Red Maple Sap Color Transition

[odave]

Newbie question here. I have a 12" diameter red maple that I tapped yesterday. It ran much slower than my Silvers/Norways/Sugars and the first hour's sap it gave was a little cloudy and had a yellowish cast. It tasted just fine. The drill pulled out white shavings so I don't think it's bad wood and it wasn't raining. I put that sap in a separate container and continued collecting in a new bucket. After a couple of hours I noticed the new sap was clearer and less yellow. I separated that sap too. Today the sap in the bucket is clear and looks like the stuff I'm getting from the other trees. The brix for the three samples went from ~1.5 > 2 > 2.5. Is this normal behavior for a red maple? I have gotten less than a quart of sap from this tree so I'm OK with leaving it out of the "blend" for boiling.

[Tickle]

i am not quite sure on the cloudiness of the sap but i tend to get different clarity's of sap some is clear some yellowish some looks like tannin you see in water in the Adirondacks , i cant believe how good your sugar content is for a red maple , i don't think i have ever had a 2.5 on my reds , that is great

[Sinzibuckwud]

I have a few reds produce a pink tinted sap after first tapping.
always dumped it out and it ran clear afterwards, it is never much maybe a few cups at most.

[odave]

Thanks for the replies, guys.

The red is running clear now and tastes the same as the others.

I think the sugar content I gave may have been wrong. My buddy used his 0-32 refractometer on it, and I don't think it was calibrated correctly since the numbers he gave for my other trees seemed high too. I have a 0-80 model which makes the low end of the scale hard to read. I'll re-check it tonight.

[Michael Greer]

I have a couple of Reds that test as good as a good Sugar Maple, and one huge perfect looking Sugar that really produces...but has fairly low sugar content. Tap 'em all.