sap yield

[PATheron]

What have you guys that run vacuum found to be a general increase in sap yield. The NAMSP book says that a properly installed tubing system with vacumm can see a 50-100% increase in yield in some years. I've heard some producers say 40%. What have you guys in practicality found to be the case for you? My other question is this. Are they saying on a good days run you may get twice as much sap or are they saying on questionable days when gravity sap may not run vacuum sap will and over the duration of the season you will see the increase from those days?

[ennismaple]

Several of our bushes (approx 500 taps each) were previously on gravity tubing but were quite flat. When we put them on vacuum the sap yield more or less doubled. However, on days when gravity and cans run well there's not a huge difference.

We use the rule of thumb that a gallon of sap is worth a dollar - that'll help you to estimate when you'll break even for investing in the vacuum system. I normally figure that if we have to put up mainline, lateral lines (including fittings) and buy a tank and vacuum pump we take 5 years to pay for the capital costs. If we're simpy adding more taps to an existing vacuum system the tubing and fittings are paid for in the first year.

[PATheron]

Ennismaple-Thanks for the explaination. Im installing my tubing system this month and am installing for vacuum but going to use it gravity this year till I get some experiance running my evaperator. I figured to probably put a pump on it next year and wondered if Id need any additional tanks. Have about 1800 gals worth of tanks for 1000 taps. The reason Im installing for vacuum is to maximize the taps I have on my property. You think im probably doing right? I did some soul searching before I bought that tubing. Would have been a lot cheaper to tube for gravity but it seems like with the amount of iffy years weve had hear lately the vacuum seems to be a big advantage.

[markcasper]

Patheron; Ennismaple summed it up best on the yield issue. If you can get out those extra 12-15 days of production with vacuum, you have more or less doubled your crop.

There are many days that the ones on vacuum go ungathered due to no freeze or other weather conditions. Vacuum takes the risk out and balances out the whole season.

If you plan on running 800 taps with vacuum on a 3x10, you'd better get an r.o. ordered first in my opinion.

[PATheron]

Markcasper- I agree with you a 100% about the ro. I am kind of starting from scratch so Im limited to how much I can do in one year. This year my goal was to build a shed and install a good tubing system and be to a point where I will be able to make syrup in the spring. I bought the 4 by 10 becouse I decided right from the start to use a small evap in conjunction with an ro Instead of a large evap. I was thinking next year buy the vacuum pump but only if I buy the ro. This year is going to be a year of learning for me, once I get good at things Ill step up the pace.

[royalmaple]

One bush I tap down the road had 434 taps last year. All red maple except one sugarmaple.

I got an average of about 300 gallons every single day from early march till mid April, except for the solid freeze we had in march. Now other guys in my area had maybe 4-5 runs this past season and thought I was smoking something when I told them I had sap basically everyday this season.

I think you'll find vacuum will give you marginally more sap on good run days, but consistent sap through the season. It is the equalizer to offset mother nature.

Worth every nickel. Once you go to vacuum you won't go back.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Patheron,

You can handle 800 taps with a 3x10 without much problem. I handle 500 taps on a 2x8 and you should be able to boil about double my evap rate with a 3x10. Not trying to disagree with Mark, but might want to pay off some of the stuff you have for a couple of years before you since 10k+ in an RO. It is easy to get in over your head fast or to sink so much money into things that it takes forever to pay them back.

I do like the $ 1 per gallon of sap analogy by Ennis and I agree. I retail all of my syrup and it averages out to $ 50 per gallon and my ratio is usually around 50 to 1.

[markcasper]

Patheron, I do not know some of your other statistics. Are you gonna have to haul/transfer every gallon of sap from the woods, or can you pipe it right to your sugarhouse? Will you be working part of a regular day job during season?

I'm not disagreeing with Brandon either, but I have been there/done that. I once had 850 taps with a 3x10. It was mostly all hand gathered, however, which took lots of additional time and people. I'd gotten to the point where I'd only gather every other day b/c I had to cook 30-40 hours straight. This was with no vacuum either. I believe between '92-'96 I had two years where I wound up with 400+ gallons of syrup, all from a 3x10. Thats a lot of hours cooking with no forced air, preheater, or r.o.
I might add that this particular woods was all on the south side of a large ridge top. There were many days when I had overflowed bags, yet on the other side of this ridge, the north end, it was too cold and there was nothing.
I am not in that woods anymore. Some of my current tapping areas have never matched the production of that woods, but with vacuum it does.

The 3x10 was way too small, thus I moved up, but now the one I have now is too small.
I fully agree with Brandon and the sinking money....don't over extend your finances on this and blow you whole savings on it. To be honest...its probably better to lose a few gallons of sap than to get in over your head.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Mark is right, better to have to much sap and have to dump it vs not having enough!

[mountainvan]

Dump Sap!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! My heart aches just thinking about it. With the vacuum increasing yield.... I made .15 gal of syrup/tap without vacuum, .34 gals of syrup/tap with vacuum.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Van,

I agree with you but I work full time and live 1/2 hour from the sugarhouse and have 2 small children, so it's not quite as important to me as it is with you as you do it for a living. I seldom ever dump sap, but I would if I had to. How many times do you have too much sap and how many times do you not have enough??

