Plastic vs. metal bucket?

[Beavertrapper]

Hello guys. This spring will be my first year tapping, and I’ve got a few getting started questions. I’ve already invested in some metal buckets, taps, and lids. Today I walked the area I will be tapping to paint the sugar maples and after a tally I realized I’m going to need quite a few more buckets. It seems that used metal buckets and new plastic buckets cost about the same. What would you guys recommend of the two options? Tapping with lines isn’t an option yet.

Thanks

[calvertbrothers]

Honestly I would stay away from the galvanized buckets now. If you plan on selling some of your syrup you can’t have lead in your syrup in 2019 I believe. I have aluminum and a few plastic. If I was to do buckets over again I would do plastic there easier to clean. The plastic seams more durable too. I use the CDL plastic buckets

[n8hutch]

If you have 2 tap trees I would highly recommend 5 gallon pails with drop lines, your taps will run longer because of the 3-4 drop of tubing that creates an air barrier, and if you have good running trees you will have have full pails every time you collect, instead of awkwardly dumping pails you just swap the pail with the one you carry to the tree, I used to collect 300 taps in 1.5 hrs with this system, granted I was hustling.

[johnallin]

Have you considered sap bags? I started with 35 ten years ago and grew that into 175. Then added 3/16 tube for another 98 taps. The bag holders are super easy to store - you can put 25 of them right back in the box they ship in, taking up about a square foot of shelf space by 14" high.

The bags are usually less than 50 cents ea. new holders are about 4.50 ea. With lots of folks going to 3/16" tube, you should have no trouble finding some at good prices.

It's also pretty cool to see how much sap has run without walking all the way up to a tree. I carry two 5 gallon pails to collect, just dump into the pail and move to the next tree.

[Michael Greer]

Invest in aluminum buckets, which will last forever, not plastic, which you will throw away in a few years.

[maple flats]

What is the lay of your land? How many buckets are you talking total? How will you move the sap after collecting it? How will the sap be boiled?
These and maybe other questions should be answered before the decisions are made. Once you answer those on here, we can help you. Be realistic on how much you can collect, move and process. Think of sap like milk, if kept cold it will keep fairly well, but if the temps get warm and the sap heats up, it spoils quickly.
My first year I started with a 2x3 evaporator and lots of wood to burn. I began by putting in 27 taps. The sap ran and I boiled it and said "I can handle more". Over the next 3 weeks I kept adding more and boiling with little issue. Then the sap REALLY RAN and I had 70 taps in. Each tap gave on average 2-2.5 gal of sap each day for 3 days in a row. I could not handle that and I lost almost half of the sap to spoilage.
If I was better prepared and had spoken with other producers there are a few things I could have done differently. I should have stopped adding more taps at about 40-50 max. or I should have had another local producer lined up tp sell my excess sap to (yes, it has value) or I should of had another way to boil more sap.
For what you can boil, find out how much you can boil in an hour and how many hours a day do you really have, after taking the time to collect the sap. How long will it really take to collect your sap when the sap flow really turns on? (At that time I had a Bravada and I was using 5 gal food grade jugs and mini tubing set ups, I had 2 or 3 taps into each jug. I had a compact diesel 4x4 tractor with a carry rack on the back that could handle 8 jugs at a time, until we got 18" of new snow, then it could only carry 4 full jugs. When those 3 big day came, it snowed 18" on the first day, and about 6" more the next day. Those three days it took me 2 hours each morning after my school bus run and almost as long after my afternoon run just to collect the sap. My wife was home boiling for me while I collected. I could only fit 12 jugs in the Bravada at a time, so I had to make multiple trips which each took almost an hour.
With all of that, I did not quit, but rather I built a sugarhouse where the taps were that fall (I tried to start building in May, but the city delayed approval until 2 days before Thanksgiving) and got a 2x6 evaporator which could boil over 4x as fast. I was hooked.

[Beavertrapper]

The lay of the land is a ridge, with a road running across it about halfway up. The road is not plowed in the winter, so at first I will haul sap with a snowmobile and then with a pickup once the road melts out. I work as a forest technician, so I will have evenings to haul sap and nights and weekends to boil. I was planning to tap 30 trees, with a few trees being large enough for 2 buckets. I would look into running lines, but the understory of the stand is full of beech regen and the maples are scattered with yellow birch, which would make running the lines hard. I’m planning on building a simple evaporator from a 55 gallon drum with evaporator pans to begin with.

Thanks

[Haynes Forest Products]

If I was forced back to buckets again i would go with plastic buckets with tap and tube. I would make my lids so the tube was attached thru the lid in a water tight seal. I would warm the end of it so it bulged out so it couldn't pull out. I would not have any tubing drop more that an inch into the bucket to eliminate draw back. I would attach the lid in a way that with one hand I could flip the lid off and dump the pail. I would add a small pin hole to the very top of the bucket to eliminate back pressure should the lid seal itself. I would find a level area as close to the tree as possible for the bucket to rest or run tubing to a better spot. I would pry for a nice hard snow pack around the woods so my buckets were always level and cold but that is only short term every year.

Now this is just me I hate inefficiencies and when you do something over and over and over again eliminating just a few seconds off of a task you are going to perform 30-40-50 times every noon and night it adds up. YEA YEA I know its FUN. Now if its easy and quick you will do it more often and that is what adds to fresher sap and the willingness to NOT let the sap sit in the woods spoiling. Your family and friends will be more willing to join you in this silly obsession of yours.

Who the heck wants to help you dump spoiled sap or ones with dead squirrel in them. DAD all the bags blew off. Dad it rained last night the sap is all yellow. Man it was windy all day and 1/2 the lids are on the ground and there are sticks in all the buckets. FRED all the icecream bucket are on the ground the 3M sticky hooks didn't hold onto the bark. OK who stacked all the metal buckets together and stood on them? Every method of sap collection has it perils so pick one and go all in.

[Z/MAN]

If you go with tubing running from the tree into a plastic bucket as Haynes has suggested I have found a great method to enter the pail. I install a blue plastic 7/16 spile on the bucket end. I drill a 5/16 hole in the lid of the bucket near the edge and then push the blue spile into the hole. It is a perfect tight seal and I push the lid onto the bucket locking it "almost" all the way around. This also makes getting the lids off very easy. Because you very seldom have a flat spot near a tree I always set the bucket with the spile near the top of the pail angle and any water that gets on the lids will run off the lid and never have a chance to get around the spile. Works great for me. Nothing but clean sap in the pail and very easy to empty

[Haynes Forest Products]

Z/man I like that idea its quick and easy.

[grizzlym]

I use both plastic and metal. About 35 of each. The plastic does clean up easier but they tend to get slimy mid season. Maybe because they are translucent. The wind also makes them flop around a lot when empty. The metal stay colder and preserve the sap longer. But you take the risk of lead. I wish someone would bang out a stainless bucket for cheap. I would switch everything to those.