UV lights

[jblaker]

Do any of you guys have experience with UV lights? A guy told me he uses one and his sap will stay good for a week even when the temps rise. Any thoughts?

[sapman]

I gave up on the one I had. Just boil when you get it, is best policy. Unless you can sink a few grand into the ones made for sap, I think.

[jblaker]

I have a full time job and am trying to find a way to keep the sap a few extra days. No problem when it is cold but late in the season might be an issue.

[SDdave]

There's been a lot of discussion about this (keeping sap a few days) lately. What some of us (can't speak for all) do is to either bury a tank in snow to keep cool, or freeze some sap in a bucket and use that ice chunk to keep it cool. If you got more questions feel free to ask, there's a lot of total years experience on this forum.

Good luck sugarin'

SDdave

[Maple Hobo]

We have an industrial/inline UV light. It kills organic organisms in the raw sap. It will help the sap, especially the concentrate, hold a little longer.
More important to us, it also seems to make the finished syrup lighter too.

Another part of holding sap a little longer is rinsing out your holding tanks time to time durring the season.

[jluckay]

i installed a steri-light this year (picture on my profile) ss housing, i run a ge sediment filter befor it. its rated at 4gal a min. i put a ball valve in the line to reduce the flow to around 1 gal a min . this gives it more time in the steri-light. not sure if its really doing anything, but i will say it has reduced the amount of skimming down to about 0. did'nt even skim one time last night.i had to run a second switch for it & it takes around 6 seconds for the bulb to come on. we are calling it the flux capaceter, lol

[Daren]

I think I remember reading in the "highlights" post for the Vt maple conference that the syrup seemed to darken both with UV and RO to 8 percent. I can not see how this is the case, but not having any data of my own, nor any experience with either, I have to take their word for it.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have used one of the Wedeco stainless whole house units for a number of years and I think it does help some to be able to keep the sap longer. Leader used to sell these, not sure if they still do. It is in the line from where I pump the sap from the tractor tanks into my 625 SS milk tank.

[Brent]

the most common problem that members have is going to something like tractor supply and seeing a UV for $150 and thinking it will do the job.
The sugars in sap absorb the UV and reduce its strength so a lot of the sap flows through without getting enough exposure. The real sap UV lights are
VERY powerful and designed to minimize the depth of sap from the light bulb itself, and keep the flow rates down. You really need to spend something like
$750 to $ 1000 to get enough bulbs of high enough wattage inside. They do work if you get the right unit. They in fact don't kill the microbes, they sterilize them
so they can't reproduce. You'll get more stable ratios to invert sugars and therefore lighter finished syrup, and extend the "shelf life".
Either do it right or forget about it.

[Maple Hobo]

I think I remember reading in the "highlights" post for the Vt maple conference that the syrup seemed to darken both with UV and RO to 8 percent. I can not see how this is the case, but not having any data of my own, nor any experience with either, I have to take their word for it.

Personal experience here after 3 years of use... Says that it makes it lighter, not darker.
Our syrup has been consistantly lighter after the RO and UV were introduced.

[sapman]

I seemed to make lighter syrup when I started using an RO. I think because I processed it so much faster. Now days, with lower sugar content, I recirc for too long, and actually make it darker, I think.