Doing the math

[wrushton]

I been playing with number I live in Canada we are in liters not gallons it takes 4 liters to equal 1 us gallon. the sugar wood on the other side of the hill, he taps 500 trees ,he orders 200 -1 liters bottles and he has a few left over, my friend he is a lot better with book keeping has 450 trees he get 153liters this year ,147 last year. that is 38.5 gallons or .34 syrup to tap in liters ( none of them are on a vacuum system) in a post I make last week I was told I should get 3 to 4 x more sap.If I add a vacuum that should give me.34 @ 500 taps = 170 liters no vacuum / with vacuum= 170 gallons or 680 liters
the number of syrup to tap ratio .That number should be difference if you use vacuum RIGHT???

[unc23win]

I think that you could probably get more on vacuum. A lot of guys are getting .4-.5 gallons of syrup per tap (1.6- 2 liters) so that would put you in the 800-1000 liter range.

[maple flats]

For those results you need HIGH vacuum, like 26" or better. You can figure in any given year with vacuum you will increase 5-6% for every inch of vacuum if you don't have more than 5 taps per lateral and keep on top of leaks. Then much of it depends on the weather. You must have the right temperatures but with vac you can get sap when conditions aren't really ideal.

[ennismaple]

wrushton - If you go with a dairy vacuum pump like an SP 22 or a DeLaval running at 18" to 20" Hg you can expect about 1L of syrup per tap on average. With a proper tubing setup, high vacuum, seasonal spouts, tapping early and making every drop of mersh possible at the end of the season you can approach the 0.4 to 0.5 USG/tap that some producers can achieve.

For conversion: 1 USG = 3.785 L so 0.5 GPT syrup would equate to 1.89L/tap

[BreezyHill]

Wrushton
Your math looks good. Take it from a producer that runs those delaval pumps and has the experience in modification of the unit running them at 28" and hit .47 US Gal/ tap that was all quality retail sales product last season. Vacuum is the way to go. The Goal for our operation is .55 g/t for the next season.

You are investing time and money in a tubing system...so why not take the next step and produce the most from your efforts.

The 5-7% increase is for every inch of mercury of vacuum past 15". There is going to be some vacuum that is naturally formed in a tubing system due to gravity...provided the tubing is not running at minimal capacity.

I finished rebuilding a model 73 Delaval and she is running 26.5" at 5.76 CFM. If you check your lines for leaks, do a good job of installing your taps, not to far in as to split the hole or to loose, this type of pump would be good for 500 taps. I expect after this pump runs for a few days she will get to 27 or even 28 as my D 73 does.

Last season I was boiling like crazy with tanks near to capacity; while a neighbor was not even boiling, as he wasn't getting much of anything.
He runs around 20" of vac, and the weather was less than desirable. I boiled for 18 hrs a day for 4 days to get caught up as the weather turned to near perfect conditions.

Great question!

Ben