How to find sugar content in sap?

[Jillian]

This is my first year at doing syrup. I read a lot of postings on what people are getting as the "sugar content" in the sap. What does this mean? is there a tool that i need to read this? what do you want the sugar content to be? Thank you in advance for your feed back.

Jillian



2012- 300 buckets
- 63 on gravity
- 2X8 evaporator drop flut

[Brian66]

Purchase a hydrometer that is specifcally designed for measuring sap. I never gave it much thought until last year when my first run boiled at 80:1 instead of 40:1. In other words, my sugar concentration in the sap was only about 1%. It should be in the range of 2% to 3%, or higher if you ar lucky. I went through a pile of firewood and lots of time. The next runs came in at normal concentrations but I could not find anyone that wanted to buy my first run syrup for $40 a litre. It was the first time I had ever seen that happen, now I'll check the sugar concentration first.

[happy thoughts]

Some people test the sap straight from the tree to see how sweet it is. It varies from tree to tree, the higher the content the better. Higher sugar = more syrup/volume of sap. Sap hydrometers or refractometers are used to measure it. It's not an absolutely necessary thing to have.

[Murphy's Law]

Purchase a hydrometer that is specifcally designed for measuring sap. I never gave it much thought until last year when my first run boiled at 80:1 instead of 40:1. In other words, my sugar concentration in the sap was only about 1%. It should be in the range of 2% to 3%, or higher if you ar lucky. I went through a pile of firewood and lots of time. The next runs came in at normal concentrations but I could not find anyone that wanted to buy my first run syrup for $40 a litre. It was the first time I had ever seen that happen, now I'll check the sugar concentration first.
Us new guys appreciate all of the great help we receive from these threads. But sometimes the answers create more confusion.
How did you know that it started boiling at 80:1 (or1.25%)? Thanks.

[happy thoughts]

He means the first batch of sap boiled took 80 gallons of sap to yield a gallon of syrup. That's a really low sap to syrup ratio and probably not worth the cost and expense to produce, especially if you're selling it. But if you're just a hobbyist, I'm going to stand on what I said about not needing one. Your sap is going to be what it is. If you're not collecting/making that much or don't have that many trees to tap, it's unlikely you'll be wanting to toss much sap.

For the money and if you are just starting out on a small scale and want or need to keep equipment costs down, imho it's better to buy a syrup hydrometer instead of one for sap because a syrup hydrometer will help you reach the exact sugar density needed for syrup. Hydrometers are also notorious for breaking. Many people will tell you to buy them 2 at a time. I'd rather buy two syrup hydrometers instead of one for sap and another for syrup. just my 2 cents :)

[Etown Maple Syrup]

I have also followed great advice from this site. I bought two syrup hydrometers in case of breakage from myself or some of my many curious helpers with kids. I also have an idea that it takes 50 gallons of red maple sap to make one gallon of syrup. My recent third batch, took 60 gallons to make one gallon of syrup. Refractometers are expensive and I give my syrup away. I am more concerned with "is it Vermont red line hot!"

[Maple Ridge]

Us new guys appreciate all of the great help we receive from these threads. But sometimes the answers create more confusion.
How did you know that it started boiling at 80:1 (or1.25%)? Thanks.

The formula for figuring what the gallons of sap to gallon of syrup is 86 divided by the sugar content in the sap. I have read where it is more like 87, but to get some idea of what it will take 86 is close enough. So 86 divided by 1.25%, will require 68.8 gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup.

[Maplewalnut]

The calculation used is to measure your sap and divide that number by 86. That will give you a rough calculation on how many gallons of sap you need for one gallon of syrup. For example sap that reads 2% will calculate out to 43 gallons per gallon of syrup. Sap that only measures 1.5% will need 57 gallons to equal one gallon of syrup.

[Indiana-Jones]

Hi, I have been looking for a sap/sugar measure

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=refractometer+sap

I order one of these. click on the one offered for 32.00

I should get it in a day or two. I will report.

[Brian66]

Us new guys appreciate all of the great help we receive from these threads. But sometimes the answers create more confusion.
How did you know that it started boiling at 80:1 (or1.25%)? Thanks.

For the last 12 years I've made syrup without measuring the sugar content of my sap. It can vary from tree to tree. But to boil two days worth of collected sap to find out after you are done that it was unusually low in sugar is frustrating and costly. It happened to me once and it wont happen again. Also, tree genetics can play a large role in their sugar content. A low sugar tree will generally be a low sugar tree every year. Conversly a high sugar tree will tend to be high from year to year. When managing a sugar bush and faced with a choice of which tree to thin out, I'll consider it's sugar content. There is an old maple in vermont that has consistently given sap with 10% sugar. Trees like that are worth finding.