Maiden voyage on 3/16"

[Diesel Pro]

Put in 2 strings this weekend. 500' total more or less and 30 per string. I have a about 25' elevation change right at the end of each string. So far mixed results. I saw vacuum peak at 9" then an hour later it had dropped to 5 then worked back up again. Saw a max of 12" with a fair amount of air constantly. Mostly larger longer bubbles. I found one drop that had a tone of small bubbles and seated the tap which took care of this. About 3hrs of afternoon run (overcast but 40's) and I could still hear the sap plunk on the bottom of the tote. :(

My trees seem to run a few days behind the curve locally so I'm not too concerned just yet.

[Dave Puhl]

Today was not a good sap run day....keep the reports coming... my 5/16 is getting old and thinking on the upgrade to 3/16..maybe..

[Lano75]

3/16 performance

I have 6 runs 4 with gages 70 taps, taps/run are: 14, 22, 4, 5, 14 and 11

29 taps still on buckets

3/16 average 1.86 gallons/tap

buckets w/drops average 1.03 gallons/tap

160 gallons yesterday on 99 taps

[maple flats]

Put in 2 strings this weekend. 500' total more or less and 30 per string. I have a about 25' elevation change right at the end of each string. So far mixed results. I saw vacuum peak at 9" then an hour later it had dropped to 5 then worked back up again. Saw a max of 12" with a fair amount of air constantly. Mostly larger longer bubbles. I found one drop that had a tone of small bubbles and seated the tap which took care of this. About 3hrs of afternoon run (overcast but 40's) and I could still hear the sap plunk on the bottom of the tote. :(

My trees seem to run a few days behind the curve locally so I'm not too concerned just yet.
You might still have a leak someplace. If you have 25' elevation drop, once the lines get full (sap/air/sap/air etc) you should get more that 12" max, if the air (gas bubbles) are the same length as the sap in the tube you should get just over 12" but if the air bubbles are only about half as long as the sap in the tube you should get maybe 18". Either way, keep checking and fixing leaks and don't lose too much time just watching the sap move steadily towards your collection tank. It can be hard to fight the urge to watch the sap flow.

[Diesel Pro]

I found the one leak that had the short bubbles. The rest were long sap/long air. Some taps are not quite flowing yet. I do have a concern that with my relatively low vacuum I may need to scale back my taps per line count.

Another post I read from northern WI I saw a comment how things did not start going until 4pm Sunday which is consistent with what I saw.

[Austin351]

My 3/16" maiden voyage as well. Put the lines up a couple weeks ago and tapped last week.

North line - 300' / 15 taps / Maybe 10' of drop.
South line - 600' / 22 taps / 20' of drop.

I know my elevation drop is not optimum for vacuum but, it is what I have to work with..

Flow was very poor on Saturday but was expecting them to do better than what I saw. Walked the lines on Sunday, made a couple changes to the south line, still wasn't impressed. Hung (5) bags on other trees to see if it was the lines or if it was the trees. Bags were doing about one drop per second. Granted I don't have that much of a elevation change I was thinking they would do better than one drop per second at the storage tank. My simple math says if a tap is dripping at one drop per second, shouldn't a 15 tree line be dripping at 15 drops per second into the tank?
South line wasn't hardly doing anything, so slow it was hard to even see the bubbles / sap moving. Left the woods in late afternoon, thinking I would need a pump..

Check this morning at 5:00am, everything was moving very well. (temps were around 44 all night) Unfortunately, temps will remain below freezing for the next 10 days..

What I learned: Do what you can and then wait mother nature and physics come together. ;)

[Diesel Pro]

Yeah the weather forecast keeps on changing. Oh well they should run for the next 2 days then again on Thursday maybe.

[motowbrowne]

This is my first year with most of my woods on 3/16 with a Shurflo pump. I have 2 collection points. One has about 260ish taps coming into a 1" line. With the Shurflo I'm getting 16" in the mainline. Like a lot of you guys I don't have enough drop for only relying on natural vacuum. Also, on half a dozen of these lines, my slope is mediocre at best.

The Shurflo doesn't add a lot of cost, and it really helps keep the gauges up. It also makes finding leaks in the system much easier than just the amount of movement that the slope provides.

