sap storage

[jwbmaple]

How long can sap be stored? Foe example, I plan on tapping trees this friday and the weather forecast for the following week is high 30's to low 40's for the day and high 20's to low30's for the nights. Can I collect sap all week and then boil on the weekend or do I need to boil midweek? I am a rookie so any advice will be helpful

[maplehound]

You will lose some grade but if you keep it in the shade it should hold for you.

[parsissn]

You might loose some sugar content too. I had some sap we'd kept for 7+ days in the tank. It was still good and clear and due to the cold weather still had bucket size ice chunks floating in the tank (lots of them!). But, even with that, we came out with a 60:1 (maybe even worse) ratio for sap to syrup. When we boil within a few days our ratio is typically much better. That's assuming the trees are behaving and sucking up the ten pound bags of table sugar I put at the base of each one! (just kidding on that last part).

Mark

[brookledge]

I am planning on testing some sap this year to see how much sugar content is lost by keeping the sap for days. I figure I will take a qt or so and test it with my refractomer and then test it every day for a week keeping it at the outside temps.
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Keith,

Keep us posted as I would love to see what you find. It doesn't seem to matter much how long I hold my sap or how soon I boil it as it is still close to the same ratio.

[ibby458]

Right now, I'm storing my sap in the trees, at sub-zero temperatures. (MUCH below zero!) I doubt it'll degrade much, but I can't figure out how to get it out right now anyway. My wife refuses to knit sweaters for all the trees.

[mountainvan]

There was an article in the maple digest awhile back about sugar loss in stored sap. It was bacteria eating the sugar that caused the loss, can't remember how much, but it did seem enough to make me want to boil my sap right away.