Your highest sap % ever?

[Trapper2]

After years of boiling down to finish density with a hydrometer, some years it took 60/1, some years 40/1, and some years way less. I really never knew how long it was going to take me to get to finished syrup. I finally got a sap hydrometer late last year. This year my sap is at 3%, what a joy to boil 28 gallons to get 1. What is the highest natural percent you ever witnessed coming out of a tree? Not what's in the bucket with the ice removed.

18325

[maple flats]

My highest was one day only back in 2005, I got 3.75% My typical average has been right around 2.0%.

[motowbrowne]

I've tested sap from a couple of buckets on a couple of absolutely prime trees and seen over 5%. Never seen over 3.7 in the tank though. On average my sugar content has seemed to be a little lower since I switched from buckets to vacuum (not complaining though, since I get WAY more sap now), and the highest I've seen since then is about 3% in the tank, usually lower. Today I tested it coming out of my shurflo at 2.8. I'm very happy with the sugar content so far this year.

[maple flats]

That 3.75 day was in the tank, I have never tested individual trees yet, except when planning a thinning, and back then I was not thinning the bush. I now manage it more, but I have not since that one day of 3.75 for the tank (I had about 170 taps, mostly yard and roadside then). I think the best I ever tested when marking trees to be removed was 3.2, that tree was kept.

[steve J]

Mine was 2.0 I seem to be 1.6 today not sure if it will get better. I am 80% red maples

[Page Meadow Maple]

You might find this article from UVM of interest.

https://www.uvm.edu/~uvmaple/sapsugarcontentvariation.pdf

My trees are sugar maples, and they typically run 3.5. (I measure sugar level each time and log it into the SapTappApp). I collect from two groups of trees—twenty trees in my neighbor’s yard and about 40 trees in a wooded section along our road.

Last year, I had an early run from the yard trees where the sugar level came in at over 4.2. The roadside trees came in at 3.6 that day.

Last week we had a big freeze. I collected from the yard trees, pouring off the liquid in the bottom of my buckets to boil immediately and bringing the ice chunks inside to thaw. The liquid beneath those frozen chunks in my buckets sent the hydrometer off the charts, literally. It shot up past the 10 mark.

This weekend, the same twenty trees in the yard produced 25 gallons at 3.2 Brix; yesterday we had a great run and those same trees produced 24 gallons of sap at 2.0. A few taps had dried up and yielded empty buckets , not bad though considering I tapped those trees February 18.

Sap is supposed to run well again today. I am curious to see if the sugar level keeps dropping.

[Trapper2]

Thanks Page Meadow. Great read.

[Road's End]

The big maple in the front yard had 4.25% the day I hung buckets on it, that was the best I've seen here. My sugarbush is mostly red maples though, so I usually get 2-2.5% average with a bit more early on and tapers off below 2% right about now.

[ash10383]

I know we have a single tree that hangs out around 4%, it is on the southern edge of the woods but I haven't tested too many other individual trees. But all in all everything must be right around 2% with very little variance. I check the tank after collecting most days and it is always touching the 2% line, sometimes on the top, sometimes on the bottom but no real change regardless if we are just coming out of warm spell or a frozen spell. If we didn't have an RO to test raw sap, concentrate, and permeate, I'd maybe think there was something wrong with my refractometer.

[Ed R]

3.5- 3.8 a few different times in past years. This years high was 2.5 without tossing out ice, the average was 2.2 . We are on buckets.

[Atgreene]

We usually run 3%, this year we're at 2. Very unusual.

Our best tree runs at 6-8% depending on the year.

[spud]

I have a very large maple just below my sugar house that has tested 4% several times. The crazy thing is I do not tap the tree because I do not want to haul buckets of sap to the sugar house. I have about 10 large maples I do not tap scattered around my property that I do not tap. Maybe someday.

Spud

[WestfordSugarworks]

Neighbor taps 1000 big, old sugars down the road and hauls us sap. He runs around 20" of vacuum and brought us 450 gallons of 2.6 brix yesterday. very happy with that. We were up to 2.1 yesterday or the day before, best content of the year for us

[tcross]

the highest I've had in my collection tank at the sugar house is 2.5. my parents have 35 trees at their place that my dad likes to tap for me and I've seen those as high as 4.75%. consistently at 3-3.25. those are all big mature 24" to 36" sugars with huge crowns.

[bowtie]

I have a yard tree that tested over 5 before, this year it is in the 3.3-3.5 range. My yard trees average around 3ish most years, this year high 2s.

[Austin351]

The first 40 gallons was 3.0, the 60 gallons I am boiling now is 2.7. Still pretty good for my reds.

[Neighborhood Tapper]

First year making syrup here. Neighborhood trees. First batches were somewhere in the realm of 27:1 (~3.7%). Fun hobby.

[Trapper2]

Still holding at 3% cumulative of 80 taps.

[dw341969]

When I was in high school my buddy and I tapped his dad's woods. We had 529 taps. This was a 30-ish acres woods. It had been pastures for years, so very little competition and very nice crowns on the trees. We averaged 4.8% sugar for the season. Had one 350 gallon tank that was 5.8%. Wish I could still tap that woods!

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[blissville maples]

Those are some nice percentages, i usually average 1.5-2 on vaccum....gravity 2.5, and one big large bucket tree gives 3-5......I strongly believe that vaccum dilute the sugar with the extra water pulled in, as soon as I went to vaccum the sugar dropped

[Lano75]

My signature maple tree was putting out 5% last year.

[Trapper2]

Those are some nice percentages, i usually average 1.5-2 on vaccum....gravity 2.5, and one big large bucket tree gives 3-5......I strongly believe that vaccum dilute the sugar with the extra water pulled in, as soon as I went to vaccum the sugar dropped

Interesting: Next year I will be putting in a 25 tree line on 3/16 for the first time. I also will have about 80 on buckets again. I will report back when I compare thee two tanks. Thanks for the idea Bliss.

[skixcvt]

Back in the late 80’s my dad had a run of 5.2% on about 400 sugar maples. He thought his hydrometer was broken so he called some sugar making neighbours, they also had 5-6%.

Highest we’ve seen recently is 3.5%.

[DrTimPerkins]

...that vaccum dilute the sugar with the extra water pulled in, as soon as I went to vaccum the sugar dropped

Some comments.

1. Research studies indicate that vacuum has only a minor (if any) effect in reducing the sugar content of collected sap. The exception would be for prolonged (multi-day) runs without a refreeze, there would be a slow drop off in sap sugar content as the sap run transitions to vacuum-induced flow rather than pressure-induced flow.
2. On gravity, you're going to NOT get much if any sap on those multi-day thaws, so the issue becomes, is it better to get some sap with slightly lower sugar, or no sap with no sugar.

I think the issue thing that people might experience at times is they go from what were at one time fairly mature and widely spaced trees in a sugarbush, pasture, or roadside to areas that are in the woods that are smaller trees at higher density. Sap sugar content (and sap yield) is related to tree size and canopy position. Bigger trees with larger sun-lit canopies will produce more and sweeter sap.

[Msboucha]

We have 24 taps on 12 mature trees, only tapped 3 years now. They sit in a grove by themselves with hemlocks. We usually see mid 3s in the tank throughout the season. Our highest tree is a red on the edge of the grove and gets sun on most sides through the day, which is usually mid 4s and have seen over 5.

[DrTimPerkins]

Our highest tree is a red on the edge of the grove and gets sun on most sides through the day, which is usually mid 4s and have seen over 5.

That's great.

Sun is the fuel for the photosynthetic engine. You want your trees to produce sweeter sap, give them more fuel -- thin !