How much sap do you use to rinse a tubing system?

[Geroldn]

Hello everyone,

I understand that the first sap from a tubing system is wasted to the ground to remove last year's crud, but how much? My 181 CV2 taps are on 2500' of gravity 5/16" tubing, divided evenly into 2 systems. About 2/3 of the total was used in 2014, the rest is new for this year. I have 10% slope and am hoping to get some gravity induced vacuum. The total volume of 2500' of 5/16" is 10 gallons (no mainline). I'm thinking of triple rinsing, i.e. 15 gallons of sap from each system, before starting to collect in my sap tank. I've found lots of great information on this discussion site, but no specifics on this question. Does anyone have any opinions on the quantity of sap used to rinse out a tubing system? I've heard 'first day' but - good day? bad day? In my case I have a reasonably accurate measure of my collection system volume and would rather not waste more than necessary.

Gerold
Northfield, VT

[optionguru]

A couple of people I have asked let the first day go on the ground.

[spud]

When I turn on my pumps I let all the snot run into the tank and that might be 100 gallons at best. I will dump all that out and then start keeping the rest. One days run for me could be 6000-12,000 gallons so there is no way I would want or need to dump all that. If your running gravity into your tank just clamp a sock at the end of the pipe for the first few hours the sap starts to run.

Spud

[adk1]

Iwas questioning the same thing. Think I will just watch it. I filter my sap directly from the line but will still let the first few hours of a decent run go

[BreezyHill]

For our operation we just watch the lines. When the sap in the releaser, which is glass, looks nice and clear and I will sample it and when it tastes good we close the valve. On a good run day that can be as little as a couple of hours. We do wash the lines in the past with Clorox so when the smell was gone was an easy indicator...now on peroxide solution so there is no taste or smell to that.

In the past if we had a nasty main that had stuff in it we would fill a tank of water and suck it thru the main that had an issue and flush it out and wait a few minutes. Less sap wasted this way.

When she looks good and tastes good close the valve.

Ben

[northwoods_forestry]

We run high pressure air & water through the lines at the end of every season and haven't ever had to dump any sap at the start of the season.

[ennismaple]

We'll run the pumps for a few hours, dump the crud that comes in, clean the tank and start keeping the clean sap.

[Geroldn]

On March 5 I asked how much sap to waste to clean out my lines. The online consensus and from another sugar maker I know at work, is to let it flow to the ground until it looks good and tastes good. As of Monday, March 9 I collected about 2 gallons total from both tubing systems, into 5g buckets. Sap was dripping about 1 drop/sec out of each line (90 taps/line). No visible crud, but it still tastes bad - onto the ground it went. The trees dripped a little bit over the weekend, but I think most of what I collected is a result of adjusting lines and shaking out residual, spoiled sap that was in the lines from last season. Tuesday I had 7 gallons and dumped it. Wednesday March 11, I dumped another couple gallons before I was satisfied with the sap I was collecting and started letting it run to the tank. Total dumped was about 12 gallons spread over 7 days to finally get to good sap. Basically rinsed my tubing with one collection system volume of sap. Now its cold and windy, no more sap for several days.