3/16 help in Northern MN

[Jukenjer]

New to this forum as well as 3/16. currently run ~ 350 taps with buckets but want to move towards the 3/16. Can you put drop lines all the way down the hill, staying within the recommended maximum # of taps per run, or is there a stopping point elevation so you have a clear drop to the tank to maximize the vacuum? I would say I have a 30’ drop over about 500 feet, with the first 200 relatively flat, but tapable trees up to within 30 feet of a landing with the last 30’ having a 7to 8’ drop. Any help greatly appreciated in what a typical run would look like in my scenario.
Not sure if that is clear so here is a shorter version. How far away in relation to the holding tank would one put their last drop line, in the above scenario? Or does it even matter as long as you have 30’ drop over the length of the run?
Norther MN so looking at least 2 to 3 weeks before tapping.

[mol1jb]

You can really have as much drop as you want but more than 30 ft will not generate additional vacuum. I would weave the lines back and forth between trees down your slopes till you hit the collection tank. I have my runs maxed at 25. Each one of those runs is around 1500 ft long. But I am going to split those up next season because of the squirrels in my woods create leaks often. 3/16 works great when you have no leaks. But it requires more maintenance than some other sizes because even a small leak can slow a run way down. Just something to think about if your woods has lots of squirrels.

Your slope sounds good. It doesn't matter so much where the last tap is. Any tap above the 30' drop in line will have high vac. Anything with less drop will still have vacuum but just not as much. I have taps at the bottom of some of my runs and that do fine but not as good as the ones on the top of my runs. But any vacuum is good.

I think moving from 350 buckets to one central collection point is going to make things a lot more efficient. On good runs with a tight 3/16 setup you could expect as much as 1.5 gal per tap. So if you boil every day you would probably want at least 500 gal tank.

[Jukenjer]

Thanks. So one would presume you would need some drops on the slope to pull the sap from the upper flats correct? How many drops minimum would typically be recommended on the slope portion of the lateral? Trying to figure out how many runs I would need to capture the majority of trees.

[mol1jb]

http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc/3-16%20Tubing%20-%20Wilmot%20-%20Maple%20News%20Dec%202014a.pdf

That is a good research article to read on 3/16. It is very helpful. In the article they said they had success with as little as 4 taps per line or you could have as many as 37. Having drops on your slope would start creating vacuum faster than not having any, especially since the top of your runs are somewhat flat.

[Jukenjer]

Great information thanks.
May have to consider a new evaporator setup to handle the influx of sap. LOL
Currently 8 to 10 gph evaporation using a 275 gallon milk tank over a firebrick fire box reduced to 12-15 gallons then transfer to a 12 gallon pan over a smaller firebox for 2 gph evaporation. This process takes 24 to 28 hrs including through the night. Life is great!!!!

[warners point]

If you tap all 350 with 3/16th you will be overwhelmed by sap. 2 years ago we did 60 on 3/16th and 200 on bags and barely kept up with a 2x6. Last year we did 165 on 3/16th and were fine but had a poor year in our area.

[Jukenjer]

You say bad year. What was your total processed run for those 165 taps? We did 38 gallons up here in the Effie area.
Plan on only experimenting this year with maybe 3 runs of 25 on 3/16 before we go all out.

[mol1jb]

With a smaller evaporator I would start smaller for sure. It is amazing how 3/16 natural vac makes the trees come alive.

[warners point]

We got 22 gallons. The thing that mad it a bad year was that the sap only ran 4 days. The year before we made 35 gallons and ran out of wood after one week.