[Diesel Pro]

Right now I'm working to configure the pump to move the sap up the hill to the cabin. In hindsight I'm thinking I maybe should have just run the lines to the cabin area and done a small sucker pump. I'm going to see how this works and may consider a Shurflo option with controller. I added solar power and a 430ah 24 v battery bank with inverter to the cabin this past fall so I now have full time electricity.

[Austin351]

I am still considering a Shurflo 4008. Although I am only home during the weekends to run it, guessing any little bit will help. I would also be able to get to another 8 trees for a total of 47 taps. Amazon has a 4008 for $68 shipped...

[Johnny t]

My first year on 3/16. I absolutely love it. I have anywhere from 30-40 ft. of drop, I have a lot of untapped trees on the hills yet because I don't have capacity for them and I have a lot of pails up on the flat yet. Next year? goodbye pails hello 3/16. The 3/16 runs way after the pails shut down, and produce way more. I do have one 5/16 run for comparison and the 3/16 is running circles around it. (pun intended).

[Diesel Pro]

I too am only available weekends. Today my brother is going to spin up and check things out. I'm torn between natural and artificial vacuum. The more I read, the more I'm thinking I want to do the small pump option. I put in a sand lift for another building a couple years back and I'm getting the itch to build it. Would save me the up and down the bank and flirting with flood waters.

[Diesel Pro]

Well I'm convinced. 60 taps 2 days and 220+ gallons of sap. Vacuum reached high of 14" on gravity. At this rate I'll be looking to sell some sap...

[Austin351]

That's awesome. Don't sell, just get more storage tanks and a bigger evaporator. :lol:

[Diesel Pro]

My goal is not to make more syrup, it's to minimize the labor (pails) and get my syrup done with 2 cooks versus 4. I haven't checked content of the sap yet,but basically if I had a week of good running I'd have my season. Oldest Grandson is only 7 so he's not into it so much yet and the middle generation is a lost cause.

[Austin351]

and the middle generation is a lost cause.[/QUOTE]

HA!

[GV2]

and the middle generation is a lost cause.

HA![/QUOTE]

My son-in-law finished his 20 years of Air Force service last March and joined me on my last Spring 2016 boil. I have done 3 boils so far this year and he has shown up at the sugar camp a little after dawn each time. there may still be hope!!

[Austin351]

HA!

My son-in-law finished his 20 years of Air Force service last March and joined me on my last Spring 2016 boil. I have done 3 boils so far this year and he has shown up at the sugar camp a little after dawn each time. there may still be hope!![/QUOTE]

Now come on... :) I was thinking the late 20's, as opposed to the late 30's (as your son-in law?). Heck, I'm 45.

[cedar syrups]

I,m new to 3/16 tubing and have 3 runs 24 32 & 25 all on about a 20 ft slope or so going around 500 ft zig zagging thru the woods I taped sat as I,m way up in northern Wis at first I got like 9 " of vac at the top but it climbed to 14 latter Sunday after noon and it ran all night and Mon collected about 160 gals from this. I,m thinking averaging 2 gals for the period is ok considering the wind and such I,m really looking forward to when it finally runs good. My first experience with my R/O was also awesome. I,m also putting in a shurflo 4088 around my sap shack with maybe 80 taps on it as its really flat I hope the pump gets here soon. does anyone have any pointers/comments I,m kind of new to to the site thanks

[cedar syrups]

I,m also new to tubing and R/o I would like to now more about your set up as yours seems a lot like the size of my sap empire. I need more info on putting a main line for shurflo pump next year to have less bags next year I think I will have around 400 taps when the syrup season starts for real up here I,m only 5 miles from lake Superior so its cold windier than hell Id like to thank all of the comments ive read here as I,m new to the site and I try to gather all of the info I can use Thanks again

[Diesel Pro]

cedar,

That's a lot more taps than I'm running. I just hope to hit 20 or so gallons per season at this point until I get a market for more. I could easily expand my collection on 3/16 or add a shurflo setup but again need an outlet.

[5050racing]

Same problem here with the 3/16 with to much sap that's why
I'm building a RO with a friend to handle that problem!

