High sugar content

[spud]

This year I have had very high sugar of 2.5%. I average 1.7-1.8% most seasons. Yesterday while walking the woods replacing several CV2 spouts (pin hole issues) it dawned on me that I might be getting higher sugar because my vacuum is down. I normally run 27-28 Inches of vacuum in my woods but this year it has been 18-25 because of all the defected spouts. Could the lower vacuum have anything to do with me getting higher sugar?

Spud

[DrTimPerkins]

No. Now that we're into the season, sap sugar content seems higher than normal this year.

[maple flats]

My sugar has averaged 2.4 and 2.5. I also buy from 2 others and they have yard trees, hedge row and roadside trees, they have come in with typical averages of 2.7, 2.9, 3.3 and 3.5. Individual trees have hit as high as 5.2%. I think my best tank full ever was 3.75 and that only happened 1 time.

[jwalker91]

The lowest my 500 on vacuum have tested this year in the tank was 2.7 and the highest was Thursday at 3.2 the same day my 70 buckets on roadside trees tested 4.0%. I don't know if it makes a difference but all of my trees on vacuum are big old trees does that make a difference with sugar content?

[Russell Lampron]

My sugar has been higher this season too and because of the lack of leaks with the cv2's I have been maintaining 25" most of the season. Usually I struggle to get 23". My lowest ssc this season was 2% and that was today, before this it has been at 2.4% give or take a .1%.

[TedA]

Glad to see others had a good season re: sugar content. Here in Northern Wisconsin it was a different story. Sugar content in my sap started out around 1.7 % and slowly improved to around 2.25 % by the end of the season. My season ended April 12th. I then calculated the total volume of sap collected against the total volume of syrup produced and ended up with a ratio of 53:1 for an average sugar content of slightly less than 2%. Despite the relatively low sugar content, it was a great season - lasted nearly five weeks.

[sjdoyon]

Highest so far this year, 3.2. Had a morning last year when we hit 3.9 in mid-April with about 3,000 gallons following a very cold day of temps down to single digits. We normally average 2.0 for the season.

[n8hutch]

After reading your post I calculated mine & came out with 2.51% it will be interesting to track this year to year!

[jrm]

Glad to see others had a good season re: sugar content. Here in Northern Wisconsin it was a different story. Sugar content in my sap started out around 1.7 % and slowly improved to around 2.25 % by the end of the season. My season ended April 12th. I then calculated the total volume of sap collected against the total volume of syrup produced and ended up with a ratio of 53:1 for an average sugar content of slightly less than 2%. Despite the relatively low sugar content, it was a great season - lasted nearly five weeks.
I know I've seen the formula for calculating sugar content on the forum. When I search on "rule of" too many posts were returned. Would you please remind me how this is calculated? Thanks.

[maple flats]

The old rule was of 86, divide the sugar % into 86 for the number of gal of sap it will take to make a gal of syrup. then more recently I think I read that the number is closer to 87, so I use the 87. Which ever number you decide to go with, just plug in the numbers to 86 (or 87)/sugar %= gal of sap needed to produce a gal of syrup.

[unc23win]

In order to figure it from Syrup take total gallons of syrup divided by the total gallons of sap then multiply that by 100. Example 25 Gal of syrup divided by 1000 gallons of sap x 100 25/1000= .025 x100=2.5% and of course 2.5% is an average.

To add to what Dave said I use the rule of 87 because there is more room for error and I will most likely make more than expected some are using 88.

[DrTimPerkins]

To answer the question, how many gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup, see the article "Jones Rule Revisited" on the UVM Proctor Maple Research Center webpage http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc

The direct link to the article is: http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/jones.pdf

To calculate the sap sugar content, see Jared's (unc23win) post below, or measure it directly with a refractometer or sap hydrometer.

[Galena]

...To calculate the sap sugar content, see Jared's (unc23win) post below, or measure it directly with a refractometer or sap hydrometer.

But that takes all the fun out of it!

I decided that The Rule of 86 is too confusing, esp as I collect in litres, not gallons, be they Imperial or US.

So I've invented The Rule of Galena, and I think it's pretty danged close to what the Ro86 would give me. This is how I worked it: # of l of sap collected x 1000, divided by the number of actual mls made into finished syrup, and move the decimal over one place to the left.

So for the virgin bush, that works out to: 19.8l sap x 1000 = 19800 / 700mls syrup = 28.2. Move the decimal one place to the left and I get 2.8% sugar content.
For my home bush: 38.1l sap x 1000 = 38100 / 1250mls syrup = 30.48 works out to 3.0% sugar content.

Dr Tim, hope you see this, couldn't pm it to you as your mailbox was full.

[DrTimPerkins]

Dr Tim, hope you see this, couldn't pm it to you as your mailbox was full.

Not full, I just have PM shut off. Too busy during the sugaring season to respond. Will turn it back on in another week or so.

[Galena]

Not full, I just have PM shut off. Too busy during the sugaring season to respond. Will turn it back on in another week or so.

As I suspected! :-) So, do you think the Rule of Galena works?

[jrm]

Thanks for the help. While my numbers are a bit of approximation -- were my 5 gal buckets really filled with 5 gallons of sap, where is the 5 gal marking anyway? -- and having spilled some syrup on the floor during filtering...

I came up with 2.5 quarts/1 gal = .625 gals finished / 40 gal collected x 100 = ~ 1.5% sugar.