Bare with me on this...

[medic5794]

I'm trying to think of a way to make my operation more efficient as I've had some changes this year. This make get a little long so please just bare with me.

My situation:
I'm a paramedic who works 24 hour shifts. I work 3 shifts with a day off between shifts then I get 4 days off in a row. The woods that I tap are about 1 hour and 45 minutes from where I live. The woods belong to my Wife's parents. Up until this past spring they lived on the land and so when I tapped we just stayed with them. Since then they have moved and live closer to us. Most of the land is still in their name so I can still tap it. I can not leave tubing up all year round (as of right now) however I can take it down and put it up every spring. This year I plan on tapping with a little over 200 taps (up from a little over 100 last year). I have several gravity sap line paths marked out so that I will have a total of 20 collections spots. There isn't much slope to the land so as of right now that's the best I can do.

My plan:
I plan on going over about every other or every 3rd day to collect the sap and haul it back in 1 or 2 275 gallon IBC tanks on a trailer. I'm building a home made RO this year following this design https://sites.google.com/site/mattatuckmadnessmaplesyrup/home/homemade-reverse-osmosis-system I know it'll be a bit small but it's a started unit for me so it will probably be upgraded when I can afford it. I plan on cooking it down on 6 steam table trays on top of a cinder block arch, again until I can afford a better evaporator and arch.

My concerns:
I fear that I will get too far behind on cooking down the sap that I will have to toss some out or have to haul it again to buyer. I'm concerned that the hauling of the sap from the woods will be too in efficient that it will not be worth the hassle. I'm concerned about that because of that little maple syrup bug that bites every one!

This will be year 3 for me so I don't have unlimited resources i.e money to upgrade majorly however if anyone has any ideas on how I can improve my efficiency please let me know!

[Big_Eddy]

What would you be hauling with? Two full tanks is in the order of 5000lbs of sloshing and shifting load. You would need a suitable trailer and towing vehicle. What kinds of roads? I wouldn't want to be making that trip twice a week unless my rig was appropriately sized. Partial loads are worse for sloshing.

[medic5794]

I was planing on securing the tanks to a car trailer with a wooden deck. So I can secure the tanks to the deck multiple ways. The roads are all good roads. Thanks for bringing up the partial loads, I hadn't thought about that.

[georgelineman]

I would build a Sugar Camp and stay at the property and boil all three days off. 200 taps for one person and trucken it is crazy ! I only have 75 and a 2x3 evaperator and im running around like a nut somedays. Your killing yourself for a hobby... That cant be fun!
george

[medic5794]

I would love to build one if I could. My wife loves maple syrup, however she wants me to cook it back at home rather than spending days on the land cooking it down (which I would love to do) I think we all know that keeping the wife happy supersedes all else :)

[Bucket Head]

Your situation is a little on the tough side. The work shifts and the distance is really working against you.

Any chance of finding a couple hundred taps closer to home? I know it won't be family tree's, but...

If you go with the plan, try to keep the sap cold. Tanks, barrels, etc. in the shade, or shaded somehow. Likewise with the holding vessels at home. Warm sap turns into bad sap pretty quick. I know funds are limited, but you should try and find an old dairy bulk tank. They are insulated and will help to keep things cool.

And the weight issue is very important. One full cage tank weighs over a ton- about 2,200 lbs. Two tanks will be right around two and a quarter tons. Whether its a truck or trailer you still have to stop the thing. be very careful with that kind of weight.

Steve

[buckeye gold]

Please don't be offended as this will seem cold and blunt. If the wife wants the syrup and you are determined to build on this hobby you need to boil on sight and not haul all that sap and finagel a way. So it comes down to either I'm going to do this right or quit on the dream and just make a little table syrup for personal use.

[jmayerl]

I'm a medic also and can tell you California works out great for making syrup if done correctly. First off I would ditch the trees that far away if you want a home base. The logistics and cost of hauling sap that far are stupid and expensive. I started out 7 years ago with a few trees and now it's a good part time business. We just moved from shawano to suamico and I could still tap all the old trees but that would be a huge losing venture. Instead we set up a new sugar shack at the new house which only has 3 trees in the yard. I looked around for some woods and so far am 3 for 3 on walking up and asking landowners for permission to tap with signed leases(it's not difficult) I now have 3 woods within 5 miles of my house and am back up to my 1000+ tap count. Just slowly build up over a few years and add a RO to save on cooking time.

[Big_Eddy]

Do you have power at the site? Can you RO there then only haul 20% of the volume back home? Best of both worlds that way.

[OrangeAgain]

medic5794; I don't have any advice as I'm just starting out. I do have two questions.

1. What do you use for your twenty collection point containers?

2. Do you have to alter the outlet valve fitting on the bottom of one of the sides of the 275 gallon tote?