[Diesel Pro]

I'm not buried yet and don't want to count my chickens before they are hatched, but I did find a local to buy my excess sap if necessary.

[VTnewguy]

We have found in times of high flow (sap is running good) we get a vacuum reading over 22" In times of low flow it drops off considerably to 10-12".

[Bill@mysticmaple]

Diesel, you'll really like the 3/16" line. I've got about 100 taps on 3 lines, from 800' to 1400' in length, and about 60' - 70' of vertical drop with most of the taps up high. After a solid freeze it takes a good 10 to 12 hours of temps above 40 for the lines to thaw out, but when it does I'll get 150 to 200 gallons of sap in the next 12 hours.
As a side note, thanks for your thread on the RO build. I put one together based on your design with a MES membrane and I'm pulling off a gallon a minute first run thru.

[Diesel Pro]

Thanks Bill

Froze up hard here. I have 220 gallons waiting to thaw and hopefully more for the weekend. Right now it looks like Wednesday we are supposed to start to get just above freezing with Thursday and Friday being in the 40's after 9° overnight low Wednesday. Hoping things get rolling so I can cook on Sunday. Accuweather hasn't been anywhere near right as of late, but we should be coming into a nice pattern of warm days and cold nights for the foreseeable future.

[Diesel Pro]

After over a week of dormancy with temps below freezing things got going late today. Neighbor says that my South line (most drop) had 18" of vacuum in it while the north line was 10". Previously 14" was max observed. Now I have to wonder if I might be a bit overtapped on the lines and maybe only a few of the trees had opened up? I guess if the vacuum drops on a good flow day that should give me my answer?

[Austin351]

I'm just not getting the results with the 3/16" over bags..?.. Granted things aren't really flowing right now but my 7 bags had about a half gallon in each and the tote where the 3/16" dumps has about 2 gallons in it (south line has 15' of drop and 22 taps and the north line has 10' of drop with 15 taps). My simple math says the tote should have gotten around 16 gallons. Best I have seen in the gauges is 10" so it is more of a gravity line with a little natural vacuum assist. Trees are on the hill and then flattens out for a ways before hitting the tote.
Yes, thinking of a Shurflo but don't have one right now. Would I have been better off with 5/16" gravity lines?

[Cody]

Just have to have patience,the trees are cold and so is the ground.

[Bill@mysticmaple]

I don't have any experience with sap sacks, but my 3/16" lines take 10 to 12 hours of upper 30 degree temps before they start to run after a heavy freeze like we just had. Temps here were around 40, partly sunny and at 2:30 one line showed a little movement. When I checked them at five they were all moving at a good rate but with large bubbles between drops.
Austin, 5/16" lines do not work with natural gravity vacuum.

[GramaCindy]

I'm on my maiden voyage with 3/16 as well. I have had some decent flows, but my gauges still read 0. I have them on their own T at the top of the line, gauge is higher than the tap. I did see a lot if tiny bubbles yesterday as well as some long ones. I checked for obvious leaks and found nothing that looked suspicious. I did just open the line to shorten a drop near the beginning of the run, could that be what it was? It's taking most of the day to get things running here so far with highs only in the mid to high 30's after a long freeze up. Tomorrow a high in the 50's and sun, bring it on! I'm going to go out today and check all of my T's to look for woodshavings. I had to remove a few blockages on Thursday. My sap helper, AKA Journeyman Lori will be here to assist with the tubing tool to push some T's and taps on better. Hope that helps.

[Cody]

Were further south than you Cindy and our tree's were starting to run better last night than they did all day.We need some sunshine to warm the ground up.

[Lano75]

Quick update on gravity! The trees are just waking up from last cold spell. collected and cooked 41 gallons last night and had two draws.

So here is the performance of gravity vs buckets

70 taps on gravity 5 gallons per tap for the season

29 taps on drop lines to buckets 3 gallons per tap for the season

660 gallons of total sap collected so far on 99 taps

[Bill@mysticmaple]

Cindy, how much vertical drop do you have? That could add to the low reading on the gauge. Also, I would resist cutting into your line unless you see an obvious problem, anytime you open the line you will loose what vacuum you have and it'll take time to rebuild.

