Less maples than I thought, is vacuum on this land still worth it?

[Starting Small]

I am looking to get new woods setup. There are about 95 taps on sugars and maybe another 30-40 on reds. So 130-140ish. My question is that enough to make vacuum worth while or should I keep looking for a larger lot? I was hoping to be around 200 taps this year on vac. Since this would be my first year on vacuum I will have to buy everything new (not releaser and vac pump). The other thing in the back of my mind is expanding in the future, if I get this woods setup and I want to get bigger, I will have to go to a new area and either take down the lines at the original area or setup a second lot. I am leaning towards keep looking but I am open to ideas. Also, this first area would need at least one sap ladder for collection. Thanks for any thoughts,
-Dave

[spud]

If you had an old dairy pump kicking around then sure why not. You might make 50+ gallons of syrup. I see you live in Connecticut so this could work to your advantage because syrup in small jugs like Quarts and Pints probably do well in your area. If you could make $3000.00 or so and have fun doing it then I say go for it.

Spud

[Thad Blaisdell]

or sap sucker, but agree with spud

[red maples]

I agree. on a little vac 130 taps is 130 taps which equals 40+ gallons based on 1/3gpt. over $3000 in sales. it will take you about a rough estimate of $1700 for a dairy pump, hobby releaser, pumping main line, wire, 5/16 tubing and all the fittings. you might be able to go cheaper depending on what you can find. and a couple hundred for containers your looking at a small profit for the first year but of roughly $800 or so but the second year its mostly profit. obviously put back into another woods upgrades etc. Go For it. the second year your looking at possibly $2500 then you get your canner and some other stuff add on more taps then start looking for a bigger evaporator maybe a 2x6 or 2.5 x 8 some force air and hood then you need to add on to the sugarhouse and then you start looking into RO's and a filter press then you need to add on to the sugarhouse, and now you need more power so you need to run more electricity underground to the sugarhouse. Then you add on more taps..... It doesn't stop!!! that's the fun of it!!!

[Starting Small]

I agree....Go For it. the second year your looking at possibly $2500 then you get your canner and some other stuff add on more taps then start looking for a bigger evaporator maybe a 2x6 or 2.5 x 8 some force air and hood then you need to add on to the sugarhouse and then you start looking into RO's and a filter press then you need to add on to the sugarhouse, and now you need more power so you need to run more electricity underground to the sugarhouse. Then you add on more taps..... It doesn't stop!!! that's the fun of it!!!

Haha, that is definitely the fun of it. I guess once those woods are setup I could always switch the pump to another woodlot next year if the second lot has more taps and put a sap sucker or something inexpensive for my original bush. Thanks for making me feel better, I was a little bummed out when there were not as many taps as I thought. Of course we were only counting the sugars and the reds were an estimate so maybe there will be more reds in there to add to the total. Thanks guys,
-Dave

[maple2]

same problem, different scale. just got done setting up a new 1000+ tap bush. ended up with only 650. still have $10000 invested. even if i can make 200gals. x $60 average = $12000, i will be happy. my labor will still be at farm wages

[unc23win]

I would go for it you tap what you have and can tap. Sap sucker might be a good route more profit to start because you don't need a releaser. You can find a brand new gast pumps on ebay for the number of taps you have for $300 (the one I was looking at today is like 9 CFMs that would help with the ladder) or less its the releaser thats the expensive part. No matter what you do if you go with vacuum like Spud and others said there is money there. :)

[Mark-NH]

Something not yet discussed is lay of the land, proximity to your sugar house and availability of other sugar bushes in your area. My experience has been that I find more taps once I get into laying out the lines as well.

[Starting Small]

Something not yet discussed is lay of the land, proximity to your sugar house and availability of other sugar bushes in your area. My experience has been that I find more taps once I get into laying out the lines as well.

Good questions...It is about a 5 minute drive away from where I boil. There is a second possible bush that I have permission to tap that is 100 acres. Just depends on the topography, I will be going to look at it this week. The lay of the land is setup like an L. In the bottom part of the "L" it goes back a little. I will need a sap ladder at the bottom part of the "L" because it becomes a bit of a ravine. It is not an ideal place so I am hoping the 100 acres works. I will let you guys know. The 100 acres could be an issue this year if the tapable trees are not close enough to a road to allow for pickup. How long can a mainline be with 8 CFM's at 20"? Is there a limit to how long laterals usually are? Thanks,
-Dave

[Scribner's Mountain Maple]

Dave,
Sounds like your having some fun. I am sure there are many answers to your questions. For laterals the rule most use is not more than 100 ft on Vac (strive for five taps). I will go 150 at times. I'm not sure how far you can transfer vac to a releaser. From what I've read the closer the better. Sap sucker is an option, though I wasn't a huge fan of the diaphragm pump when I used one, but really it didn't cause any problems either so I guess in the right circumstance I would use one again. For me that would have to be a bush that was remote without power access. Even then I would look into other gas powered options that gave higher vac when combined with a releaser. You could put the vac and releaser at bottom of ravine, then use small electric pump to pump sap to road edge and avoid the ladder that way too.

