Sap suckin time

[Jaackrabbit]

It's that season again !!!

Tapped a BUNCH of maple trees today. Grandpa said he was he was going to finish the last few trees up tomorrow. They were near the road and he didn't want the grandkids running around down there. (They were "helping" us).

The flow was looking pretty good. The main tank should be full by Tuesday or Wednesday and then we will start up the fire.

Pictures to follow in a few days....

[Jaackrabbit]

We are getting a pretty good flow down here. If it keeps up we will be starting a fire Tuesday afternoon.
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[lonehunter]

We have a sap house on the old family farm in Maine .
My buddy has a outdoor open shed for the pancake gold , what do you and gramps have ?
My buddy has 125 trees tapped as of today with another 30 or 40 to go , this weekend they had 140 gallons in the holding tank and with luck will fire up the evaporator come wendsday .
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[Jaackrabbit]

Oh no evaporators here... "Fire is the only way to do it" (Grampa is old school that way).

We have a "Sugar Shanny" which is basicaly a 14x12 stucture with an open air vent through the middle of the roof. Dead center of the room there is a concrete/cinder block fire pit that the sap pan sits on. There is a pipe at the top of the hill going into the shack's main tank. (Don't ya just love gravity).

We only tap around 60 trees but they are some BIG maples. Most of them get 2-3 taps and mulitiple buckets.

The flow was a bit slow today so we didn't collect. Buckets should be full by tomorrow. I'll take some pics then.

[lonehunter]

Whoops , that's what I ment to say . It's a stainless steel tub with a fire-pit under it .
They use clean , cut up pallets from work (heat treated oak ) to keep the steam up .

24 hours a day (in shifts ) stoking the fire , skimming the top and adding sap .

Hey , the weather man musta known it was time for the flow , 40's for the next few days [cool] .
I'm breaking out the T-shirts !
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[Jaackrabbit]

OK... here we go pictures finally.

We filled the main drip tank today (200 Gal) AND we had another 80 Gallons left that we put into a couple other holding tanks. []

(Guess we should have started the fire yesterday instead of today) Oooops [crazy]


Here is a pic of the sugar shanny. Open vent through the roof to let the steam out.


Getting the fire nice and hot. It is a cement fire pit with a sap pan sitting on top. You can see part of the tank and the feed tube that drips into the pan near the top.



Buckets and buckets and buckets and buckets.... These are trees are actualy in the neighbors yard. We tap their trees.. they get a few jars of surup... it's a good trade.


Some more buckets out on the range... you can see the tractor tracks through the middle of the grove. It gets a bit sloppy down there from time to time.


It's not a sugar season unless I get at least one picture of Tom on the tractor. (Tom is my father in law and Grandpa's son)


Collecting sap. We use the tractor to cart around 3 barrels that we then transfer to the main tank and other holding tanks. We have valves with feed tubes on the bottom of each tank.


Back to the sugar shanny. Open the door and go inside. No the place isn't burning down... IT"S STEAM !!!


Hmmm... yeah... gets a little hard to see in there from time to time.


More pictures to come..... stay tuned......

[Jaackrabbit]

We've had perfect weather down here for sap collecting. We topped off the main sap tank and filled the side tanks again tonight. Looks like I'm in for yet another long night of boiling (3rd one in a row now) Would like to take a break but if we don't boil all night we will won't have anyplace to store what gets collected in the buckets tomorrow. I'm thinking ......BIGGER TANK for next year.

We've bottled a total of 53 Gallons of surup so far with no end in sight. According to the weather man it looks like I might get some sleep in another 10 days or so.

ps... I'd love to go fishing but thinking I'd fall asleep and end up face first into the river.
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[davetclown]

so your going to cry all the way to the bank... lol,

glad to hear things are going well,,,

what is the going rate on sirup this year, and do you plan on coming east any time in the next couple months[]... I'm getting hungry for pancakes....
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[Jaackrabbit]

I "head east" about once every couple weeks. Normally to Detroit for the day. I'll give you a heads up next time I'm headed towards that direction. Grandpa said $10.00 a qtr this year but lets see.... you want front door delivery as well..... gas is what $300 dollars a gallon... close to 250 mile round trip.... wear n tear on the vehicle.......hmmmmm... Does anyone have a calculator I can borrow? ? ? []
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[Jaackrabbit]

Just checked my schedule...

I"ll be in Taylor MI on Friday morning... that anyplace near you?
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[lonehunter]

Taylor , Hmmmm
Telegraph road south about 15 minutes puts you right smack dab in the middle of Flatrock , Taking your rod with you[fishon] ?
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[davetclown]

10 a qrt sounds reasonable...

dont go out of your way, if and when you are passing though the wixom novi area on 696 on the way in to detroit give me a hollar a couple days in advance, ya got my number....

wixom road is the best place to jump off real quick like. with a half dozen good meetin places. I am sure you will be able to pick me out of a croud...[]
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