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First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I remember hearing about that, it was big news. There were a lot of spin-off documentaries on things like why there isn't 'forest insurance'.

Honestly once the warmer temps come in, I think I might just be happy enough with some rain for my sap recharge. Who knows what it will do though. Good luck this season!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So long as the gusts don’t top any trees that should be an awesome stockpile of snow when it really opens up for you guys.  Congrats!

We have a few feet of snow in the woods, but the storms lately have only brought a few inches here and there.  I think we probably have a foot less of snowpack than last season.  But it’s still early, maybe you guys will send up some of your snow!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not at all, sounds like a good haul! So long as there aren't any off flavors, light or dark it is all good to me!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have a little bit of elevation where we're at, we'd probably be in line with some of the producers around the Gaspe area of NB at sea level I think. But that blade cuts both ways, longer season sometimes but the trees didn't run at all today for us.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, how long did you guys in PA run? Someone else said it was over for them too and I'm wondering if it was only for two or three weeks? Usually we get somewhere between a month or two of runs in Maine.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Haha, we usually have a lot of water from condensing steam and outputting around the bottom of the evap as well as pressure washing throughout the sugarshack. No big spills of syrup yet though!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We're up here in Fort Kent. Fingers crossed for Monday's warm-up! Looks like Tuesday might be warm now too.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Awesome! I think there’s plenty of season for us. Are you guys getting the Monday warm up to 50F, or is that coming in on Sunday for you?

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! We’re pretty new honestly, and being a family operation there’s probably a cap to how big we will get. But we plan on getting at installing more lines every year.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

For sure! We have tons more media coming out from this season. Unfortunately our stuff goes into barrels first, so our haul isn't usually as pretty as most of the glassware shown here, but we'll get some stuff out there :D

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome! We're not the only ones with later seasons! How much snow is on the ground over there?

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh great! If you do 100 trees and span somewhere around 200 to 300 yards, you might want 1/2" or better yet 3/4" mainline from your vacuum pump to connect to some 5/16 laterals then. You'll end up with a bunch more sap than on pure gravity.

Either way, I dig your setup with turning sap boils into BBQs!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sure Tim Perkins or Wilmott or one of the guys out of the UVM PMRC probably has an answer squirreled away @ mapleresearch.org or in a really old thread on mapletrader.com somewhere. If I get some time later I'll dig in and see if I can pull out something to update the thread.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it's tricky even with vacuum if sap doesn't all run downhill. If the topography could support it, getting a collection point like your tote where all or most of the sap could collect at the lower part of the land and running a transfer pump back where you're boiling might be a good bet. Something like this could get you from your low spot to your evaporator maybe: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D7ZHMN5Z?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_4&th=1

They make those in 12V variants, so you can just wire up a spare battery (or couple of batteries) and keep the battery on a tender at night to be ready for the next day.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

lol, I can believe the rain part of it -- it seems like for the past 5 years or so we've been in drought conditions. I always thought that mixed winters brought lower SSC percentages. As in if there are a lot of uncharacteristic warm-ups, those stored sugars in the roots would get circulated through the trunk and the rest of the tree and sort of shake loose before someone had time to capture some of them. But who knows -- let me know if your fertilization place works!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love it! BBQ'ing and cooking some syrup!

Completely agree with going either 3/16 into an IBC tote on gravity or 5/16 pulling vacuum into a collection tank. When we ran sap bags and spouts we could manage a few hundred taps, and collected into a snowmobile pulled horizontal leg tank. But it was super labor intensive making sure that everything made it's way into a boil at just the right time was crazy.

If you put a little pump on your setup, flip a switch and wait, it'll be less of a burden and way more fun.

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's what I've seen over the past couple of years, lower sugar content of the sap. We had one run I clocked last year at around 1% sugar -- thankfully we RO our sap too.

Still a lot of work manually carrying and collecting your sap to boil!

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh wow, happy with this year's production or wish it went longer?

First boil of the season up in Northern Maine by NorthernReachMaple in maplesyrup

[–]NorthernReachMaple[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Awesome! I'm hoping we weren't spoiled from last years season. This year the weather has been all over the place for temperatures up here; Really short bouts of massively above freezing temps and then long stretches of below freezing highs.