I go to the open houses every year and the experts said that they tested the sugar content in the ice and determined that if you toss it, you are tossing good sugar. As a result they keep and process the ice also.

The sap can only be kept until it begins going bad. You will have days where the sap is crystal clear in one bag, yet off color in others. This means it is time to start pulling taps. I keep going and pulling bad taps until it is no longer a good numbers game. Then I pull everything.

Box elder sap is good for syrup?

Yews it is. Give it a try. You will like it.

I am hitting the silvers real hard right now. When they are done, I will hit the box elders for another run.

Couple of better days Sat and Sun. We collected about 850 gallons. We averaged 3.7% sugar also.

Bryce

My taps still didn't flow that great. Still have a foot of snow by the trees.
Should pick up later this week. Will boil tonight and probably not enough until this coming weekend.

We collected 300+ gallons yesterday and boiled off about 5 gallons of syrup from the previous collect.
I think we have around 20 gallons of finished syrup.

Anyone tap Hickory?

I got some trees running some not? think there might be to much frost in ground by ones not running? This is 4th year I've tapped them and they have always run last 3 years. Got about 50 gallons cooking down in the big kettle on the wood burner. I'm going to go put a lid on here in a bit. Fire the stove back up in the morning see how it finishes. Hope it don't turn out to be a 50:1 batch?? I'd stay after it and see but I'm just not set up to play out there in the dark woods. Plus I'm not at tough as the Beav I need some beauty sleep..

Thought the coyotes were just starting to cutting loose?? wrong flock of swans,,Doppy me!


Mac

We only collected 150 gallons today. Most likely won't be much of a run tommrow with the highs In the high thirties.


We set a goal today of 50 gallons of finished syrup. WE are pretty close to the 40 mark right now.
I think I need to find some new friends. Ones that hang around In bars and talk smart and shoot some 8 ball.

Almost fell into this trap once. Before I drilled a tap hole into my hickory tree, I decided to Google it.

Turns out, you peel the bark off, make a tea from it, then use sugar to make a syrup and flavor it with the bark tea. Shagbark is what they use, and you have to really scrub the bark to get the dirt off.