In 31 seasons of our Maple syrup journey we have never tapped trees in January or seen a week of 40 degrees already. We started tapping trees yesterday because it was so pleasant outside. Of the 300 taps placed so far, approximately 1/4 would drip sap! The unusually warm weather is predicted to last another week so we plan on having our 1000 taps in by weeks end.

We don’t anticipate the actual season to begin yet, but suspect it will be earlier than our previous earliest start of February 18th which occurred in 2002.

We also installed steel platforms at our outside tanks to provide a stable work platform instead of climbing ladders to clean or service tanks. Painting the new structures will be a summer project.

Check back next week for updates or follow our Instagram page      somerskogen_sugarbush

April 13th was the day we threw in the towel on the 2023 season. We were 6 days into a continuous flow of sap but the last 3 were in the 80s which set high temperature records.This melted any remaining snow, took the ice off our lake and began to turn the sap cloudy. The sugar content of the sap dropped from 2+ % to only 1.2%. This is one of the early signs that the season is coming to a close. The sugar sand (niter) more than doubled which plugs the filter press sooner and builds up on he syrup pans. We also found more foaming of the sap. All this adds up the time to “ put a fork in it”! So we did. We actually had quite a good season making 483 gallons of syrup on our 1050 taps.

Now the cleanup process begins.

We now are 5 days into a continuous sap run! We’ve never had more than 3 days of continuous flow in 30 years. Our monitoring system does show that the rate of flow is diminishing and could stop by tomorrow. The sap is still quite clear which is somewhat surprising considering the very warm temperatures ( 70-80 ).

We made our first barrel of dark robust syrup yesterday due to the warming sap. All the rest remains Amber Rich. We now have surpassed 0.4 gal of syrup per tap which is very respectable. Our goal is to reach .5 gal of syrup per tap.

A drop in temperature is forecast for this weekend so that could prolong the season.

In talking to several other syrup makers, those on gravity systems like buckets and bags are getting very little sap whereas high vacuum systems still produce sap.

Check back to see what happens next!