It didn't freeze here last night although the trees did slow down a bit overnight. 40 is supposed to be our high today, maybe the sap will flow good before it freezes again tonight.

[Austin351]

I don't have any experience with sap sacks, but my 3/16" lines take 10 to 12 hours of upper 30 degree temps before they start to run after a heavy freeze like we just had. Temps here were around 40, partly sunny and at 2:30 one line showed a little movement. When I checked them at five they were all moving at a good rate but with large bubbles between drops.
Austin, 5/16" lines do not work with natural gravity vacuum.

Yeah, was thinking about forgetting about any vacuum and just running 5/16" gravity.

[GramaCindy]

Cindy, how much vertical drop do you have? That could add to the low reading on the gauge. Also, I would resist cutting into your line unless you see an obvious problem, anytime you open the line you will loose what vacuum you have and it'll take time to rebuild.

It didn't freeze here last night although the trees did slow down a bit overnight. 40 is supposed to be our high today, maybe the sap will flow good before it freezes again tonight.
Both lines have a good 30+' of vertical drop from the last tap. I saw wood shavings, saw dust type gunk at the T's and bubbles weren't moving so I removed them. I will resist the urge to do that in the future. I guess the last freeze up really slowed things down, patience is needed more than I had I guess.

[Cedar Eater]

You can pinch a line with vice grips upstream and downstream of any place you need to cut in to preserve vacuum and not get bathed from upstream. Don't pinch too tight and watch that spot for collapses afterwards, but 3/16" Leader 30P is pretty good about not collapsing.

[BSD]

Both lines have a good 30+' of vertical drop from the last tap. I saw wood shavings, saw dust type gunk at the T's and bubbles weren't moving so I removed them. I will resist the urge to do that in the future. I guess the last freeze up really slowed things down, patience is needed more than I had I guess.i would remove any shavings in there, any restriction will reduce flow, which will reduce vacuum. as mentioned, pinch off the line 6" upstream of the T with a needle nose vice grip and replace the drop or or remove the junk, the vacuum you lose for a few moments to clean out the restriction will be gained back quickly after reconnecting and releasing the vice grip.

[Diesel Pro]

Am I running too many taps per line? I'm at around 30 per line with maybe 33 and 27 (guess) 60 total. When first installed we had a colossal 2 day run of about 2 gallons per tap per day. Vacuum was moderate at 6 to 10 or so. I now have hit peak of 20" on my south line and 17" on my north line. It's been high 2 days in a row, but we've been in a freeze/minor thaw cycle with today being overcast and low 30's. Odd thing is the sap in the tank is slow at accumulating. What is the high vacuum telling me? High flow moderate vacuum, low/moderate flow high vacuum. Am I overanalyzing this?


I have a few more trees that I want to tap on these lines, but I'm concerned that I'll be overtapped per line.

[BSD]

Am I running too many taps per line? I'm at around 30 per line with maybe 33 and 27 (guess) 60 total. When first installed we had a colossal 2 day run of about 2 gallons per tap per day. Vacuum was moderate at 6 to 10 or so. I now have hit peak of 20" on my south line and 17" on my north line. It's been high 2 days in a row, but we've been in a freeze/minor thaw cycle with today being overcast and low 30's. Odd thing is the sap in the tank is slow at accumulating. What is the high vacuum telling me? High flow moderate vacuum, low/moderate flow high vacuum. Am I overanalyzing this?


I have a few more trees that I want to tap on these lines, but I'm concerned that I'll be overtapped per line.when i put mine in this year i had two big days at the start and then a drop off as well. vac has been all over the map. best case is 23" but most are 15-18".it's been such a weird spring that i don't think the tree's know what the hell is going on.

i average 25 per line and it seems to work well for me.

[Bill@mysticmaple]

Diesel, the temps here in NW PA have been the low to mid thirties yesterday and today, it did not freeze last night but the sap wasn't running much at all. this evening 2 of 3 lines are running fairly well, the lines mostly full of sap with some bubbles although not running fast as it does on those 50 degree days. It's supposed to freeze tonight so they may come to a halt overnight.

I have about the same number on my lines, and on slow days I wonder if I should have put more taps on each, but on those high flow days I don't the lines could handle any more.

