Maple sap drop volume?

[Dennis H.]

Ok I tried and can not find anywhere that states what the volume of a sap drop is.
I am trying to find out how many drips of maple sap would be in a gallon.

I did find that a standard unit of measure for water is 20 drops/milliliter which works out to be about 75,700 drops per gallon. But that is for water not maple sap.

I tried to use these measurements for sap and I can't believe that it will work.
There was days that my 2 gal buckets were over flowing and that would make it about 6300 drips per hour or 105 drops per second!!! That is not correct.

So does anyone know what the volume of a maple sap drop is and/or how many drips are in a gallon of maple sap. We can say that the sap sugar content is 2%, I know that high or lower sugar content can and will change this number.

[BreezyHill]

There was a post last season of a guy that said either 3 or 3.5 million drips to make a gallon of syrup from his measurements I don't recall which.

I bet DR Tim would have an answer for this.

[Dennis H.]

He must have used the info that I was finding.
Cause if I used my figures and then used the average sugar content of my sap, 1.5%, I would have about 4.5 million drops to make 1 gal of syrup.

It just doesn't seem correct, 105 drops a second would be a steady stream of liquid not drips.

[Schiefe4]

Why is this information important?

[NW Ohio]

Why is this information important?

...curiosity I suppose...

According to http://sappintime.org/index.php/drops-of-sap, "...76,800 drops in a gallon of sap."

Of course, according to this guy (http://www.tomifobia.com/mahoney/maple_drip.shtml) it depends on which taps you use. I quote, "Canadian taps are manufactured to create the Metric drop of sap, whereas the US tap is manufactured to create the US drop. I am not sure if the taps are stamped to indicate what type it is." Dennis, it looks like you are far enough from the Canadian border to not have to be concerned about metric drips, I'd assume you have standard (US) taps.;)

Seriously though, check your math 6300 drops/hour = 105 drops/min = a much more believable 1.75 drops/sec.

[BreezyHill]

We have on drop left hanging out by the sugar house so people can see, and I how it is running that day. It also show how vacuum affects production. 25' feet away are trees on high vac.

On a good day, with kids counting for 10 seconds the drips, we have hit as much as 130-140 in a minute. And the lines on vac are running a steady little stream down the drops.

It is a rather fascinating fact for kids and people that are curious by nature to know. Then they walk inside and see the 1" lines rushing in sap and filling the glass releaser and are totally blown away.

10414

It is a really good way to get kids excited about how math can be used in real life applications.

[Dennis H.]

NW Ohio, you know you are correct, I screwed up the math!!
I divided 6300 by 60 and forgot to divide by 60 again! Boy my brain just not all with it.

The reason that I am working on this is because I figure it is a way to show visitors what goes into making maple syrup.
The tiny drop of sap to the container of syrup.

[BreezyHill]

It is a great sales tool.

Don't worry about the math, I took some pain killers last week and they Fed me up while I was replying. LOL I stopped when the keys got blurry. Went to bed and got swamped with a broken truck that took 5 days to fix...all because somebody dropped a rail road car seal in the grain elevator.

So don't worry, we all make mistakes; the bigger of us can admit it and keep on going.

Ben

[sirsapsalot]

It is a great sales tool.

Don't worry about the math, I took some pain killers last week and they Fed me up while I was replying. LOL I stopped when the keys got blurry. Went to bed and got swamped with a broken truck that took 5 days to fix...all because somebody dropped a rail road car seal in the grain elevator.

So don't worry, we all make mistakes; the bigger of us can admit it and keep on going.

Ben

Otay Buckwheat!!!!

[FDA]

It is a great sales tool.

Don't worry about the math, I took some pain killers last week and they Fed me up while I was replying. LOL I stopped when the keys got blurry. Went to bed and got swamped with a broken truck that took 5 days to fix...all because somebody dropped a rail road car seal in the grain elevator.

So don't worry, we all make mistakes; the bigger of us can admit it and keep on going.

Ben

What he said!