Well, you get the point, better too much than not enough as that is usually the case.

[PATheron]

Mark- This is my setup. My shed is right behind the house. Theres 800 taps on the hill behind the shed and 250 on the neighbor that hooks to my woods. Im installing a new tubing system that will gravity to three bulktanks at the shed. Those tanks will gravity into the pan. I shouldnt have to touch one gallon of sap. I have about 15 cords of seasoned wood stacked in and beside the shed. I know what you mean about overspending but Ive been saving quite a while for this. I work full time but can be pretty flexable with time off so If I get a big run it wont be a problem, Plus my dad wants to help. I have another question for you guys if you dont mind though. I had help from a local producer help me design my tubing. This is how it goes. Aprox 100 yrds from tanks to woods,3' drop,1.25 line. Then all 1 inch line spread out horizonally following the bottom of the woods with a main line every 200' running vertically to top of woods. The idea being laterals 100'each way from each vertical run. After initial 100 yrds everything has exceellent pitch. We would have preferred horizontal mains with 75' lats but but a lot of my woods is thin, large area for amount of taps and would have required way more mainline. Producer said hes had good luck running vac over sap in one line. My only concern is pitch is steaper than recommened but not radical. I wonder if it might impede vac but I kind of had to compromise, the difference in cost was thousands. What do you guys think?

[ennismaple]

If you're not certain of the pitch on you initial 100 yards of mainline then you could add a vacuum booster at the upstream end to make sure you get good vacuum transfer to where you mainline splits up.

As far as tank capacity goes - we aim for 1 gallon per tap where the sap comes into your dumper. You`ll definitely need more if you don`t gather every day. We also have an additional 2 - 800 gallon tanks at the sugar camp to feed the evaporator and a 525 gallon tank on the wagon to gather with.

Our 600 GPH RO that we bought 5 years ago was the best investment we ever made. We can run about 150 GPH through our wood fired evaporator. One day last spring we had over 3200 gallons of sap and it was less than 10 hours from fire up to clean up.

[brookledge]

What I recommend to others is to take a vacuum gauge and adapt it down to a piece of rubber hose that you can go around and check different areas to see if you are getting good vacuum transfer. Just take the gauge and pull a tap, stick the rubber hose on the tap to see what you got. If you had another producer already help you out see how the system you have is working before worrying about adding dry lines or vacuum boosters. You may find that you will get good vac. transfer now
Keith

[Parker]

I would not consider trying to make syrup without vacuum.

[PATheron]

Ennis and brookledge- Im thinking the tubing is going to be fine. They actually designed it with boosters at certain intervals but for this year Im just going to gravity it and Ill probobly add them later. Ill try to get You guys a picture of the shed today and post it if I can. Once I get the tubing in Ill do a photo album of eveything then itll be easier for you guys to see what im doing. Im hoping the tubing will be complete by the end of november. My order came in yesterday and Im going to pick up my high tensile wire and 1 inch line and Ill get my first look at my evap. Pretty excited about starting the tubing, its going to be a beautiful time to work in the woods. Ill try to post a picture here tonight if I can figure out how, thanks theron

[TapME]

It sounds like you are going to have a nice operation when you are all done.

[Jim Brown]

Hey Guys Make connections with a large producer in your area like we did and if your vacumm system makes more sap than you can handle call him up and have him stop over and pick up what you can't handle. 500-1000 gallons You will be amazed how fast the dollars add up at 10-20 cents a gallon and it will help cover some of the cost of the vac system
Just a thought
My two cents :)

Jim

[PATheron]

Guys, I got some good pictures on walmarts photo center of my woods and shed but I cant figure out how to let you guys access them. They want specific web addresses of friends to view them and I cant figure out how to just post one or two pictures here. If you guys can give me some help Ill try again tomarrow night. Thanks Theron

[paul]

theron

I hope when you set up your tubeing you are not going to use health spouts until you set up your vac. health spouts will not run very good on gravity. you should use 7/16 spouts. I helped a freind set up his woods,he said he was going to use vac. so we set it up and used health spouts,well he found himself out of money and couldn`t buy the vac pump. he was very disapointed with his sap yield. the next season he hooked up his vac and in the first good run he brought in more sap than the whole season before.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Paul,

Not to disagree with you, but last season was not the best of weather for making syrup and I got almost 5,000 gallon of sap from aprox 500 taps. Not the best of ratio, but not very good weather either. I am happy with 5/16 health spouts and I use Leader and Lapierre and like both and all my taps are gravity!

[PATheron]

Paul- The last syrup I made was season before last and I had 175 health spouts on gravity. I did run more taps per lat then the way im setting up now but on a good run I avereged a gal per tap. I do think they run less but I really like the way the trees heal. Ive got my line layed out and have started running main lines last night. Ive decided for sure to put all 1000 taps out this year so even if sap is a little less I think Ill have enough sap that by the end of the season I should have some idea how to run that evap. Like I said this year is a year of learning for me. Also Paul most of my taps are not small trees. Theres probobly only 200 of those taps on trees just large enough to start tapping the rest are pretty good size trees. Westvirginia- I looked at the evap sunday, its the deluxe model raised flue. It looks pretty impressive to me. They said when I bought it that They rate it at 85 gals hour I think. I tried to split my wood pretty small and its seasoned real nice. Maple, ash and beech, what would you guys guess Ill get for evap rate in real life. Therell be no add ons just stock evap. The spiles are from maple pro and are health, they must be about the same as what you are using, right?

