Too many taps?

[psparr]

I'm building a 2x6 flat divided evaporator.
My question is, I have about 300 trees but only around 50 sugars. The rest are reds. Should I just concentrate on the sugars and only some reds? How many taps is too many for a 2x6?
Gonna have air under but probably not a preheater this year. I hate to dump sap. ( a cardinal sin in my book) but don't want to have bad runs like last year with too few taps.
HELP!

[cpmaple]

Thats a question u and only u can answer how many hours do u want to boil? So fiugure that setup will get around 12gph boiling rate so for example 120 taps x 1 gallon per tap = 120 sap per day then divide 120 gallons by 10 hours of boiling =12gph boiling rate u would need. So its up to u how many taps u run i use to run 116 taps on a 2x3flat and i can say this i had many many 20 hour boils. hope this helps u cpmaple

[Potters3]

Find someone near you that buys sap, sell what you can't boil yourself. I had this deal with a guy last year, I bought his sap on big runs.

[red maples]

Well first reds can be finicky, one might run REALLY good even better than the sugars and the one right next to it will give you nothing. hook them up to vac and they run like sugars.

so even if you tap just the sugars pending they are all big and healthy and they run good for you your looking at about +- 50 gallons a day I guess.

so 50/12 your already at about 4 hrs. So like CP said it all depends on how much time you wanna spend boiling, without dumping sap. (which is a cardinal sin for most of us by the way)

I also like the idea of having another operation near you to buy sap as well. or someone that has and RO that if you get stuck you could always ask them to run it through their RO then that will get as much as 75% of the water out for you.

[Ren]

I ran a 100 or so taps one year on my 2x4 flat pan and there where definitley some marathon boils. This was fine the first couple of times but by the end of the season it was a little much. So just like cpmaple said it "How many hours to you want to boil?" This was the main reason I bought my new pans.

[jrgagne99]

I tap about 90% red maples because that's what I have access to. On vacuum, I've averaged about 0.3 gallons of syrup per tap over the last few seasons. I say tap them all, and then make arrangements to sell (or give) the excess sap to a nearby sugarmaker. If you find that you just can't stomach giving sap away, it will just provide more motivation to build your new homemade RO :-).

[adk1]

yeah, rarely will you get 1 gallon of sap on a run with reds that are not on vac. I would actually say plan on .5 gallons per tap on each red.

For this year, if Iwere you, I would tap all of the sugars and a few reds just to see how the reds do. How are you collecting the sap?

[psparr]

yeah, rarely will you get 1 gallon of sap on a run with reds that are not on vac. I would actually say plan on .5 gallons per tap on each red.

For this year, if Iwere you, I would tap all of the sugars and a few reds just to see how the reds do. How are you collecting the sap?
Last year was my first season. There are no nearby sugar makers, at least I haven't found any.
Most reds ran well, but the sugars did better.
I am on buckets. My other concern is I'll only be able to boil on weekends. The trees are at the cabin 1-1/2 hrs away. I think early season the sap will last the week. I hope. This is mainly for fun so not that a big deal.

Thanks for all the input!

[adk1]

then I would try to put it all on tubing and have the mainline go to a larger tank, that is in the shade you can even take 1 gallon plastic milk jugs, fill them with water and freeze them and add them to the tank to keep the sap cool in the later month

[NH Maplemaker]

I'm not trying to be a wish guy, But if you are leaving the buckets hang all week! So much for not dumping sap! There has got to be weeks were you get big runs and sap is going on the ground until the weekend Do like adk1 suggests, run tubing and some tanks and you will catch the sap all week long.

[mike z]

Yep, you need storage. Leaving sap go unboiled for a week might get you by the first week or so of the regular season, but after that bad things start to happen. How's your wood supply? In the end I would settle in on a number then add 15%. How's that for an answer. It's just no fun being too short to boil, especially with these poor seasons.

[psparr]

Yep, you need storage. Leaving sap go unboiled for a week might get you by the first week or so of the regular season, but after that bad things start to happen. How's your wood supply? In the end I would settle in on a number then add 15%. How's that for an answer. It's just no fun being too short to boil, especially with these poor seasons.

My trees are too spaced apart for tubing into a storage container.
I realize my situation isn't ideal.
A side note. I tapped this past weekend and they were running like crazy.
The temp was only 35 with 8 inches of snow on the ground.

[MIMapler]

What is a fair price for a gallon of sap? I might be interested in buying some from a neighbor, but I don't know how much to pay. Thanks.

[ericjeeper]

What is a fair price for a gallon of sap? I might be interested in buying some from a neighbor, but I don't know how much to pay. Thanks. It seems as much work as it is for me to get it hauled in.. I would not take a penny less than 10 bucks a gallon..
Honestly I have no idea, but I will help keep it at the top for you.

[Sugar]

It seems as much work as it is for me to get it hauled in.. I would not take a penny less than 10 bucks a gallon..
Honestly I have no idea, but I will help keep it at the top for you.

Oh my goodness! $10? Your's is a bargain!! Sheeesh! Ours isn't going anywhere, except as gifts for a chosen few. I wouldn't even know where to begin to price this stuff. I do this for my children. We tap our woods and a friend's woods. I drive 18 miles, each day, with a broken up van, piled high with 5 children and 4 gallon buckets. We can hardly lift the full buckets, then we load them all into the van, drag it all back home, unload it, strain it, boil it inside, put in evaporator, boil and and boil, strain again, bring back inside for finishing, strain again, pasteurize and put into new 12 oz. jars...Nope! Selfish as it may seem...This is one thing, I couldn't afford to buy for my children, that they get to have. I am very, very against GMO's, so when I heard that GMO super sugar beets were being released, I knew I had to do something to replace sugar, cuz eventually we will be eating GMO white sugar. Most of all though....There is no price I could put on the sheer joy this maple tapping project has brought my children and myself.

[Sugar]

It seems as much work as it is for me to get it hauled in.. I would not take a penny less than 10 bucks a gallon..
Honestly I have no idea, but I will help keep it at the top for you.

Oops! You mean SAP! You have all you want to know about what I think about syrup! I agree...10 bucks a gallon for sap! My children have let me know that sap is priceless! My littlest one was trying to carry a 4 gallon bucket of sap this week...He was trying to move so carefully. I heard him say "I don't want to spill a single drop of this precious sap."

When we drive up to our friend's woods...It is usually almost dusk. I squint my eyes...I look for the sparkle, the jewel in each bag. If there is sap, it's as though God has put a crystal in each bag, that tells me..."Come see what I have given you." There will be this little bright glow in each bag. I love to see the bags light up. No matter how much sap we have already brought home, no matter how cold it is, no matter how tired we are...I will hear "Oh my goodness!" and "Look at that," as we get close enough to see we have had a good run. I wouldn't trade that for anything in this world. I think we need to be grateful for what we can have, so that we don't long for what we can't have. I so appreciate having children that treasure this winter project with me and we do treasure each precious drop of sap. For us, it is priceless!

[Sunday Rock Maple]

Tap the ones that are easy to gather (sounds like you are on buckets?) and get as much high quality early sap (that'll make good quality table grade syrup) as you can. Later in the season when the reds are starting to get buddy pull them and just finish with the sugars --- unless you plan on putting some in a drum to sell as bulk.