Storage vs. Processing

[DavyJones]

Good morning from western PA. I'm somewhat a new sugarin' and wanted to know how long you can/should store the sap before you begin to boil it down. Last year was my first year and we just tapped a few trees around my house. The kids had fun and of course the end result was delicious. We tapped 12 trees and out of those 12 trees we got enough sap to make a couple gallons of syrup. I collected the sap over several days storing it in a big plastic container I had. This year I plan on tapping 40 trees so I'll have considerable more sap which will take me longer to boil down so I'll be storing it longer.

Thanks
David

[Fred Henderson]

It varies arccording to the temp of it. I was always told 3 days, but I think you can go longer.

[HanginAround]

A lot has to do with the weather, the cooler you can keep it, the better. You can freeze it if you have to, but most people don't have the space to freeze much. Plus, takes energy to freeze it and energy to thaw it out. You could freeze some and put the ice cakes in with the rest would be a help. UV lights help kill bacteria too, and improves lifespan.

[Jim Brown]

Welcome David; 'RULE OF THUMB' is just as quick as you can boil it. Even if it means boiling in to the wee hours. The longer you wait the more chance of a lower quaility of syrup
Just my thoughts from 59 years of playing in the sap!

[Sugarmaker]

David,
Welcome
We try to boil the sap we collect the same day. If we can't for some reason which is rare we boil it the next day. Sap can spoil very quick. If the temp is cold and the sap is cold I would say you can go several days if you have to.
Good luck with you syrup operation. Where are you in Western PA? Several of the traders are probably in your area.

Regards,
Chris

[royalmaple]

Dave-

Welcome aboard. Looks like you got a pretty good charge of maples around the house. You'll be upgrading out of the turkey pot sooner than you think. One shot shows a ridge to the right of your house, looks like all hard woods there. Hummmm, potential tapping grounds??? Piped right to your house??

I'd try to keep your totes obviously out of the sun as much as you can, or maybe some shed or something cool. If you got snow like most of us do this year, kinda pack the container in the snow to keep it chilled.

Bottom line have fun, boil what you got, no matter how old it is and put double on the waffles.

You have to post your website link in your signature to share the pics with everyone.

[DavyJones]

Thanks everyone for the welcome and advice. Being new I'm hoping the reply makes it as a general reply to all. We live in Beaver County, New Sewickley Township I'm about 15 minutes from Brady's Run Park were they hold a big maple festival each spring. I'm actually in the shadow of the "Big Knob" in New Sewickley. I watch the sunrise come over it each morning. I posted a link in my signature to some photos from last year. I tapped last year towards middle of February and since reading I can see I wasn't off by that much when I could start, knowing now the weather plays the main role in when you can start. You're also right I will soon be moving on to bigger and better boiling, last years turkey fryer is going to be replace by a couple of 15 gallon aluminum beer kegs with the tops cut off. I have a 210 gallon pottable container I use to haul water in which is going to double this year as my storage tank for sap as I continually boil, 100 pound propane tank and 2 turkey fryer bases standing by. This brings me to another question I hope it's ok to ask in this response. That is last year it seemed like with my little 7 gallon turkey fryer it took me probably in the neighberhood of 20 hours to boil down the 40+ gallons (Probably more like 50 the tote I used was pretty bulged out) which yielded more or less about a gallon of syrup. That just seems like an awful long time to me and I certainly didn't stay up all night to do this I started boiling in the morning and probably after about 12 hours in the evening I shut everything down then picked it up again the next morning. It tasted fine and we didn't get sick so that was my plan this year but on a larger scal with the kegs. It sounds like many of you are boiling or evaporating much more them my little operation so whats the secret? I mean we're all operating under the same rules of physics here unless they don't apply in your kitchens. How do you boil down such a large quantity faster?. Is the large flat evaporator pan what I am missing? I didn't want the sap to burn so admittidly I didn't have my turkey fryer roaring full steam I opened it up until I had a nice roiling steaming boil going then just kept it going adding a gallon or 2 every once in a while. When I got down to no more sap and just a couple of gallons in my turkey fryer I took that liquid inside and finished it off on the stove were I could monitor the temp more accurately.

Thanks again everyone for the response and greetings.

David

[Bucket Head]

Hi Dave,
Welcome aboard! I tell folk's that this syrup making thing is like an ongoing science fair project. It's one "experiment" after another, LOL. Everybody is trying something new to try to produce more syrup with less time/work.

The key to fast evaporation is surface area. The more area you can expose to flame, and the more area you can expose the sap to that flame, more evaporation takes place. The first couple of pan's that we used were about 1.5x2ft. They worked a lot better than the pot that we used the first year we made syrup. Also, you only want an inch or two depth of sap in the pan so it boils easily and as vigorously as the heat will allow it.

As for the threat of boil over, this qoute that I read year's ago sum's it up. "A watched pot never boil's and a watched pan never boil's over". Keep an eye on it and it will be fine.

Good luck with this season and have fun!

Steve

[Jim Brown]

Dave; to answer your question of how most of us do it faster is we have all been where you are at one point in our sugar careers.( turkey fryers-flat pans-wash tubs-old stainless steam table trays you name it) We have a Waterloo Small 2x 6 evaporator with a Leader steamaway on top .Ours is forced draft and wood fired. we can evaporate about 53 gallon per hour. if we keep the stack base temp at 700 degrees.we are just a little north of you near Franklin -oil City area. Please fell free to stop up if you get a chance this season we will be tapping this coming weekend we have around 800 taps to get in
Thanks and welcome I think!
Send me a PM and I will give you direction
or
go to www.pamaple.org and we are on NWPa maple producers site
Jim

[sugarin4fun]

Dave,
Sounds like we are in the same boat, this is our second year also.
Two years ago was our first (17 taps) and we spend two Saturdays boiling about 14 hrs each to get about 3 gallons of syrup. Last year we just bought it. What I did to store my sap was to pile snow up on the north side of my barn and stored the sap in 5 gallon buckets in and around the snow piles. It seemed to work well and I am planning on doing it again this year.

Greg

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I sometimes hold my sap up to 5 or 6 days if possible. I have a 625 gallon insulated milk tank on the north side and in the shade and I throw frozen buckets of sap out of the freezer every day and it stays very cold which is the key.

[HanginAround]

Your boiling rate is dependant on surface area, as they said, but also on the vigour of the boil. The more heat you can put to it the better. Of course, this isn't always easy with a propane burner and a pot, not only is the surface area limited, but the amount you can turn up the fire without just wasting the flames is limited. A 2 x 6 has surface area of 12 Sq Ft, your pot probably has no more than 2? And the flue pan on an evaporator has a huge surface area exposed to the fire, way more than a flat pan, so the boil is very aggressive. You're probably doing as well as you can do, all I would say is turn up the flames as high as practical, the more it's rolling, the better.

[mapleack]

Yes you can store sap, how long depends on a lot of variables. Will it hurt the quality? Probably. Will it hurt the quantity? What? Thats right, it will hurt the quantity. No matter what you do there is bacteria in sap. What do bacteria feed on? Sugar. In large quantities of sap there can be a noticible decline in the amount syrup recovered from sap as it nears the spoiling point because the bacteria have consumed so much of the sugar content. Does this really matter to a very small hobbiest? Perhaps not. Just keep the sap as cold as possible, keep your containers as clean as possible, boil it as soon as possible and most importantly HAVE FUN. Good luck and good boiling.
-Andy