To Boil or Not To Boil the Frozen Sap?

[jcr1709]

Been boiling 10 hours on an outdoor fireplace and want to finish by midnight!
Had collected about 120 gallons of sap and stored in 4 gallon buckets. I'm able to pull out a large frozen chunk in the shape of the storage buckets and a little less than half of the sap is left. It is noticably sweet where as the frozen stuff is not.

I decided to just pour the unfrozen sweet sap into the pans to speed things up. I kept the frozen sap if anybody thinks it is worth boiling. I can use those frozen chunks to help keep the futuresap cold in the coming days as I see a warm up coming here.

I did a test with my just received sap hydrometer and stainless cup. The unfrozen sweet sap totally floated the hydrometer.....above the 8 reading. I did the same test with the thawed out frozen sap and I carefully let it sink to the bottom, which it did.

Looking for as many opinions as possible. Wood is free, so cost is not an issue, just want to speed things up at the moment. Will I yield any measurably large amount of syrup by not using these chunks? Thanks in advance.

[buck3m]

The ice has way less sugar, as you already know. If you are fat on time and fuel and feel like it, boil it. Otherwise, it doesn't pay. I usually throw it unless I don't have enough sap to stay busy.

[Ausable]

jcr1709 ---- This one is always coming up - and I have done both. As a backyarder my thinking goes like this - If I have very little sap on hand - I would melt it down and boil it. If the trees were flowing like mad or I was pressed for time I'd pitch it or use the frozen sap like you are suggesting - to keep liquid sap cold. This year - I only have about four gallons of frozen sap on hand - have not done a boil yet and would gladly boil your frozen sap -- so I agree with your logic --- do what works for you --- and yes - the sap that does not freeze will have a higher sugar content as you have found out ---- Have a great year --- Mike

[Brian VT]

We always considered ice to be the poor man's r.o.
I didn't think any sugar froze in the there. Never tested it, though.
If you think you might want to boil it, melt it and test it first.
I wouldn't dump it in my sap if I thought it might dilute it.

[Brent]

If I recall correctly, someone working at a university maple research center saidon this forum that there is slightly less sugar in the melted ice than in the concentrate you drain off before it melts.

Boil it all.

[Southtowns27]

We just settled this ourselves last time we boiled. A lot of our buckets had some ice in them the last time we collected. We threw most of it out, but filled a 5 gallon bucket with it and let it melt. We checked the sugar content of the thawed ice and got 0.3%. Definately not worth keeping the ice IMO.

[happy thoughts]

I'm just a small quantity syrup maker and have never used a hydrometer to measure sugar content of sap. I'm probably not the best to answer your question but that said, based on what I learned in science class many years ago, to toss ice doesn't make sound sense imho on just the info you've given. How cold was it and for how long was the sap stored at that temp?

All sugar water will freeze though the more sugar in solution the lower the temp it will take to freeze it. Whereas water freezes at 0C/ 32F, the freezing point of sugar water will be lower depending on it's sugar concentration. Higher concentrations mean a lower freezing point. Even finished syrup will freeze solid if the temp is cold enough.... though it will take lower temps than commonly found in our freezers.

I'm probably not explaining it the best but the bottom line is I wouldn't assume the ice block is just water. If your sap got really cold then there's probably still more than a little sugar in the frozen part.

anyway that's my story and I'm stickin' to it :) ...... at least until I spring for my own hydrometer and test this out for myself. For now, I boil everything.

[happy thoughts]

I searched this forum and found the following posted here last January.

http://mapletrader.com/community/showthread.php?t=7651&highlight=bucket

Read reply #6 by Dr Tim Perkins who cited research findings that appeared in a volume of "The Maple Syrup Digest" published in the 60's.

In a nutshell- the frozen sap has sugar value. Discarding sap ice isn't recommended unless you have more sap than you know what to do with.

[morningstarfarm]

I have found that different ice has different value..if the ice is a fine sheet(up to 1/4") I chuck it..when I melted and tested it didn't have any sugar value..if its huge chunks..I found it had up 3/4 the sugar value that the unfrozen stuff had..that goes into the flu pan...just my .02

[buck3m]

I have found that different ice has different value..if the ice is a fine sheet(up to 1/4") I chuck it..when I melted and tested it didn't have any sugar value..if its huge chunks..I found it had up 3/4 the sugar value that the unfrozen stuff had..that goes into the flu pan...just my .02

That is a very good point. When it's ALL frozen, the ice has 100% of the sugar. It makes sense that a greater percentage of the sugar would be trapped as that point is reached.

[PerryW]

I have found that different ice has different value..if the ice is a fine sheet(up to 1/4") I chuck it..when I melted and tested it didn't have any sugar value..if its huge chunks..I found it had up 3/4 the sugar value that the unfrozen stuff had..that goes into the flu pan...just my .02

words of wisdom IMHO. For a small operation, I'd chuck the ice and just find another tree to stab for more sap.