Tubing VS individual buckets.

[Sugar Bear]

This year I did two sets of tubing runs into 30 gallon barrels. One run has 10 taps on it and the other has 6 taps on it. I also did 5 individual buckets.

The runs have absolutely no sags in them and excellent pitch.


So far in the first little run ...

The 5 individual buckets have yielded 12 gallons of sap.
The 10 tap tube run has yielded 10 gallons of sap
The 6 tap tube run has yielded 8 gallons of sap.

Should I expect better flow from individual buckets?

Am I missing something?

[Stiets]

I am still learning myself. This is my first year on 3/16 tubing. I have 2 lines out. One with 25 taps and one with 17 taps. I usually have buckets tapped where the lines are. So far this year the tubing is pulling more sap then buckets would have. One line has 15" vacuum and the other 20" vacuum from the elevation drop. How much vacuum are you pulling on your lines or how much elevation drop do you have on your lines?? One other thing to consider is that it is still early in the season. Depending on the location of the trees the sap might run better in one spot than others. I see you are in CT, as am I by Danbury. The ground is still frozen is spots so hang in there and see what happens once the temps get better. What part of CT are you from??

[82cabby]

This is a complete guess but i would say the buckets are better because the taps are fresh and also at these low volumes you don't have natural vacuum kicking in. I bet it reverses in March.

[Sugarmaker]

Good question!
Hear is my 2 cents, with some questions.
Have you tapped these same trees before with buckets and recorded the amount of sap gathered?
I tapped my rented roadside sugar bush with buckets for several years before I tubed it. I had a pretty good idea how the trees ran.
After moving to short run tubing several years ago, I think I get about the same amount of sap from known bucket trees during the season. Know if I bring on a new group of trees with no base line on sap qty. I have gotten suprised, with more and less sap in some cases.
Hope that helps?
Not all trees and locations are created equal!
Regards,
Chris

[Scm]

..........

[Sugar Bear]

I am in Weston CT

I do not know how to measure vacuum in inches on my lines or what exactly that means.

My lines are 5/16"

My 10 tap run is in Hopewell Junction, NY at the base of the Mid Hudson Valley. It is well pitched south facing slope and will run on sunny 34+ days. 4 of the taps come down a 30 degree slope ( I am a former mountaineer and skier) 2 come down a 20 degree slope and 4 are on relatively flat slope at the bottom of the hill but have decent pitch downward from each to the 30 gallon barrel. This rig produced about 10 gallons of sap. While I have tapped other trees in Hopewell the past two years I have not tapped these trees on this run.

My 6 tap run is in Weston CT on a straight well pitched run that I have taped in the past and have run well.

My 5 buckets are in Weston CT and perhaps they are just on bigger and better trees. They too have run well in past years.


The air Temperatures at my taps on the North end of Weston are nearly identical to the air temperatures at my taps in Hopewell Junction. The taps in Hopewell are at near sea level, while the taps in Weston are near 500 feet in elevation. The taps in Hopewell have a better southerly exposure.

While Hopewell is farther north of Weston I would say that in the past two years the sap flows a little sooner and better in Hopewell Junction.

[Sugar Bear]

This is my first year with tubing to a tank. Previous years were all drop lines to buckets.

[berkshires]

My lines are 5/16"


I don't do anything with lines, but from everything I've read, 5/16" is too wide to maintain an unbroken column of sap, so you won't see much natural vacuum. I imagine that would be especially true given how steep your sugarbush is.

[Sugarbush Ridge]

Slope,,, slope,,, slope,,,, % doesn't mean much. If I have 90% slope over 20' drop vacuum will be almost exactly the same as 20% slope over a drop of 20'. It is the drop in elevation NOT the slope.

[georgelineman]

I am across the river from Hopewell Jct. and a little south. I was on all buckets. This season we have made three runs of 3/16 tubing 225' with 17 taps 130' 13 taps and 130' with 10 taps all to 55gal drums. the long run has about a 20' drop the other two only have about a 6' drop. and we still will have 41 still on buckets. We plan on tapping on the 10th of Feb. We get just about the same weather as Hopewell cant wait to se how this season goes.
george

[Mikemartin274]

Make sure your lines aren't going down in the sap or the tree will suck it back up.

[Sugar Bear]

Slope,,, slope,,, slope,,,, % doesn't mean much. If I have 90% slope over 20' drop vacuum will be almost exactly the same as 20% slope over a drop of 20'. It is the drop in elevation NOT the slope.

Which line do you think is more likely to end up with a sag in it? A tube line pitched at 90% or one at 20%?

[DrTimPerkins]

The 5 individual buckets have yielded 12 gallons of sap.
The 10 tap tube run has yielded 10 gallons of sap
The 6 tap tube run has yielded 8 gallons of sap.


Not meaning to be harsh, but in essence, statistically, you have a Granny Smith, a Red Delicious, and a McIntosh.....are they the same or are the different? The answer is yes (they are all apples), no (some are green, some are red), and maybe (they all taste a bit apples, but somewhat different). Pick the answer you want, because with what you have, you probably can't answer the question adequately.

