why can't I make anything lighter than dark

[jimbison]

so far this season all I have made is dark or darker syrup I am tapping about 1400 about 60% red 40% sugar maples boiling on a4x12 at 150-180 gallons per hour and all I get is dark some of the lines and drops are 6 years old to some in this year can soil itself cuase this at a total loss of answers anyone have any ideas so far 225 gallons of dark or darker tanks are washed and sanitzed as soon as emtied lines are washed at the end of season

[psparr]

The $64000 question.
I made light for about 4 weeks then it went real dark overnight. Something different than the natural progression to dark. Would love to know the answer too.

[jimbison]

never made light or medium only dark can soil makeup cause this or older line with bacteria anyone have any ideas please

[mapleack]

Might just be the year Jim, I started out at DA and worked darker. I usually make some beautiful MA, near fancy, but this year has been all dark.

[PerryW]

I don't think it's your tubing. All my black plastic mainlines are 20-24 years old and more than half my laterals and most of my droplines are over 20 years old. (I only replace them when they get so brittle they snap). All my equipment has been the same and most of the trees are the same over thin 20+ year period and my grade have consistently improved over the year. I used to make 20-30 percent fancy and for the last several years Fancy accounts for 50%+ of my crop.

Are you getting into a lot of dark wood when you tap? I think sometimes trees that have been tapped aggressively over a long period can develop so much dark wood that it afects sap color. (Just a guess)

Or it could be the red maples? They seem to produce darker syrup. Some guys who tap red maples are using some kind on aerator (bubbler) in their pan whic seems to lighten the syrup,

[SPILEDRIVER]

funny how things differ from bush to bush-regions-year to year--- ive usually allways made medium and darker syrup with maybe one boil of light/fancy....this year ive had 6 straight boils of fancy and the 7 th boil went to medium....friday and saturday will be my last boils so i wonder if ill finally make some dark

[Russell Lampron]

so far this season all I have made is dark or darker syrup I am tapping about 1400 about 60% red 40% sugar maples boiling on a4x12 at 150-180 gallons per hour and all I get is dark some of the lines and drops are 6 years old to some in this year can soil itself cuase this at a total loss of answers anyone have any ideas so far 225 gallons of dark or darker tanks are washed and sanitzed as soon as emtied lines are washed at the end of season

With tubing that is up to 6 years old I am assuming that this isn't your first season tapping these trees. What grades have you gotten in previous years? There are a lot of factors that go into syrup color and it may or may be something that you can correct.

I know what my problem was and my solution was to build an air injection system for my evaporator. Before the air injection I started the season with dark amber on the first boil and then went to commercial after that with a couple of boils that lightened up to grade B. The cause was concentrating with my RO to the mid teens. The sap was caramelizing in the flue pan and was going into the front pan at the color of syrup. After the air injector install my syrup has all been grade A which has been about a 1/3 of my crop so far. I have 700 taps on vacuum and about 650 of those are red maples. I also have 100 buckets that are on sugars.

[Asthepotthickens]

so far this season all I have made is dark or darker syrup I am tapping about 1400 about 60% red 40% sugar maples boiling on a4x12 at 150-180 gallons per hour and all I get is dark some of the lines and drops are 6 years old to some in this year can soil itself cuase this at a total loss of answers anyone have any ideas so far 225 gallons of dark or darker tanks are washed and sanitzed as soon as emtied lines are washed at the end of season

My first thought, does your sap sit around for a few days before boiling? The fresher the sap the cleare the syrup

[jimbison]

thanks for all the input this is the sixth year in this bush been adding from 600 taps as I go started in here 6 years sgo always made dark or darker started on 3x8 and hualed sap out of the woods then home pumping it 3 time to get from tracor to truck to storage tanks bought 4x12 thinking faster would make lighter noop moved everything to woods building roads and another sugarhouse pump to head tank no differance still dark don't see any dark wood when tapping really stumped on this as going to add 600 more this year for next season soil is mostly sandy but some is black humis mixed in sand can soil do this how many have tried the bubbler as no RO would this help as the sap going to the front pan has color Russel how did you find the problem andhow did you build the bubbler as air source and type of pipe as I assume this was put in the bottom of the flues any input would be a great help thanks everyone

[Russell Lampron]

thanks for all the input this is the sixth year in this bush been adding from 600 taps as I go started in here 6 years sgo always made dark or darker started on 3x8 and hualed sap out of the woods then home pumping it 3 time to get from tracor to truck to storage tanks bought 4x12 thinking faster would make lighter noop moved everything to woods building roads and another sugarhouse pump to head tank no differance still dark don't see any dark wood when tapping really stumped on this as going to add 600 more this year for next season soil is mostly sandy but some is black humis mixed in sand can soil do this how many have tried the bubbler as no RO would this help as the sap going to the front pan has color Russel how did you find the problem andhow did you build the bubbler as air source and type of pipe as I assume this was put in the bottom of the flues any input would be a great help thanks everyone

I found the problem by talking to another member here, Kieth from SSFLLC. He told me that another local producer couldn't concentrate over 10% because he was making syrup in his flue pan. I concentrate from 12% to 18% to get the sap from 800 taps through my 2x6 evaporator in a reasonable amount of time. I was noticing that the sap in my flue pan looked like coffee and at that color it was only getting darker as it turned to syrup. I also remembered that another former poster and friend here, Matt from Royalmaples, had built an air injection system a couple of years ago. I contacted him to find out how he built his. When he first used his he didn't clean his evaporator first like I did. His syrup was commercial on the first draw and kept getting lighter from there. His went up to medium amber as he made 20 gallons of syrup that night.

I built mine out of copper pipe and soft tubing. The manifolds are made out of 1" pipe and the tubing is 3/8". I soldered compression fittings into the manifolds to connect the 3/8" tubes. I drilled 1/16" holes in the bottom of the tubes to point straight down. I spaced them 1" apart but later found out that they only need to be 2" apart. They are positioned so that the tubes are a 1/2" off of the bottoms of the pans. I bent the ends down to make a foot to set on the bottom of the pan at one end and set the depth at the manifold end by cutting the tubes when I inserted them in the manifolds. I bought a new Shop Vac and use it as a source of clean air and other than the noise it works good. I also put valves in the feed pipes to the manifolds to control the air flow. I found that it doesn't take very much air to make it work and once I got the air flow adjusted I haven't needed to touch them again.

I'm not sure how an air injector will work for someone that is not using an RO but if you decide to build one I know of some other producers that would like to know if it works for you. Some only use them in the flue pan but I built them for both pans when I did mine.

[sg5054]

I started the season with MA until the last couple hundred gallons. This went dark right off and a lot of niter. More than earlier on. I've got about 15 gallons partially done to go back and finish now.