Something's amiss

[Sinzibuckwud]

335 gallons of sap, 2 1\2 gallons of syrup....
I'm seriously thinking of shutting down for the year and save for an ro.
I'm usually 60-1at worse 70-1 but this is looking like a waste of time and firewood.

[Galena]

60-1 or 70-1?! Those numbers are insane. Are you tapping soft maples?

[Sinzibuckwud]

Couple of reds but mostly sugar maples, woods trees with small crowns most 24-36"
25 on buckets on a sse hill lots of sun, 32 on two runs of 3\16, one yard edge run and one in the woods.
During collection period we were getting 20's at night for several hours and 40's 50's during the day with around 2 ft of snowpack and averaged 2 gallons a tap.

[maple flats]

Do your trees have any leaves in the summer. If you finished everything off, that is 134:1 I'd give up too.

[mike z]

Yeah, the old "you gotta want it" doesn't even work in this thread. Those numbers are crazy!

[Sinzibuckwud]

A few trees did have a rough year.in late spring the buds/leaflets got frozen off and it took a while for some to green up. I did have a few trees get that bacterial leaf scorch (I believe it's called) where the leaves just turned brown and fell off during foliage, otherwise the majority of the woods was healthy and putting in new growth. Have been slowly select cutting to open up some crowded areas and remove junk trees but all by hand in hopes I'll get 2.0 sugar in 20, 30 years.
Edit
That's all of it finished and bottled, a really nice light amber, lots of maple flavor, wish I got another gallon. I wouldn't have even blinked an eye at the ratio,.

[bigschuss]

335 gallons of sap, 2 1\2 gallons of syrup....
I'm seriously thinking of shutting down for the year and save for an ro.
I'm usually 60-1at worse 70-1 but this is looking like a waste of time and firewood.

Dang man. That's a labor of love right there. 335 gallons on a 2x2 must have taken forever....then to only yield a few gallons of syrup. I can see why you're frustrated.

[Galena]

Weird. I think Dr Tim is your best bet here. My 7 trees (17 spiles) are sugars all on flat land, mostly yard maples but a couple of bush maples who are 1-spilers but gawd are they good producers. I boiled down 123l to make my first batch, thinkin I'd get about 3 litres...it's just under 4.5l. So my sugar content this early is just under 3%. But your figures are just way beyond the pale.

[Sinzibuckwud]

With my low budget extension I'm now a 2x3 1\2 hahhaha with a stack pre heater (thanks maple flats)
I loved every second of those 40 something hours, lots of friends, family, dogs and kids running amuck, great weather, couldn't have asked for a better week of sugaring...except the actual sugar part.
These trees generally run 1 gallon/tap at best usually half gallon on a good day, that's why my tap numbers are so high for my rig size.

[CampHamp]

The numbers seem too low to be real! Bacteria and yeast eat sugars out of sap. Could it be that you didn’t get to boil right away or the sap got warm?

[wnybassman]

Widespread low sugar content this year for many. I started at 1.4% and it quickly dropped to 1%. It may have even gone lower, but I didn't dare check it, I really didn't want to know. lol During that time it got warm, sap got cloudy before I could get to it, and syrup turned dark. Since then it got cold again, sap cleared up, sugar has gone up to 1.7% or better and life seems good again. Now if we could just get out of this cold!

[Sinzibuckwud]

Everyone in the area is saying the same.
I went through my whole operation looking for anything else contributing to the low sugar, even light tested the pans. All my buckets taps and storage was cleaned prior, 3\16 lines are brand new, and my sap never sat for more than a day in the snowbank and was crystal clear. One batch of nearup had to sit in the fridge overnight that was about the biggest loss I could find.
Ran two batches this week another 90 gallons and sugar is up tremendously 80\1 on the first batch and 75/1 on the second went from golden/light amber last week to amber this week. maple flavor has been strong all along, can't complain there. had a good 21degree night to reset after that warm spell and while it seemed to cold here to do much this week the runs have been somewhat impressive. Woodpile has taken a hit for syrup made, bout time to get on that.

[maple flats]

An RO is a huge help to any wood pile.

[Sinzibuckwud]

All those cold runs really brought up the sugar, 65-1 on the last batch. Local producers still saying 70-1 average. Getting ready for the big push after this cold spell. Still making a light amber, best maple flavor I can remember ever having.
More Wood!

[Michael Greer]

Here in St Lawrence County, NY I'm seeing the same sort of numbers. We had a severe drought in 2016, which gave us a lot less sap in the spring of 2017. The trees responded to that shock by making more seeds than we've ever seen last summer. The leaves were healthy in 2017 but they were about half as big as usual. The leaves do all the work, and this spring I'm getting plenty of sap but it's much lower in sugar content. Thursday I brought in my 5000th gallon of sap, and Friday bottled my 93rd gallon of syrup. For many years my ratio was 34:1. This year it's about 54:1. Next year will be better.

[Daveg]

Hey, Matt!
Do you have a way to measure the sugar in your sap, i.e., a sap hydrometer? My second growth forests' trees have poor crowns and I'm elated any time I get a tree producing sap that measures more than 1% sugar. I bought an RO Bucket from Carl. I process the sap with two passes and I'm at 8%.
therobucket.com

[DaveB]

Just to echo what others have said, the sugar content has been lower than normal this year. I think it's because of defoliation issues last year. I collected sap from an area over 30 miles and the sap content has been in the 1-2% range and it's normally about 2-3%. I also collect from a mix of sugar & red maples. This is my first year using an RO and I'm already thinking of building a bigger one. I just love seeing all the water pouring out that I don't have to boil!

That all being said, that is one seriously high ratio! I think that's worse than birch syrup!

[Sinzibuckwud]

No way to measure sugar content of sap besides our tounges lol and finished syrup to cooked sap ratio. I realize with an ro its mandatory equipment for now were getting by with out sweetness gauge... Ok,little sweet, good, very sweet, and stop sucking on the spile...the boy is a riot.
Cooking iceburgs and some cloudy sap the trees spit out yesterday after sitting in the cold sun all week, should make some nice dark syrup. Sugar will be down thats for sure lol


Sent from my LGL44VL using Tapatalk