Dono, you are really all in on this project with 170 trees! Wow! We used home made spiles last year, our first year. This year I bought spiles with 3' drop tubes and modified my collecting buckets to allow for a cover with a tight fit around the drop tube. This should help with the bugs/debris in the collecting buckets. We only tapped 20 trees and some are 'duds' I wonder what makes some trees that look like good mature sugar maples not produce much.
It is also weird that in some of our trees the 3" drywall screw that we screwed in the tree below the spile to hold up the handle of our collecting bucket is gushing syrup in a plume down the side of the tree and the spile doesn't seem to be...
My wife started boiling yesterday am to process what we have. Had to shut down the boil over night but hope to finish today. We boil on a commercial stove in the basement. We try to ventilate but the house gets hot. We try to direct steam out basement windows. It is wild to be boiling sap when it is 60 degrees outside!
Last edited by canyoncreek; 02/22/17 09:37 AM.
