people bring me sap how should i work their share of syrup

[meadster02]

Does any one else have this situation and how to they work it with shares of syrup. The shack and all the equiptment are mine they just bring me their sap and i boil it.

[red maples]

First thing is if you don't have one get a sap refractometer, sap hydros are too temp sensative(my opinion) and just do the simple math to figure how much syrup they will get + what ever your compensation for wood/ oil time container(s) etc etc etc. be it syrup, $$$, labor, wood, barder what ever.

[Maple Ridge Farm]

A fair rule of thumb is 50/50 of the syrup produced, so as Red Maples says you need a refractometer to determine the sugar content of the sap and work out from there how much syrup should be produced and split it 50/50. As there is a cost for collecting/gathering sap as there is a cost for boiling it down.

[meadster02]

good deal ive done this the past two years and have done the 50/50 deal but i dont have a refractometer i just do a figure on the total year of gallons of sap boiled to gallons of syrup made and thats how i figure their share. I was just kinda wondering if everyone else did the 50/50 share deal

[oneoldsap]

Be mindful that the rule of 86 no longer works , since syrup is made to a higher brix than it was when the rule of 86 was figured out . You always hear people talk about shrinkage when they come up short on syrup using the rule of 86 . It is now the rule of 89.2 , try it , you'll be real close to what you should make . Within a couple gallons / hundred . If you make syrup from someone elses sap and use the rule of 86 , your split will be more like 55-45 with you getting the short end of the stick ! That concludes todays lesson .

[meadster02]

cool thanks for the info

[adamsmithnny]

Rule of 89.2!!! Last year I had a friend boil for me. Every drop I checked sugar content and logged it with the date and amount of sap in the log book that he had as he does this for alot of producers. Then recorded the information in my log that I kept. 50/50 worked for everyone. and everyone was happy. Each producer took their share of syrup and or sold their share back to him if they wanted to also. wonderful way to start out and am very grateful for his patientence and teaching me. I bought my own evap this year and hopefully can beat my 42 gallon mark in 2012!

[Bucket Head]

Where does the 89.2 rule come from? At what Brix are you finishing your syrup? The North American Maple Producers Manual states the 86 rule was developed when the Brix reading was 65.5. The current 66 Brix works out to be 87.1

Steve