Cooked off my first small batch from my yard tree. Lot of piddling for this small amount. Just kinda what I do. Probably go tap my other trees 1st of March.
I didn't boil this down quit as far as I have in past. I have a habit of getting it so thick it doesn't pour out. This tree always runs really sweet. I dont measure things in detail. This is from Probably 10 gallons of sap??

Reheating so can do final filter anf jar.



Think it was The Beav many years ago now. Said filter your sap threw cotton underwear. I do have all the big fancy filter for big strainers. But I always go with old underwear for the final filter. Gives it that clarity and special color.



Not big batch but turned out good for just piddling. I really don't use alot of syrup myself. So I usually just put it in pints and half pint jars. Not sure why it looks this yellow? Seems every batch is different color. But all taste like maple syrup.




Mac

Well looks like my little syrup project. Is now under what sports fans call weather delay.

I knew I was way early, just couldn't help myself. Didn't run much last couple days anyway.



Mac

Yep, weather delay here also Mark. Brought in 8 gallons this morning before everything freezes up.
Pretty good run there for a week or so but gonna be a bit of downtime now.

Zim

Zim
I think you guys might got a bit more snow your way than we did. Think is about 6 inches here be good guess. Wet heavy crap that doesn't move so good after settles. I just came in from blowing out end of driveway after plow came threw. Would been stone wall if left and it froze in over night.
But that's just WI and its still is February.
Im going to wait now before I tap my trees north. I know is more snow there than here. Got my cameras to watch things.


Mac

We have about 350 buckets out by trees and have changed plans a bit. We will tap a woods with about 100 taps tomorrow and two smaller woods Sunday. We also have about 130 buckets left to get out. We stopped as we had 30 plus mile winds and they would have been almost to Lake Michigan if we had put them out on the two high ridge woods we have left.

We have never got any of the early to mid-February runs. We feel if it stays cold for 3-5 days, sap won't run and tapping would work out as we would not get much or any frozen sap in our buckets.
We had a lot of really cold temps with quite a bit of snow melted off in our area. Frost got pretty deep this year. With the roots froze up we don't get much for sap runs.
Bryce

Been running real good the last few days. Averaged a little over 2 1/2 gallons per tap today.

Zim

Did our first collection on Wednesday. We got about 3 gallons per tree or 1269 gallons with a sugar content of 3.0. Not much happening now with no freezing at night. We collect all in buckets with 4-wheelers. Going to be a muddy mess by Sunday.

Bryce

Tapped last Thursday and it was running fairly well. Got 2 inches of rain Friday night. Had very dirty watered down sap. I dumped everything. Not much flowing now in this weather. The sugar content is low. I tested the sap that ran after I dumped, and on my 40 trees (Red Maples) I am averaging 1.2 Brix. Not sure if I even want to cook at that low sugar. At 1.2 Brix I will need 72 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup (72/1). Bryce, I would love to average 3.0 (29/1)

The Rule of 86
This calculator uses the "Rule of 86" — a formula that divides 86 by the sap's sugar content (Brix) to determine how many gallons of sap are needed to produce one gallon of syrup. With sap at 3.0° Brix, you need approximately 28.7 gallons of sap for each gallon of finished syrup. With sap at 1.2° Brix, you need approximately 71.7 gallons of sap for each gallon of finished syrup.

Our 2nd collection was 1065 gallons with a sugar average of about 2. We had a lot of ice in the majority of our buckets and we collected that as well as the smaller run. Hope we get better sap in the coming weeks.
Not a lot of sun the next days and strong winds. That combination seems to slow sap running also.

Bryce