[brookledge]

I would say 85gph sounds about right. I will say that with 1000 taps you will be doing alot of boiling
good luck
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

With a hood, preheater and an airtight front in the future, you could get up to 120+ gph, but stock it should be 80 to 90. I know a guy that has one stock with just a hood and preheater and gets about 100 gph and it is a 3x10 Lappierre.

[PATheron]

brookledge- Putting out main line and I stood there looking at all those trees and all I could think was thats got to be a lot of sap! 1000 taps looks like a heck of a lot of woods. You guys are going to be laughing your buts off in syrup season. If god really does hate a coward Im in darn good shape unless he hates idiots too. Theron

[maplecrest]

after looking at your pictures, here are my thoughts. havingused vac for over 30 years, and looking at your sugar woods. my first question to you is how much syrup do you want to make? if you want to make 250 gallons. tap 500 taps and do it right. by a double gilles releaser for 1200 dollars. a delaval 76 vac pump and use new adapters for spouts every year and you will get 1/2 gallon of syrup per tap. then next year expand. the storage for vac is 2 gallons per tap. i figure the amount needed to boil an hour. i need 600 gallons to start. so when i have 800 gallons of sap i start boiling to stay ahead of the sap comming in. dont wait till the tanks full and start boiling. many a time i was boiling the sap as fast as it was dumping out of the releaser at full flow. can be a bit unnerving as things start to freeze and have to shut down, but you will make a better grade syrup. think about what you can handle, how you can boil and sap gathered to stay ahead of it. i got too big too fast. was running 3000 taps on a 4x12 leader that evaped 180 gallons per hour. we boiled around the clock. and had to shut the vac off for too much sap was comming in. one year i never want to relive. so if your evap does 85 per hour if you have 160 gallons of sap start boiling. 30 years ago i wanted to make 300 gallons of syrup a year. last year i made 2000. and i am still expanding every year to reach that goal. slowly doing it right. jeff

[PATheron]

Jeff- Im basically thinking right along the same lines as you. I actually really like your idea about the 500 and starting right off with vac the thought just never crossed my mind. My plan from the start was first year shed, tubing system. Second year either just stick with that or buy the vac pump and ro. My main goal right now is to maximize any sap that will run into that shed. Thats why ive figured on vac from the beginning. Your averages are awesome, I figure if i can double the amount of sap from that hill with vacuum its cheaper than properly tapping another 1000 away from home and a lot easier. Thanks for the info, Theron

[markcasper]

Theron, maplecrest could not have said it better! I made my mind up a few years ago to get away from "expanding my number of taps". At least until I have a facility to be able to handle the additional taps. A few years ago, I decided to increase the amount of existing taps on vacuum, and get doing a better job of maintaining the vacuum at higher levels. You will indeed double your crop if the particulars are taken care of. Not to say that its any less work, but your doing the work over fewer acres and I like to think being much more efficient with the resource.

This can be a problem if you have squirrels! Or as of this past season, bear.
I don't know what I am going to about the bear in the upcoming years.

In order to maintain my current production without vacuum, I would have to tap roughly double the amount of trees and have twice as many tank locations as I do now. That would mean twice as many tanks to clean every day, twice as much tubing to initially maintain and purchase, twice as much time spent for tapping, twice as much time spent on flushing/pulling taps, twice as much running around to tanks with miniscule amounts on low flow days, and twice as many chances of getting stuck with the gathering tank and tractor, since I'd have to go to more remote areas to get those additional taps.

So in essence what I have been able to accomplish with vacuum is this:
I have taken all of that "non-value added" labor and cost of that mentioned above, and invest it instead into vacuum. There you really see the results!

If you were to go out and fix the tiniest holes possible in a non-vacuum system, you would be disappointed in the returns b/c there wouldn't be hardly any. If yoou fix and maintain all of the tiniest leaks in a vacuum system, the results will be astonishing! Results that add to the yield, and unltimately the bottom line. Those are my 2 cents.

[PATheron]

Markcasper- I think you guys are 100% right on the vacuum and this is why. When I was a kid I tapped in my folks woods. Galviized sap buckets. Id come home after school a lot of the days and theyed be running over the top. For some reason in our area we dont get many of those days a season any more. Im no weather expert but the wind usually screws me up. Ill have a perfect day temp wise then a south wind picks up and its over. Weather is ciclical, trendty what can i say. Looks to me like in my area, now days, if you want to make a lot of syrup the vac is a big help. This is what im working towards. You guys will probobly think Im nuts but here goes. When I bought the evap I asked the guys how many taps I could keep up with if i ro. They thought maybe 4000. If i tap everything that will reach the shed I can put at least 1200 on vac directly into the shed. Then Id like to tap near home another 2000 or 1000 taps on vac in one location. Then id only make one pickup away from home. Not 10 stops for sap here and there. Im thinking a 600 gal ro. Run it an hour 150 gal sweet boil 1.5 hrs, repeat. Make the most of the evap I bought forced air, preheater, front. Cut less firewood. When you guys stop laughing you can tell me what you think. I want to do this incrementally becouse Im not willing to go deep in debt for syruping its too volatile a business and I am basically considering it a hobby. If I decide to stop at the thousand on vac that runs into the shed thats fine too. I just want to be able to make some syrup and have nice facilities to do it. If it starts to be not fun anymore Ill quit expanding at that point. I love doing syrup and as long as im having fun im going to give er hell! Theron

