Sap sacks

[tonka]

How many gallons are sap sacks? Thanks!!

[Sawyer]

They are about 3 gallons.

[heus]

The blue ones will hold 4.5 gallons I found this out this past season.

[jimsudz]

You guys using sap sacks what drawbacks have you found. Thinking I may try some next season. How much for sack and holder?

[Super Sapper]

I have the blue ones but use the PVC holders and only get about 3 gallons in them. With the top drawn together is reduces the volume it can hold. The PVC holders are cheap to make and store in a small area. Not cleaning pails at the end of the season is nice too. I used them in the woods and only had a few fall off but I think I would loose more in open areas where it is windier. Overall they worked real well. I cut 20 ounce soda bottles in half and slit them to go over the tap for a cover and it worked real good at keeping the rain out and also helped hold the bags on the tree. By the way Pepsi is better than Coke as you can get two covers out of bottle with Pepsi by using the top and bottom halves. The Coke bottom bottom half will not go over the PVC.

[Sugar Warrior]

I paid about $4 each for the metal sap bag holders and about 25 cents each for the bags themselves. They can easily hold 4 gallons or more depending on how you fold the top of the bag over the ring. I'd say 4 gallons usually for me. The only down side is dealing with them when they freeze solid.

[Sawyer]

The blue ones will hold 4.5 gallons I found this out this past season.

Hmmmmm......That's why I can't hardy lift them when full. A down side? Early in season small sap runs will accumulate (not enough to collect) and freeze. If it continues you could have a full bag of mostly ice that you can't dump out. Fortunately, a little warm sum will take care of that problem. You need taps that work with the holders. Bags are $.30 and holders are $2.65 in the catalog I have. You can make your own holders from PVC pipe. I guess I prefer the metal ones. Storage space should be considerably less than pails.

[Sugar Warrior]

Another down side of the metal holders is that they can be rough on the hands when you are inserting the bags in the rings. The rings are a bit sharp. I tried using my leather gloves but they didin't give me enough dexterity. I finally settled on those inexpensive brown knit gloves you can get in hardware stores and they protect the hands from cuts and have enough dexterity. The PVC approach seems like a nice way to go, I'll have to try it some time.

[MapleMark753]

We used the blue sap sacks this year, and for the most part liked them. I liked the fact that from several hundred yards away I could look through a pair of binoculars and tell how much sap was in each visible bag. When full, if you put them a bit too high, they get to be pretty heavy to lift off and pour out, that got old fast. And they tend to blow around and bang against the tree in a strong wind. This caused a few to leak both when there was a bit of ice in them, and with no ice too. We will use bags again this coming year, the cost of replacing the several leakers is pretty minimal and we will just have some replacements on hand. We may put bits of cloth on the trees that tend to be exposed to a lot of wind and bang the bags around some to prevent puncturing. Cheap shop cloths at auto parts stores and staples are what we have looked at for that. take care, Mark

[heus]

We prefer them to buckets. It was a very cold season and the ice was not a big deal. Like someone said they thaw out fast. We have traditional metal holders.

[hodorskib]

This year I used 50 sap bags with pvc holders that were really easy to make and cost around 1.25 each. Next year all 75 will be on bags. Here is a link to my webpage with directions on how to build the pvc holders. https://sites.google.com/site/mattatuckmadnessmaplesyrup/ The only drawback I found was the ones that froze solid one night when I couldn't collect did leak afterwards and needed to be replaced. So next year I will be sure to empty nightly when cold. I only had one on the ground all season and we had winds over 50mph on two days.