) It just turned out dark.
I am amazed at the numbers of syrup produced in 1 DAY!
There goes the little guy and the ma and pops operation.  All good thing come to an end, and maybe it wasn't such a good thing. Now we have operations that support and keep people employed full time!

It smelled off. Some of it was dark yellow and some was foamy. I've had buckets hang for a week and went and boiled on a weekend and the sap was fine but it wasn't 50-70 degrees multiple days for those weeks. I'm on a southern slope so it's often quite a bit warmer on my land than most of the surrounding area. That's a double edged sword in that I get sap running before most others in town but I also start getting bad sap first too and in real warm weather spoiled sap if I don't gather the buckets frequently. By the last boil I only had enough wood for one large last boil so I wasn't chancing ruining the whole batch with a few buckets of bad sap. I don't want to run out of firewood next season though. It hurt more to know there was good sap flowing last Sunday that I just couldn't boil because I didn't have enough wood than it did to toss some iffy sap. I'm actually real happy with the season overall. I boiled only a handful of times and still made a lot more syrup than previous seasons.
I'd say there's still room for the small producers. I'll never have more than a sideline thing with maple on my place, the same as some neighbors who do syrup, but there's plenty of people up for buying the syrup from the small guys, the same as with other crops. The farmers' markets are doing great in VT. 

[Corley5]

The last ten gallons or so last night was just starting to get buddy.  Color was still good on the darker side of Amber Rich.  The niter load was extreme.  It didn't take just a few gallons and the filter press was plugged.  It did freeze last night and the sap ran today but we called it.  Opened the drain in the releaser and let it run out.  My son started pulling taps after school.  Didn't get our final tally yet.  Will do that tomorrow.

[SwampDonkey]

Wasn't much of a run up here, started too late and now it's warm. I'm sure the large operations out on the edge of civilization had a decent run, but here along the river valley the climate is different. The aspen trees are in flower here now and still snow covering the forest.

[Corley5]

  308.25 gallons from 800 taps.  Someone forgot to turn on valves to 150 taps and it wasn't discovered until halfway through the season.  Whoops   We had a couple gallons spill in a bucket tip over incident as well  
  What I thought was buddy the last boil is much better after cooling down.  Drained, filled, flushed, soaked, repeated and currently soaking the pans.  Zach pulled more taps tonight.  Putting it to bed.  Going to do our best to get the rest of the taps added in for next season.  There's another 1,200-1,500.

[CJennings]

I got a little over 10 gallons of good sap (maybe 12) at my woodlot late this week. Everything else was buddy or spoiled from the heat. It stopped running too since it was above freezing too much. It's not much sap but I boiled it down to almost syrup yesterday. I'll probably boil it down to sugar, it's very dark. That's the end of the season for me. I pulled my buckets. I'll clean my tubing in the next week or two when I have time.

[Chuck White]

The season is slowly coming to an end, but there are some still going up in the Northeast and over in Michigan!

[SwampDonkey]

I would imagine they are still at it in Juniper area and Edmundston area because it is colder there than here and deeper snow. We'll be farming here and still snow out there 2 weeks later.

I looked out the window this morning on the north side of the house, still lots of white in the field. Looking out the south end and she's pretty much bare. Just depends on where you want to look.

North


South


And lots of fog.

[Stephen1]

We are all finnished, we made an impressive for us, 150 liters (x4 to convert to gallons) We averaged 3/4 of a liter per tap. 
We are slowly getting our little vacuum system working better each year!
Nothing worse than running out of firewood and still have sap. We had that problem last year, this year we had 4 skids of wood left over. 
We brought in our tanks and will wash the lines and equipment next week, if we get some sun. The sun has been lacking the last while around here.
CJ , the sunny slopes do that. I wish we had sun! Mother Nature has been a little slack on providing sun in my area.

[celliott]

The Cabot sugarhouse is all done. Not sure on gallons total there yet. I have most of the woods crew pulling spouts at the lower elevation woods that shut down first. 
Friday was the first day since the 2nd week of November I’ve gone to work in the woods and have not worn snowshoes. 23 weeks, 5-6 days a week. It felt good to put them away  we will pull all the spouts for Cabot 1st, then head to the Eden woods, hopefully the snow will be down enough at that point we won’t need snowshoes anymore. 

Still boiling in Eden as of yesterday. Haven’t got a report yet but pretty sure we broke 20,000 gallons, and have made a respectable season out of what looked grim a few weeks ago. Made 2/3 of our syrup in a week and a half !