[maplecrest]

with a 1200 to the sugar house done right with wet dry lines, 5 to 8 taps per lat. 3/4 or 1 inch main lines. [no more than 600 taps per 1 inch main].you can make 600 gallons of syrup a year. get organic cert. and make more per pound. as a hobby that will be all i could handle. four days to tap it out,an hour every day to check for vac leaks. boiling and canning. four days to wash up. sounds like a hobby to me jeff

[Russell Lampron]

PATheron,

There is nothing to laugh about there. The only thing you might be miss understanding is that when you run the RO you run it until you are out of sap. There are cleaning cycles involved and a wood fired evaporator gets more efficient the longer it is run. Mine takes about 3 hours to get completely warmed up. My operation is smaller than yours and I have had as much as 600 gallons to boil in in one session and as little as 90 gallons. Yes I do run the RO for small amounts of sap. Boiling raw sap sucks. The sooner you can get the RO into the set up the better, you will quickly find out why after you use one.

Russ

[PATheron]

Jeff- couple questions for you. Was going to use 10 as a max on lats, change that to 8? Also, what is your feeling on the organic cert? Not sure of the rules, Im using 10''for min trees, and health spouts. My mainline is all 1'', im keeping all my lats as proper length as possable. I think Ill have darn good vac when this is done. The line was all drawn out by local producer that installs line for a living in our area and I even measured mainlined with a 300' tape when I marked them. Russell- Glad you guys arent laughing. Im one of those people that does everything to excess that can be good and bad. I get a lot of work done. I told my tax guy I was going into the syrup business. He said he could think of a lot easier ways to make money than syrup. I told him I didnt say I was going to make a lot of money, I said I was going to make a lot of syrup. Dang accountants all they think about is money. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

PATheron,

I didn't go into this thinking I was going to make a lot of money either. I do it because it gives me something to do at a time of the year when you can't do much else. It is to late for snow related activities and to early for motorcycling. I also do it now to get everything set up the way I want it so that I will have something to do when I retire. I think about money too, mostly about the lack of it.

Russ

[PATheron]

Russell- You know what I think it is is the thrill of seeing how much sap you get on a nice spring day. Its like trapping or treasure hunting you have that hope that its going to run good also your so sick of winter that you cant wait to start sugering and get in the wood. Im lucky to have such good support from my wife. She told me this is the best stupid idea Ive had in a long time. Gotta get back to the woods to run main line. Theron

[maplecrest]

i wish i was working in the woods now. it is always snow up to my crotch and 10 below.it seems like when i get to the woods. too many irons in the fire. with the rest of the farm. ok the best thing to do is contact your county or state organic people. here in vt it is nofa. they will be very helpful. they have been a god send to me. i am 2 years out for organic because i spayed my trees for the forest tent cat. they will help you also with marketing ideas. farm viabity ect.selling horse hay and the beef here they have been a great help. they also can help you with tax questions with your new adventure. having two kids in college they have been a help with little ideas that you and i would not think of. very resourceful people.i friend of mine is moving to maine to set up a new adventure up there. the organic people up there a paying 2.60 a pound for light syrup up there. as to tree size, they will tell you on there farm visit.looking at your pics, you have one tap trees. if i was in your setting if two trees were very close i would tap one one year and the other the next. for future new tapping wood. one good thing about the small spouts compared to old big spouts. leaves room for new areas on trees to tap. when they are small. the problem with new growth trees is tapping room in the future. 30 inch min. drops. hope this helps jeff

[PATheron]

Thanks a lot jeff for the info about the organic, that sounds like something I might at least look into. I agree most of my trees are one hole, I measure diameter and go by the book on two holers. That younger stand for the most part wont be tapped not quite ready. You got to be busy if your a farmer and run taps like that. My hats off to you. You woulnt happen to have any pictures of your woods would you. Thats something I alwys look for first thing when I check out peoples photos. Also stick to the 8 tap lats or is 10 ok? Thanks a lot, Ill have 2000 foot of main in today. Its goin real good. Im hopen 2 weeks Ill be running lats. Theron

[PATheron]

Russell- If you have any pics id like to see them too. sounds like you have a pretty sweet oper. If you guys dont thats fine, it was a pain for me to do mine, finally figured it out,not much into computers till lately.

[maplecrest]

well now there is an idea i have thought about, would like to do. i have lots of pictures of the april storm that took down all my wet dry lines and broke every one of my boosters. trees look like knife edges. but i dont think you want too see that.i will see about getting some pics. parker came here and liked what he saw in my woods. my web site is smithmaplecrestfarm.com. got a few there. i try to stay at 8 but every line and tree stands are different. i have from 5 to 12 on some lines. to listen to the experts. your best lat is one tap jeff

[Russell Lampron]

PATheron,

Unfortunately I don't have the digital camera needed to take and post pictures. Maybe sometime when Royalmaple is down he can bring his camera with him and we can take and post some pictures of my operation. By looking at your pictures I can see that you have a nice set up there. It must be hard to go in at night with that shiny new evaporator sitting there. I had mine set up in my basement while I was building my sugarhouse and could look at it and dream every time I went down to put wood in the stove.

