Sap "life" in buckets

[dennisn418]

Coming out of a very warm spell in New England. 2+ days of 60 degree temps makes me wonder if the sap in my buckets is good anymore....Any thoughts? Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to this?

[fisheatingbagel]

2 days is a bit iffy. Sap should be clear and "thin", but I've boiled cloudy sap before as long as it's thin. The smell test is good also - should have no discernible smell.

I would probably dump it especially if you have good sap weather coming up...

[sappytapper]

All of the stuff sitting in my yard survived the last couple days into the high 60's low 70's. As long as it's still clear it's DEFINITELY good, if it's cloudy but doesn't smell funky it'll still make good syrup, albeit a bit darker than normal. As was said, if there's not discernible smell, my limited experience says boil away!

[Big_Eddy]

Better to leave it in the buckets than to collect it all in advance. If you have a few buckets that go off - dump those. If it is in a single tank and it goes off - it is all lost.

Same as the others - look in the pail. If you can clearly see the bottom of the pail - it is typically good to keep. If in doubt - dump it out.