Unless you controlled for all other variables (tree size, number of taps, depth of taphole, sanitation, type of spout, etc.), there could a number of reasons for seeing differences, but there is no way to know whether what you're seeing is really a difference at all. Given the modest replication (sample size of 6) on the buckets, and low replication (sample size of 2) on the tubing, you will never know. Lastly, until the season is done, you won't know whether this trend will hold or whether some will run longer than the others due to issues like spout placement (north or south side) or sanitation-related yield issues. Even very small changes in tapping direction or slope aspect or elevation can create big changes in timing of sap flow, so having a difference from one place to another is not at all surprising. The microclimate variation in a forest is incredibly high.

In theory (and decades of practice), with all other factors being equal, and if you are on 5/16" tubing (not 3/16" tubing), then there should be no significant difference in yield by the end of the season unless the bucket tapholes dry out early.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Thanks Dr Perkins I feel so much better about my method of tapping and collecting my woods. I drills my holes on any side available without regard to how high it is and I suck on them alls the same. I don't keep track of nothin and when people ask me about my syrup per tap I shrug my shoulders and say........ I say don't know. And I'm fine with that and now I feel even better because to me Garbage in = garbage out.

[Sugar Bear]

Not meaning to be harsh, but in essence, statistically, you have a Granny Smith, a Red Delicious, and a McIntosh.....are they the same or are the different? The answer is yes (they are all apples), no (some are green, some are red), and maybe (they all taste a bit apples, but somewhat different). Pick the answer you want, because with what you have, you probably can't answer the question adequately.

Unless you controlled for all other variables (tree size, number of taps, depth of taphole, sanitation, type of spout, etc.), there could a number of reasons for seeing differences, but there is no way to know whether what you're seeing is really a difference at all. Given the modest replication (sample size of 6) on the buckets, and low replication (sample size of 2) on the tubing, you will never know. Lastly, until the season is done, you won't know whether this trend will hold or whether some will run longer than the others due to issues like spout placement (north or south side) or sanitation-related yield issues. Even very small changes in tapping direction or slope aspect or elevation can create big changes in timing of sap flow, so having a difference from one place to another is not at all surprising. The microclimate variation in a forest is incredibly high.

In theory (and decades of practice), with all other factors being equal, and if you are on 5/16" tubing (not 3/16" tubing), then there should be no significant difference in yield by the end of the season unless the bucket tapholes dry out early.

Tim

Thanks for your response to my question about tap lines and buckets.

I am well aware that all taps are far from equal and so are all trees. It goes farther then the diversity of micro climates. It extends far into the diversity of the trees themselves within the exact same climate and exact same species. This diversity was apparent to me when I first taped maple trees in the early 1970's as a young kid with my brother. As an hobbyist sawyer it has become even far more apparent. At 53 the hydrodynamics of sap within a connected tube is not clear to me. While the basics of it are obvious the most efficient form of it is not.

I guess I did not really post my question accurately. Essentially my question is did I install my tubing correctly?

Its a tough question to ask because in order to ask it I need to be able to show what it is I did. That is difficult, so perhaps that is why I posted it incorrectly and directed fine minds like yours in the wrong direction for an answer.

Because of the thread I started and additional internet research, I have been able to clue myself in on how perhaps best to do a small tubing set up of 10 taps or so, but I think I am still far from having complete or substantial confidence in my setup.

If you ask a question about something on these forums and you get 10 replies, then you frequently get about 12 different answers ( some people give 2 or more different answers to the same question ) The diversity within forum threads is more diverse then the forest!

With that said how would you clean a set of 5/16" tubing at the end of the season with 10 taps on it? I plan to take down and store the tubing inside a rodent/insect free building after whatever cleaning I do?

Packed away just over 5 pints of State of Vermont Red Lined maple syrup the other day from 30 gallons of sap. That put my sap at just over 2%

Suddenly I have a lot of friends. Think I will keep the syrup instead. The hell with the high blood sugars.

I would say the run starts for real across this region on Saturday or shortly after. Should reveal any of my stupidity and struggles with physics.

Thanks for all your help.

[blissville maples]

I do 3 buckets a year, I don't know why but they fill a 2 gallon bucket every day on a good run. I can't seem to understand why, the same size tree and similar location on vacuum doesn't produce the same, I get 1gpt a day slightly more on vac. This one tree with 3 buckets will produce 4-6 gallons of sap a day at 3-4%. One year I collected 70 gallons of 3-4 %sap from this one tree!! Over 3 gallons of syrup. It puzzles me

[spud]

I do 3 buckets a year, I don't know why but they fill a 2 gallon bucket every day on a good run. I can't seem to understand why, the same size tree and similar location on vacuum doesn't produce the same, I get 1gpt a day slightly more on vac. This one tree with 3 buckets will produce 4-6 gallons of sap a day at 3-4%. One year I collected 70 gallons of 3-4 %sap from this one tree!! Over 3 gallons of syrup. It puzzles me

I would tare down all your pipeline and go buckets. :lol: Some trees just love to run. I wish I had trees like that.

Spud

[Sugarmaker]

Sugar bear,
Your doing great. Yea post on here sometimes run away or you get run over. We are a lot of "experts"!:)
I like the tubing for ease of collection. It averages the run volume. Like Dr. Tim said you should get enough from each good tap to make .25 gallons of syrup from each tap. Sounds like you have a lot of good woods experience and could teach us some things too!
Good luck with your season.
If I can help on short run tubing systems P.M. me! But basically as simple as, "Tight and down hill"
Regards,
Chris