Good luck
Ben

[unc23win]

Howdy Dave I believe that a 1" mainline maxes out at 4 CFMs for 1000'. So if you are doing 200 taps you would have 2 times the number of CFMs needed (if you are using the 1 CFM per hundred tap formula).

The inches of vacuum depends on how many CFMs are needed and subtracting that from the total CFMs the pump is capable of. With some pumps the inches of vacuum will drop off more as the needed CFMs increases than others. Many choose a pump 50-60% bigger than needed and others choose a pump that has double the CFMs they need. I think there are many options for you if you want a pump say 4-15 CFMs and doesn't break the bank.

[red maples]

I am not that familiar with the sap sucker and you would save some money with those but I don't know what kinda vac they really pull and is it constant? if you use bb2 or sp11 I think is the other newer model number you can pick one up for around $300 give or take and a hobby releaser is new is $500 and if your system is tight you can pull 23-25" of vac. or 22-23" with a ladder if you need one. So like I dais not sure about the sap suckers but those few more inches of vac will be mean lots more sap. So if you have the money put it into a good better vac.

When I first walked my woods I rough counted 180-200 trees. I am now up close to 500 ish give or take. I missed a whole section and found a pretty tight group of trees I didn't even know were red maples as they were in a section of hemlocks. thought I was gonna add on 70-80 trees for this year when I started to actually tag trees and specifically looking for every maple I ended up with 120 - 130 trees.

[unc23win]

I agree with Brad I have an SP-11 I got for free all I did was clean it a little put a motor on it and added oil it pulled 22" all season on about 530 taps. One thing I like about it is that it has a nice base that the pump and motor are mounted on.

[Starting Small]

I am actually buying a pump from Ben, (BreezyHill), and he told me yesterday that he tested it and it had 31.46 cfm at 15", 8.43 at 20" and 3.76 at 25". So I feel pretty good about this pump and Ben just seems like a great guy with tons of knowledge. So I wil try and keep mainlines under 1000' and laterals under 100'. That is a good point Red Maple about the number of trees. We only counted the Sugars at about 90 taps and guesstimated the reds at 30-40 so there may be more reds since we did not really count them. If you guys are running lines past a red maple do you normally tap it or avoid it? I would think to tap them all but just wondering what you all choose to do. Thanks!
-Dave

[unc23win]

I think you will be good with that pump for the number of taps that you have. You can boost your CFMs to the tap by doing a wet dry line each carrying 4 CFMs for a total of 8.

As far as trees if it is maple TAP THEM ALL.

[Wanabe1972]

Wow if I didn't tap the reds id have about 50 taps. I had a little trouble with the reds on gravity as they did not flow like the sugars but with vacuum they don't seem to have an option.

[BreezyHill]

Jeff, Vacuum is always worth it as long as you can get the cfms to the site. I have zero knowledge of taping reds. We have horses and they are deadly to horses, but make good firewood on our farm. The increase in production from vacuum helps to pay off investment faster and allow for profit. The size of the bush is not as important as the distance traveled to get taps in the tank.
Take a W/D mains of 2700 feet to get 300 taps that's $729 for the wet and the Dry will stop at 2100' for another $504. Plus another 800' of laterals for another $216. $1449 in mains then a sheer estimate of 60 saddles for another $150 and around 10 rolls of tubing for another $510, and spouts and y and cap for $222. I will add another $100 for connectors and wire ties and cam locks for gates. So that is $2429 so lets say $2500. So at $30 bulk I need to make 84 gallons to pay for the tubing. Since last season I made .47gallons per tap, that is conceivable. BUT if I were running without vacuum I would be looking at around .2 gallons per tape and making around 60 gallons. So the and get 12.50 each for a lovely scene or Christmas bottle. The $8.50 for the syrup...a round $4 for the bottle and canner use, is about $128/ gallon. So the difference from vacuum of about 140 gallons yield to gravity is about 80 gallons or $10240. So suffice it to say as long as I didn't miss a key on the key board it is worth the addition of vacuum on the bush.
The numbers list above are all estimates and the bush only has a 2% slope to the sugar house, there will be a few ladders to get another 50-75 taps. Distances were derivate from aerial software programs and may vary.
Jeff what was in that barn that was used with the pump you rebuilt? I use dairy releaser, tits or taps it don't care as long as it has something flowing!

Dave remember the charts are how much cfm at the end of the distance of the mains. Since all the taps are not located at the end of the mains but along the length you will have no worries. If you had to run a mains to a bush like the one above then you need to readjust plans.

Good Luck guys!