[Diesel Pro]

The weather man has been so far off lately I don't know that I trust the forecast, but Sunday should be a good run into Monday and for that matter all week looks promising. I'll get a chance to see first hand Sunday how it goes.

Today was maybe 35° tops and overcast all day. I was watching the south line at about the 4th tap from the top and clocking the bubbles at about an inch per second.

[Lano75]

Diesel Pro my runs are doing the same thing. Yesterday when the sun came out they finally came to life. steady stream out of two of my runs. they did not get going until 2. They froze last night again so I am hoping for a quick warm up this morning.

[lewichuk19]

Ran 2 North facing slope lines with 25 taps per line on March 16. Was the first day above freezing in a few weeks. Weather hasnt been the greatest, Friday was sunny and 36, Saturday was overcast and maybe got to 36. So far i'm pretty impressed with the 3/16. Sap flowed both days, really slowly, but flow it did. Vac was consistent at 23", once the lines thawed and the sap started moving. Did a test, took 12 min to collect 1 litre. Works out to .63 american gals/tap/day. Not a great number, but better than 0. My only concern was some of my drop lines stay full of sap, if you watch them closely you can see the odd air bubble rise in them...Is this normal???....On a sidenote, it is really mesmerizing watching the sap zoom down the line to the tank

[Cedar Eater]

it's seems normal for mine. Even on mechanical vacuum, some trees just seem to stall for a while with their dropline full. They don't seem to stay stalled. It seems like it happens more on the lines with more taps.

[Diesel Pro]

I added another 20 tap string for good measures and comparison sake. Much shorter than the other two. I'll watch and see how they do. If I have to I can always split up the other strings and pick up a couple of tress that I skipped.

I also need to work on my termination at the tank. Not sure exactly what I'm going to do there yet. For now I looped the lines around the cage on my tote.

[GramaCindy]

I used a chinese finger trap made with hollow core rope. I wound the rope around a tree at the bottom of the line, (Not tapped tree) and then thread the end of the line through the hollow core rope to snug it up before dropping into the tote tank

[BSD]

I used a chinese finger trap made with hollow core rope. I wound the rope around a tree at the bottom of the line, (Not tapped tree) and then thread the end of the line through the hollow core rope to snug it up before dropping into the tote tank

I do the same, but different. i attach the hollow core rope to my tote and then use a tree as end turn for the 3/16 to take all the weight.16158

[Austin351]

Trees seemed to open up a bit more on Sunday / Monday. Both lines were about as fast as it can drip, without actually making a stream. Pressure gauge showed 15, which seemed about right because I had previously guessed my elevation drop was somewhere around 15'-20'. Previously had only gotten 12 on the gauge, but found a hollow tree, bypassed it, and all good to go.

I noticed that I hardly had any air bubbles in my lines, like one every 10-20'. I assume that is a good thing? Most drops were backed up with some sap so guessing any air out of the tree was staying at the top of the drop, in lieu of being sucked into the line? Again, a good thing?

[Diesel Pro]

I had 3 lines with a steady trickle Sunday, but I think we are seeing short duration runs at present. Things get started at around noon and run until a bit past sunset. Upcoming weather has overnight lows in the low 30's so we may get some long runs.

[palmer4th]

If your going to install vacuum guages where is the best stop to get the most info about the line? At the top where the highest about of vacuum will be or at the last tap on the line?

[Diesel Pro]

I put my gauges at the end of the line. Might be interesting to see what it reads at various points along the way.

[Cedar Eater]

For natural vacuum, the top of the line reads the highest level of vacuum and if it seems too low, you need to go looking for problems. With mechanical vacuum, it's important to know whether the pump is sucking hard, so that would be right at the pump. For a hybrid system, it's good to have both, especially if you have a large number of taps on the line.

[lewichuk19]

Is this a leak in the dropline or just gas from the tree??... that tree was running really well
IMG_1156.MOV

[Diesel Pro]

No vid shows.

[lewichuk19]

Ya I see that now...😪

[Diesel Pro]

My taps have been delivering just shy of 1 gallon per tap per day over the last 5 days. I've been chatting with Biz and am working on installing a shurflo and if it helps I plan to add one of his controllers.