math problem

[amasonry]

hey guys .so I boiled 2017 gallons of sap. made 28.5 gallons. what is my sugar content of raw sap. any one have a formula? I know it is 70-1,so it must be around
1%-1.2%:cry:.

[spud]

You were just over 1.2% sugar. 87.1 divided by 1.2=72.5. Gallons.

Spud

[amasonry]

so where does the 87.1 come from? good guess, low sugar content.

[amaranth farm]

Radio Silence.

[spud]

so where does the 87.1 come from? good guess, low sugar content.

87.1 is the official number to go by in the State of Vermont. At least that's what I have been told. That is also whats on the Cornell sap selling spread sheet.

Spud

[Moser's Maple]

i tried to up load the pdf, but too large.
here's a link to a thread i started on sbi that has the pdf that spud was referring to.
http://www.sugarbush.info/forums/doing-business-maple-industry/2638-jones-rule-86-revisited.html

[ToadHill]

The revised formula according to the article in the Maple Digest written by Dr. Perkins is S = 88.2/X-0.32. This is for 66.9 brix syrup. The formula using 87.1 is for 66 brix syrup. X is the sap sugar content and S is the volume of sap to make a gallon of syrup. So it took 70.77 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup. So that means your average sugar content was 1.24 brix assuming you finished your syrup to precisely 66.9 brix with no waste.

[amasonry]

thanks guys, I understand now

[James Hayden]

I always use the old rule of 86. Been around forever. 2017/28.5 = 86/x. where x is % sugar. Solve for x. 2017x = 28.5 times 86. Therefore 2451/2017 = x. Divide to find x. x = 1.22 % sugar.

[Bucket Head]

The old Rule Of 86 should not be used (with 86 anyway) since it is no longer accurate. The "86" part came way back when correct syrup density was 65%. The Jones Rule is still good but needs the current numbers plugged into it.

[berkshires]

If you're just looking for a quick calculation you can do in your head at 3 AM after a long night of boiling, a simple rule is this: Your average sugar maple puts out 2% sap, and it takes around 40:1 to turn that into syrup.

So if a batch of syrup takes around 80 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup, your sap is running around 1%.

That make sense?

[DrTimPerkins]

The Jones Rule of 86 is OK for ballpark and for sap. The higher the sugar level, the larger the error. It is good up to about 5%, which is about the highest you're likely to find for sap (if you're darn lucky). It isn't so good for concentrate, especially for higher levels of concentrate.

For one thing, the Jones Rule (named for CH Jones, a Professor at UVM who did a lot of work on maple back in the early 1900s) was designed for 65 Brix syrup and it was designed to be a rough estimate if you were dealing with sap sugar levels.

Here is an example to illustrate the error involved at high sugar levels. Let's say you start with 1 gal of syrup at 66 Brix. How much syrup does it take to make one gallon of syrup from this gallon of syrup. Obviously the answer is 1 gallon. But using the Jones Rule of 86, you get the answer of 1. 3 gallons of syrup at 66 Brix to make 1 gallon of syrup at 66 Brix (86/66 = 1.3). Clearly this is wrong. At low sap sugar levels, it doesn't matter much. The higher you get, the larger the error.

Full paper is at http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/jones.pdf Other literature on different subjects at http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc

More on the history of maple science at UVM at http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/story/news/2016/05/06/history-space-maple-pioneers-underhill-center/83992300/ and http://cdi.uvm.edu/collections/getCollection.xql?pid=maple
Enjoy!

[tbear]

Dr.Tim, I've got to ask, do you carry this stuff around in your head? A heck of an extremely organized library? Just, wow! Ted

[Galena]

OK well then my big sugars are kicking over the traces, cause going by those same calculations I have 3-4% sugar....not at all unusual for me to go fire up a batch of say 5l nearup ndrawn down from usually around 100l sap either way, thinking I'm gonna get maybe 2.5l and instead get closer to 4. And yep my syrup brixes out at the red line.

[spud]

When I calculate my sap I use 87.1 so if my sap is 2% it takes 43.55 gallons of sap to make a gallon of syrup.

Spud