Russ

[PATheron]

Jeff- Nice web site. Looks to me like you take pride in whatever you do. Too bad about the ice damage, thats gotta hurt. same happened here a few years ago sounded like rifle shots uprooted 40 year old ash trees and just layed them down, one would fall and takeothers with them. Maples wouldnt tip over though. Ill try to maintain 10 or less. I know what your saying about the pros, you try to do as right as possable but there are limits, Their recomendations do seem to me to error on the side of more line. I like your resoning though on doing things right instead of just ungodly numbers of taps, its all got to be maintained. Im going to do the most professional job I can and what i end up with will be good enough for me. Ill have 3000' of main in by tomarrow clipped in and done. Have to do 2500 more and all mains will be done then start lats. Russell- If you get a chance give me the particulars on your setup. Id be interested about your woods, number of taps, how you collect, etc. Theron

[royalmaple]

Russ-

I'll bring some technology next time I swing over and get your operation documented.

Better start shinning up that evaporator and RO.

[PATheron]

Russell- That picture of my evap is at the dealers place. They are bringing it next saturday with the rest of my stuff and when they come theyre going to help me set it right in the shed in place. I know what your saying about seeing that thing once thats here Im probobly going to totally freak out. Sounds like youll have pictures in no time, Royal maple is gonna be your I.T. man. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

PATheron,

Matt is going to come to the rescue and get some pics of my operation online the next time he comes down. That will probably be sometime this fall when it is time to improve and repair the tubing.

At my house I have about 200 taps on vacuum and unlike yours they run down hill away from my sugarhouse. I have a Delaval 73 vacuum pump set up at the sugarhouse and have a mechanical releaser and tank set up down in the woods. We collect those with a bilge pump and 2 35 gallon tanks on a trailer behind my 4 wheeler. I also have about 50 taps on buckets in my yard. Two miles away at my parents house I have another 200 taps on gravity tubing and about 100 buckets. We collect those with a 325 gallon tank in a trailer behind one of my fathers tractors. I have a 1977 GMC 1 ton with a platform dump to transport the sap from my parents house to mine.

I built my sugarhouse inside an old barn foundation on my property so that the gathering tanks could gravity drain into the 600 gallon bulk tank that I use for storage. When I originally built my sugarhouse I built it too small with a 12x12 room for the evaporator and 12x12 wood shed. When it was time to expand I added on an insulated room in the wood shed and purchased an RO machine. I have an Algier 2x6 raised flue wood fired evaporator with a steamhood and preheater on the flue pan. My RO will produce about 40 gallons of concentrate in an hour and my evaporator will almost keep up with it. At this time I don't use a blower on it, I can get it to boil over pretty easy once it is warmed up.

Russ

[PATheron]

Russell- If im counting right you have about 550 taps. How much sap do you get on your best run do you think, are they mostly sugar or reds? I didnt realize you could have a pump at the house and the releaser sererate at the tank I guess i have always invisioned the two together. If a guy wanted to vac a woods like yours where the bush layed away from the shed How far away could you Pull vac with big line and boosters would you say? Even thougth you have to go get the sap it sounds like you still have a darn good setup becouse it sounds like pretty easy job getting it. Did you start out like Ive llways done it with a tarp and homeade rig or did you start right out with what you have now? Theron

[maplecrest]

i have a releaser 2400 feet below the sugar house. tank next too road with releaser. i run 2400 feet of dry line from the releaser in the sugar house to the releaser at the bottom of the hill. i loose about 2 inches of vac between the vac gauge at the sugar house and the gauge at the releaser. i have 440 taps on that system with a gilles single releaser. my dry line for that distance and number or taps is 1 inch. i figure i could run about 550 taps on that system. jeff

[PATheron]

Jeff- say your 2400' wasnt downhill. Say you have the same setup only say 2000' would flow gravity to sugar house but at the 2000'mark was the start of a bush that ran away from the house gradual, say 5% maybe,but the bush would run into a tank at the 2400 mark. So 2000 will gravity run but the last 400' 5% wrong way, would the vac be poweful enough to pull the sap from that tank up 400 of 5% grade so it could run to the house? Theron

[Russell Lampron]

Theron,

You are right I have about 550 taps. That would be a lot for a 2x6 evaporator but with the RO it is just about right considering that i work a full time job. Most nights I am done boiling and cleaning up by 9:30. On my best run I got 585 gallons of sap. My son started the RO machine at 4:15 and then lit the evaporator at 4:20. We had the last draw off and also ran out of sap at 9:05. I hope we get some runs like that this season. I ran a 3/4" line from the sugarhouse to the releaser that is about 900 feet away. It works a lot better than trying to run the vacuum pump with a gas engine which I did the first year I had it.

