I was thinking the same thing after reading Canadian border VT had already helped his friend tap trees. I put a tap in my best tree to see if there was any action. Nothing so far. We'll see in the morning. Supposed to get pretty cold again next week here so I'm leaning toward waiting another week.
I'm lucky most of my trees are road trees with easy access by truck. I hear you about hustling when the sap is flowing! Last year I was collecting morning and night. Hope this year is the same.
How much wood do you go through on that setup? I'm thinking about putting something together for next year and am debating going that way or trying to do something a little fancier with a barrel. I hear those kind of arches eat wood something fierce.
Oh trust me it's not for the faint of heart....it'll go through a heaping pickup load of splits in 2 days.......just depends of how hard you're firing it. At its peak it'll easily do 25 to 30 GPH. But you gotta feed it the wood hard.....lol
Is there any risk of burning the "sugar" to those pans, Barcroftb? Or does it boil so furiously and not present any problem?
There is a fear of burning syrup in any pan if you don't babysit it toward the end. The problem with the food service pans is scorching on the sides because they are tapered. The solution is high temp insulation between the pans.
The cinder block set up I use burns through wood like crazy. Especially with the forced combustion air. I'm probably going with a different set up for next year.
