Best purchases under $100

[billyinvt]

I’m rolling along and wondering if there are any inexpensive items that people have found to be a great bang for the buck.

[Russell Lampron]

A refractometer in the $20 range is far better than a sap hydrometer. Mine reads from 0 Brix to 32 Brix making it good for testing raw sap and concentrate. The Hanna electronic syrup grader that I got for $65 last season is a must have as well. It takes the guess work out of borderline syrup.

[billyinvt]

Those are exactly the sorts of suggestions I was looking for.

[nymapleguy607]

Digital stack temp thermometer, takes the guess work out of adjusting the air blowers.

[tcross]

a hydrometer!

[billyinvt]

a hydrometer!
An extra hydrometer! I got one already. Those things are fragile!

[billyinvt]

Digital stack temp thermometer, takes the guess work out of adjusting the air blowers.
Where can I find one?

[maple flats]

Any maple dealer will have them. Or you can order them from any online or catalog dealer. Just make sure it is for maple syrup, other hydrometers are for other density ranges.

[maple flats]

Marriage license. Was $10 buck 50+ years ago, it's still hot broken.

[red dorakeen]

Marriage license. Was $10 buck 50+ years ago, it's still hot broken.

Of course it don't always work out so well. That license cost me 1/2 of every thing I owned when it expired.

[Troutman10]

Def hydrometer...still need to grab a second one.

[fisheatingbagel]

Ha, ha....you never know if the one you get is going to expire though. Thankfully mine hasn't expired in just over 20 years

[Russell Lampron]

Marriage license. Was $10 buck 50+ years ago, it's still hot broken.

I got mine 37 years ago and it's not broken either.

[mudr]

What the crap. Mine was more expensive than 100.

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[DrTimPerkins]

Of course it don't always work out so well. That license cost me 1/2 of every thing I owned when it expired.

A friend was going through a particularly nasty divorce. After visiting him, I said to my wife, “I wouldn’t want to divorce you. I don’t want half my stuff to go away.” She replied, “What makes you think I’d let you have half?”

Nuff said.

I got her back though, she’s always complaining that I order the same thing at restaurants. I told her she should be happy that I like the same thing over and over.

Happily married 35.5 yrs. Got married, very deliberately, on a Friday the 13th.

[blaircountysugarin85]

I definitely agree with a SECOND hydrometer. I learned the hard way and mine broke in the height of boiling and a good run. I can't see doing maple syrup without one. Although it cost me $30 shipping to get one overnighted I called sugar bush supplies at 2:30pm on a Fri and it was aty house by noon on Sat. I learned the hard way!

[ennismaple]

Definitely our hydrometer. We tried using expensive digital and optical units and they are nowhere near as accurate as a good hydrometer.

[billyinvt]

Yup. Two hydrometers seems necessary. How about a flue brush? There’s an item that could help increase boil rate without costing a fortune.

[BSD]

a good tapping bit - $16-20
extra hydrometers. i have 3 spares now, i shattered one in the middle of a boil thankfully i had an extra, then i bought two more just to make sure they were accurate.
grade set - no more guessing
grade bottle samples (starting to build my collage of maple samples for the window)
syrup gloves. no more burning my fingertips when dealing with hot filters/syrup off the evaporator.

[mike z]

Thermoworks makes a good, dependable, inexpensive digital probe thermometer.

[maple flats]

A friend was going through a particularly nasty divorce. After visiting him, I said to my wife, “I wouldn’t want to divorce you. I don’t want half my stuff to go away.” She replied, “What makes you think I’d let you have half?”

Nuff said.

I got her back though, she’s always complaining that I order the same thing at restaurants. I told her she should be happy that I like the same thing over and over.

Happily married 35.5 yrs. Got married, very deliberately, on a Friday the 13th.

Wow, that makes two of us, my wife of 50 years as of last Oct. were also married on Friday the 13th, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. In fact, our 50th was also on Friday the 13th. However, I do not always order the same thing at restaurants, but I do seem to tend towards a few items much more than others.

[maple flats]

While it is outside of your limitation in your question, I think one of my best purchases was my Smoky Lake Murphy Cup (I think it is about $140). While I had an Accu-cup, I then had to refer to a chart and try to guess if the temperature was in between the temps on the chart. The Murphy Cup tells you what the hydrometer should read.
A second item I really like is also by Smoky Lake, that is their Gold series hydrometer cup. It was $35. While it is only better in one regard, I like it. The main difference is that it has a reference line to confirm that the paper/numbers inside the hydrometer have not moved.
You can however do the same with any hydrometer, start with a confirmed accurate hydrometer, then just take a precise measurement from either end of the hydrometer to a specific point on the paper inside the tube and record it where you will always know where it is recorded. That way you can verify that the paper has not moved.
The usual way a paper can move is if the hydrometer is dropped into the hydrometer cup accidentally.

[DrTimPerkins]

Agree with you Dave. We switched to continuous filtering this year and now use the Smoky Lake Murphy Float and calibrated hydrometers. We ran it side-by-side with our previous system (Accu-Cup and calibrated hydrometer) and it was spot on every time. We've now gone to a hydrometer at the draw-off for spot checking, and a Murphy Float (dubbed the "SS Murphy" when floating around in the tank) and hydrometer in the drawoff tank for final determination. The whole process really sped things up greatly from our prior process of using a finishing pan.

[L&msugarbush]

Done the exact same thing LOL, talk about putting everything to a Holt!

[L&msugarbush]

Pays to know and cost to learn as I always say