I boiled one year on a gas grille on my back porch and then bought the evaporator. I started out thinking that I was only going to do about 200 taps and had 300 before I even lit the evaporator. The demand for the syrup and the long hours spent boiling got me thinking about the cheapest way to expand and increase efficiency. I was quite nervous about it but because I didn't know any small producers with one but bought the RO machine. Looking back on it now it was the best thing that I have done so far. Just finished splitting the 2 cords of wood for next season today.

Russ

[maplecrest]

what i would do is put a releaser at the tank. run a dry line from sugar house to run releaser. then put a pump at your tank. deep well with a float switch that will pump the sap too the sugar house. i did that for a while. had a bit of a freezeing problem. but it works better than vac. or you can build a ladder to vac it to the sugar house. i do that to go over the roads jeff

[PATheron]

Russell- I know what your saying about the taps. Last fall I decided I was going to tap the hill figured maybe 600. Had a hard time explaining the bush to equipment distributer so his guys came out and drew out the lines for me and figured 800. Then the neighbors said I could tap some. I guess ill let you know what I end up with when Im done. Im just going to be selective with my taps being I seem to have plenty and what I end up will suit me just fine. I think the ro would work really good for me too, Ill just see how this year goes and kind of do one step at a time. You picked the perfect time to do your wood, the amount of wood your using is a huge attraction to the ro for me. I finished up 3000' of 1" line today. Im going to work on shed rest of week. Saterday theyre bringing the evap and 3000' more main and 55 rolls of 5/16. That ought to keep me busy. Once the line is done Ill do the inside of the shed this winter and just run a woodstove. Figured better get the line done now while its nice. question, do you think Ill be able to keep the sweetwater boiled up fast enough if I run a bigger ro than yours, I know that stuff spoils fast but as long as i boil that night is that ok? Theron

[brookledge]

Patheron
If you are going yo have around 800 taps why do you need 55 rolls of tubing.
The rule of thumb used to be 50 taps per 500' of 5/16. Now that the recomended amount of taps on your laterals is 8-10 and no long runs of 5/16 you end up with more mainline and a roll of tubing will go even further.
anyways it sounds like you got your work cut out for you
Keith

[PATheron]

Keith- The problem with my woods is Im tapping a large area for the number of taps. Im guessing maybe 25-30 acres. A lot of it is kind of thin as far as concentration. As it matures Itll be a lot better but some of it is too small to tap. Im also getting into more taps than I thought Im guessing around a thousand. what I wanted to do originally was run mains horizontally with 75' lats. The amount of mainline was just too much. What I ended up doing was vertical maines every 200' with 100' lats each way. This was a little longer lats than I wanted but there shouldnt be too many at that max distance. I kind of compromized becouse the difference in plans was 3000 dollars. I think what Im doing will work fine though becouse all my line is oversized for amount of taps especially with my slope plus the rolls of 5/16 is an estamate anyway i really dont know exactly. I still ended up with 6000' of main even with this plan. I guess ill know better where I stand once I get to running lats. One thing about it I ought to have some idea what Im doing once this is done. Thats how most jobs go. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

Theron,

As a rule of thumb you want to size your RO machine so that it produces more concentrate than you evaporator will boil off in an hour. A 600gph RO would go nicely with your 3x10 evaporator producing about 150 gallons of sap in an hour. A 300gph will produce about 75 gallons in an hour so you would need to concentrate enough sap before you start boiling so that you don't boil it all up before you are done concentrating the raw sap. It isn't a good idea to let concentrated sap sit too long before boiling it because bacteria will grow in it much faster than in raw sap.

Russ

[PATheron]

Russell- That made me happy when you posted yesterday that the 600 would make a good match becouse that was my thought too. I hadnt asked anyone where i bought the evap but I kind of figured that would be the right size. This spring ill have the 1000 give or take gravity but what im figuring is the next year have another 200 with the vac pump and ro that should be a darn nice setup. With what Jeff is saying that could be 600 gal of syrup and really not a lot of boiling time or firewood. The main thing is doing like you guys say and not rush any thing and try to do everything properly to be as efficient as possable. I went for a walk yesterday and took some pictures of the woods if you want to check them out. They came out ok but when im done with the tubing and the leaves are gone Ill get rid of them and get some real good ones. The winter pictures are the best for really seeing the woods. Theron

[Russell Lampron]

Theron,

Just checked out your new pics. Do you have support wires for your main lines? I couldn't zoom them up far enough to see. It looks like things should work out nice for you. As far as your question about vacuum and trees that run down away from the sugarhouse an inch of vacuum will lift a column of sap 1 foot. You will lose some lift to friction so if you are running 18" of vacuum 15' in elevation change would be about the max you could expect to lift.

