Sap %

[325abn]

I bought a sap hydrometer today and Collected 150 of %3 sap today how does this compare?

[Sugarmaker]

325abn,
Well compared to 1.5% sap it sounds real good!:)

Did you get a long stem type? I really like mine. Another good investment is a sap refractometer. about $60-$70 ( China made), nice for checking at the tree if you have time.
Sugarmaker

[325abn]

No I got a short stem.

Whats the formula for sap to syrup ratio?

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

86 divided by the sugar content

[John Burton]

86 divded by the sugar % minus 1 ( for the gallon of syrup you draw) equals approximate sap to syrup ratio

[325abn]

Thanks
John what surgar content are you getting in your AO?

[325abn]

(86/3)-1= 27.6

Not a bad ratio! How accurate is this 86 rule?

[Fred Henderson]

Install a water meter to check the rule of 86.

[325abn]

This does not say anything about subtracting 1 !

Charles Howland Jones came to Vermont in 1896 from Massachusetts and "virtually yanked the maple tree out of the sixteenth century." Known as C.H. to his friends and colleagues, he "attacked the controversies and mysteries of sap flow head-on. If you recently participated in our Trivia Contest, you'll appreciate reading about Jones's Rule of 86, which helps you calculate the amount of maple sap required to make a gallon of pure maple syrup.

"Jones's paper, "The Carbohydrate Contents of the Maple Trees," was a scientific tour de force, but Jones would be remembered most for a curious calculation he devised as a result of this work. His various talents came together in a clever statement of the relationship of sugar content in maple sap to the amount of syrup a given amount of sap will produce. Jones explained to sugarmakers that if the percent of sugar is known and used to divide into the constant 86, the number of gallons of sap needed to produce one gallon of finished syrup would be known. Thus sap with a concentration of 2 percent would dictate a total of 43 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup."

"Eighty-six is really a factor to use as a shortcut for some pretty involved chemical calculations," says Lighthall. "It is based on some very precise measures of the density of weak sugar solutions." Jones, however, made it all seem rollickingly simple by spinning out the rule in doggerel that is still tacked up on beams in sugarhouses throughout

[John Burton]

the rule of 86 as seen in the new ohio state maple syrup producers manual page 141. Where "s"is the number of gallons of sap required to produce one gallon of syrup,"x"is the brix value of the sap,and 86 is a mathmatical constant representing the percentage of solids (mostly sucrose) on a weight -volume basis that is in agallon of syrup(see following discussion).It follows then that the number of gallons of water that must be evaporated from sapto obtain one gallon of syrupcan be calculated by subtracting 1 from the following equation. W=(86/x)-1 . As an example,usingsap with a density of 2 degrees brix requires 43 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup: S=86/x=86/2=43 gallons of sap and 42 gallons of water must be evaporated to produce one gallon of syrup:W=(86/x)-1=(86/2)-1=43-1 =42 gallons water. not trying to be argumentitive its just how I learned . 325 typically my sap starts out at 2.75 however latley it has dropped to 2 even and is just starting to cloud up a bit.

[Oakes' Sugar House]

The question was "what is the formula for sap vs. syrup", in other words how much sap does it take to produce one gallon of syrup. To answer this question use 86/(% sugar) as the formula.

To answer the question of how much water is evaporated when making 1 gallon of syrup use 86/(% sugar) - 1.