End of February for me. I only tap a few trees and make small batches for myself. Basically I wait for the temperature to be above 40° during the day and below 32° at night.

To me it's been feeling like that over the past couple weeks, but maybe it will get really cold again in February.

It’s running now. But I’m way behind. This week is woods work then I’ll probably start tapping. But I’m on high vac so I could have tapped in dec.

Normally early to mid February, but i am down south on 101.

I'm in southern NH too, so I'll probably do it in early Feb unless it's too cold.

> But I’m on high vac so I could have tapped in dec.

I didn't know that was possible, and I actually took a syrup course in college.

How long ago was that? Closed loop system greatly reduce bacteria getting into the tap hole so they don’t dry up.

A long time, but we were using plastic lines then. No vacuum other than that created by gravity.

Vac is pretty common now. Most mid size guys are running it. It’s the best and most annoying thing. Especially at thd start fixing leaks. But pays off in the long run.

I'm waiting too. Sure the temps are higher now, but we have some cold weather ahead still and I would prefer to be boiling on those clear sunny March days.

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Any one around Moultonborough willing to give lessons? I would gladly pay. I have Maples on my property, I believe they are black maples, but I'm no tree expert, I know some have been tapped before from the previous owner.

Tapping is the easy part. Figure out how you are going to store and boil sap before you drill. Figure a gal of sap per tap per run day.

I've never done it before, but it looks like a fairly simple process (correct me if I'm wrong). Does anyone have any recommendations for where to get taps and other supplies?

It's not difficult to do on a small scale, just time and energy intensive.

Last year County Stores in Milford had maple sugar supplies, and so did Tractor Supply.

Are you on Facebook? You could make a post on the moultonborough fb page asking. Also I know one of the fish and game conservation officers runs a maple sugaring stand out of wolfeboro. Next time it's open you could stop by and ask if they know of anyone

I tapped two weeks ago. Because temps were mostly above 40° and below freezing at night. My 3 trees are giving me at least 1/2 gallon of sap per week. Yesterday and Saturday they gave me that much each day.

ETA: clarification

A half gallon of finished syrup? That's excellent.

Tap now. I'm South of Manch and tapped two weeks ago and started getting sap right away.

No. 1/2 gallon of sap. You tap to get the sap. Then either boil it down or run sap through a RO system to reduce water content and then boil.

RO = reverse osmosis

I bought the small one here before tapping last year, http://robucket.com/

I don't use Facebook but thank you for this info.

That's really interesting. I probably got a half gallon syrup for the whole season last year from my two trees. One of them is Norway maple so it's not nearly as useful as a sugar maple. I freeze concentrated my sap last year. Not nearly as efficient as a RO machine but the price was right. I just put the pails out on the deck overnight.

I have 3 red maples and store the sap in the beer fridge until it's that fridge is full, then process and boil. IIRC last year's made 4 1/2 pints.

Thanks!