Russ

[WMF]

Theron, You may want to look over how you ran some of your mainlines. Normally you never want to run mainlines on the outside of a tree when making a curve. Down the road this will cause major problems. Nice woods

[PATheron]

Russell- The mainline is all on hightension wire. I took those pics at the end of the day and the light wasnt the best. Thanks for the rule of thumb on the vac. Theres a place I thought about tapping someday maybe and that was the situation with it. I never thought about lifting it untill you guys were talking about seperating your releaser and pump. Its nice to know about ideas like that becouse it opens up possabilities. WMF- like your website a lot, been on my favorites for a while, the pics are nice of your woods. Other than running my lines through the trees for supports I think I only have two hard turns. I didnt know that it was bad to go on the outside of them. Looked in NAMSPH couldnt find any reference to this, have you found this too flatten the tubing over time just on a sharp turn? Should I cut the tubing and swing it inside the angle or is the wire the problem? Whatever I should do let me know. This is my first serious experiance with tubing. Thanks Theron

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

It will flatten the mainline(had it happen). but if you run it to the inside of the tree and tie it back with a smaller gauge wire, if a tree were to fall on the mainline the side tie wire will break and give and not break the high tension wire or mainline.

[PATheron]

Breezy lane- What i did was baically run 500' sections feeding it around trees in the path of may line for support. I then went to one end and pulled tight with ratchets. Then I strung all my tubing and lashed it at convenieant working highth, placed it all to the final highth and grade and then used smaller gage wire to side tie any long runs to eliminate sags. You guys are talking about not going around back side of trees only on hard corners right? My line is all clipped in do you think I should cut the tubing and swing it around the tree and coupling just on the 2 or 3 hard turns or what is your suggestion? Theron

[PATheron]

Breezylane- How about this, Ill take the strain off the line with the ratches and side tie the line on the backside of the tree so its off the tree on the hard corners and then retighten, that would be good, right. The only place I have to worry about is an actual turn? Theron

[royalmaple]

In that one spot where you made a hard turn you could have run the pipe on the inside of the trees. THen take some wire and haul the mainline wire & pipe back towards the trees to make your turn. Your better to make a turn with wire pulling back on your main line than actually using a tree to go around. You can accomplish the same thing with a side to side wire and won't hurt the pipe or crush it.

You lay out your main line and wire where you want it, tighten up the wire and mainline, then use some side to side wires to get it banjo tight and pull it into the corners you need to turn.

When you use the side to side wires don't attach them to the pipe, just the mainline wire, the pipe will follow since it is wire tied to the high tension wire.

[PATheron]

Thanks for the info guys, ill pull the corners off the trees and thatll fix that. At least Ill know how to run the rest of them. Theron

[Breezy Lane Sugarworks]

And not that you have to change anything, but keep it in mind that making sweeping corners will help the sap flow rather than a sharp corner.

[WMF]

Patheron, I run mainlines to the inside of every bend no matter how slight the curve. Exactly the opposite of how you should run your laterals. Ideally your mainlines will never be closer than 6 or 8 inches to any tree except where you have to splice the line and try to do this at a small tree 6 - 10 inches to avoid a big loop around the tree.

This is the hardest part of running mainlines and is why some very efficient Pro installers chainsaw a path for each mainline and leave just the trees they will side tie to.

If you plan on leaving this system in the woods for ten years It will pay you back many times to do this correct now and not have problems like :

1. Lines crushing
2. Wire growing into bark and then rusting from constant moisture and acid
3. Wire breaking from trees growing
4. No shock absorber effect
5. Hard to retighten mainline after break because of friction on tree
6. Hard to keep plastic pipe from rolling up on top of wire

It's only September lots of time to redo.

[PATheron]

WMF- Is your way of running the mains pretty much an industry standard or is this something youve come up with through personal experiance? What your saying makes good sense but its funny I hadnt picked up on it. Ive done quite a lot of reading and woods walking but guess I just didnt pick up on that. I think in the morning Ill check out the neighbors setup on the way to work and specifically look at the mains. Im not too worried about it, its not the end of the world or anything, but what your saying does make good sense. I have 50% left to do which I could do like your saying. The part thats in now is wire tied, what do you think about loosening up those lines and side tying them off the trees? It wouldnt be quite as nice as if I was intending to use your method from the start but would be much easier than taking whole sections and rerunning right? If your wondering why Im up in the middle of the night its becouse ive got a head cold. Occasionally I do sleep. My other question is this I have about 300' or 1.25 main to run across fairly flat ground from tanks to woods to pick up 1 " lines. 3' drop in that distance. I ran the wire like you are saying but couldnt get the sag out of it with side tying and decided Id have to zig zag it through the trees for support to get it tight enough to run. My only other option is sinking a ton of posts in the ground whats your thoughts on that? Theron

[WMF]

Patheron, This is the industry standard on how mainlines should be run but I have seen where people try to save a little time by just letting the mainline rub on trees but eventually there will be problems.

Across an open space anchor both ends to the last available trees and use a ratchet on both ends of wire and tighten. Then put supports every 15-20 feet and retighten wire as needed. You may need to put cross braces on a few of the supports to keep the wind from tipping long sections over.

I have several open spans of over a thousand feet and they are not a problem after quite a few years.

You should try to find a woods that Glenn Goodrich has put up or take a road trip up there and you will learn plenty.

[PATheron]

WMF- You did me a huge favor. I checked out friends woods he did his exactly as you said. I took the day off and revamped about 75% of what I had. I had to actually take down quite a lot of what I had but it was worth it, it looks tremendous. I only ended up cutting line once, so one extra coupling, that wasnt bad. I used lighter gage wire for side ties and 1" tubing on trees. I think Ive got a nice fix now. It was one of those things I just missed and it really wasnt mentioned in the producers manual that I could see. I think the flat run I can do the same thing, the tree line is a little off to the side but I think itll work good, Ill just do it the same as the other, itll just take a bit more line but thats ok. If I use supports itll be hard becouse it gets pretty high to get the right drop into the tanks and still have room for a releaser. Im pretty sure your method will work through the trees Ill just use a bit more line. Thanks a million Theron

[treefinder]

i found the same thing with running main line ! so what did was i took a old garden hose and cut them iinto 12" pieces and split them. and every where the wire touched the trees i would lay the wire inside to keep off the bark. i can say that my tubing isn't 100% right to the big producers but it works good .i also got it a big yank to put my tubing up after selling all bucketsthat i did to much to fast with the money i had. see i used 1/2"mainline running into 3/4" mainline but the 1/2 runs into it about every 40'with about 60 tap each with a total of about 300 per 3/4", and my 5/16" 6 or 7 taps on each run to the 1/2. i might have used a little more mainline but my runs are short and i bought my mainline @ lowes . $11.47 for 1/2" 100', $14.87 for 3/4' per 100' its black but the following year start painting it white in your spare time in the summer.i have always been gravity . but this year i'am putting 1/2 of it on vacuum about 550 taps. but i don't understand the dry line thing. how do you run it where does it end? where does it hook up? i also have to run a sap ladder to get mine over the hill i need to raise it up 6' and that will give me 3' over the hill.

[PATheron]

Treefinder- Im just learning how to run line properly myself. Some of the other guys on here have a lot of experiance, they might be able to help you with the dual line questions. I know that the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual has a section on wet and dry line installation. If you dont have one of those manuals you might want to get one. I think theyre around 30 bucks, worth every penny to me. If you go on tubing or vac previous posts theres probobly a bunch of info too. Theron

[maplecrest]

tree finder. if you noticed to price difference between 1/2 and 3/4 it was close that is why htink the next size up. now that you are thinking vac the 1/2 is too small, you cannot get the vac over the sap in a 1/2 inch line. i still have some short 1/2 inch runs but you cannot get a good vac reading on it. jeff

[treefinder]

thanks for the info i will probably wait till next year to start replacing some! kevin

[ennismaple]

Treefinder - Check out WMF's website (very impressive BTW!). He's got a picture of a bunch of mainlines that join at a tree. The white contraption in the middle with 2 lines that go off to the right is the vacuum booster. The top line (with the valve) is the dryline, the bottom is the wet line. The bottom line should flow almost full most of the time while the top line brings vacuum directly from the releaser and normally does not have any sap in it. This allows good vacuum to extend further out into your bush while the wet (bottom) line brings the sap back to the releaser.

maplecrest is right about the 1/2" tubing. There's only about $0.07/ft difference from 3/4" but you'll get more sap out of the trees on a 3/4" mainline so it'll pay for itself pretty quick.

PATheron - I'm learning from your Q&A too. It's made me question why we do some things the way we do and I plan to lay out our new bush in a very similar way to what you've ultimately done.

[PATheron]

Ennismaple- you guys are a great resource for me. Basically all I know is from hobbying, reading and talking to people. I try to take everyones ideas and opinions and use what works best for me. Basically what I am trying to do is to totally maximize any sap that will run into that shed. I dont mind spending money on technology. Ive never bought a new vehicle in my life and this is going to cost about the same as a new pickup. I want it to be a nice one. Theron

[PATheron]

latest on tubing saga- rerouted tubing as per your recomendation. Tubing was tied to wire so what I did was carefully roll up tubing attached to wire rerouted it and pulled it back up, didnt seem to mess up tube. Then I side tyed it properly. When I ran the tube I did not couple the sections together becouse I havnt recieved the new tool so I just left extra and tied it good. When I got done it looked pretty good but tubing in spots near the ends had loosed a little. What I did was put a hose clamp at start of tube and clamped to wire. Then went to end of tube section and took 1/4" rope and put a clove hitch on end of tube took rope around tree in line and took running end of rope through a double bowline to create a makeshift puller. Pulled rope carefully untill good and tight and then clamped with hose clamp. In producers handbook they said not too pull tube with a hoist but i think what I did was all right. The clamps pinch the tube somewhat but I think good fix. Over all I think it looks real good especially being it was taken down. If you guys think im messing up let me know. Once I have this all fixed the rest will be easy becouse ill do it right the first time. Theron

[brookledge]

The only thing that I would say about 1/2" is that if you already have some and you don't want to throw it away you can use it as a main line in a spot where you would otherwise use 5/16 to run a long distance to get only a few taps. It will give better vac. transfer then the 5/16
As for the dry line system it is used to enhance the vacuum. When the liquid is travelling in the wet line it slows down the air moving through often creating tubulance in the line.
What the dry line does is to carry the vacuum out deep into the bush and then tie it back into the wet line or many will tie it in in multiple places or will run it to a vac. booster.
Keith

[treefinder]

so a dry line will hook up at the top of a booster and the wet line at the bottom so the sap goes in the booster tank and then down the wet line ?

[maplecrest]

the dry line also, acts as a wet line after a freeze. until the wet line thaws out. no sap lost in thaw out. jeff