sugar content

[slammer3364]

I have been at this a little while now,but the last three years and the little bit of sap I boiled down this year has very little sugar.What is the determining factor for sugar content? The trees are almost all reds, but previously I did not have a sap hydrometer but it did not take as long to get syrup. Any ideas? Thanks

[spud]

Getting to the first draw off will take time. After that you should notice a change.

Spud

[maple flats]

The more freeze thaw cycles you get usually help raise the sugar % My last 2 years have been my lowest ever. If Accuweather is right, starting March 11 and for over 3 weeks we will get perfect weather, freeze every night, warm days here in central NY, hopefully that will be true for you in Pa too.

[maple flats]

The rain and sun amounts the year before are a big factor, but then in season it's the freeze thaw cycles and the more repetitions you get the more it helps.
Are your trees crowded? Some thinning might be the answer too. Some people refuse to cut a maple tree, but if they are crowding each other thinning is the answer. If you do, just open up 1 or 2 sides at a time, then let the canopy fill back in before opening another side. The sugar is made by the leaves, not the number of trunks. Big canopy, good sugar.

[Ed R]

For what its worth, my sugar content is not good this year either. I tap all reds at my hobby operation and my first run sap tested 1.4 after throwing out quite a bit of ice.

[slammer3364]

Thanks for replies makes sense.I seem to remember an old thread on here when your sap freezes, it is a poor mans r.o. Water freezes sugar settles to bottom. I threw out alot of ice also.I also seen accuweather forecast lets hope it holds true. Happy Syurping

[Michael Greer]

The leaves make the sugar. Anything that affects the amount or size of the leaves will have an effect on the next season's sugar content. Drought seems to be the biggest factor for me, but defoliation has been a huge factor for places with caterpillar infestations. Crowding affects crown size, and a yard tree will always have better content than a forest tree.

[Jake8484]

I bought a sap hydrometer 3 years ago and have checked my individual trees numerous times thru out the collection of the sap. I also found that the sugar content was low last year. Having a small homemade evaporator I have tried to find ways to reduce the amount of sap needed to make syrup. I heard about the freezing and throwing out ice method. Let me tell you it works well. I have even taking the ice and melted it down to check to see the sugar content of it.
Here is an example of what did. I had 16 gallons of sap in a food grade barrel. The same day i collected it the sap reading was 1.6%. That night the temps fell to 6 degrees. The next day I broke the ice on top and poured all the sap into another barrel. The sap now was at 2.2%. I let the ice melt in my semi-warm garage. I checked it and it had a reading of 0.1 %. Worthless. I did this two more nights and increased my sap sugar content to 3.2%. I wish I had written down how much ice I pitched out over those three freeze cycles but I think it was about 6 to 7 gallons. The last ice melted had a sugar content of .3 % - still a waste to try to boil it down. Now of course if 3/4 of your sap is froze you don't want to pitch all of that but what I am getting at is the water freezes first and it seems to me in the thawing process the sugar water thaws out first. I have sampled the thawed and thawing sap many many times as I wanted the first hand knowledge.
This year I had 57 gallons in my first run. After three freeze cycles I was down to 36 gallons of sap. That 36 gallons made 1.25 gallons of golden syrup. That is a really good ratio for my red maples.
I have another item I am tracking right now. I have recorded the sugar content from 45 trees last year and I am checking again this year and will again next year- just to see how the tree produces from year to year. I check it every other week and can really see when it drops off and when to pull the taps. I know -alot of work- but I am recently retired and want to know this stuff first hand.

[Jake8484]

I've found that the Red maples on the yard and around the field have better sugar % than my Sugar maples that unfortunately are all buried in the dense woods.
Has to be the bigger crowns and more branches. The Sugar maples were averaging 1.3% in the woods last year but the Reds on the yard were 1.5%.
I did have one scrawny looking Sugar in the woods that consistently gave up 2.8% last year- go figure.

[jrm]

Great data. I've gotten rid of ice as well, taking from the wisdom of those doing this longer than I. With the data that you've seen, makes me think I might check out the sugar content in a similar way.

Thanks for sharing this.

[Maple Lady]

Jake, that is great info. Thank you for taking the time to do it and share your findings. I just got a sap refractometer and am interested to check my trees as well.

[maple flats]

I've found that the Red maples on the yard and around the field have better sugar % than my Sugar maples that unfortunately are all buried in the dense woods.
Has to be the bigger crowns and more branches. The Sugar maples were averaging 1.3% in the woods last year but the Reds on the yard were 1.5%.
I did have one scrawny looking Sugar in the woods that consistently gave up 2.8% last year- go figure.
The last 2 years for much of NY have been low sugar years, for me, the lowest ever. I think the forecast for the rest of March, if it really happens, we will likely see a higher sugar. Right now the forecast shows a bunch of freeze thaw cycles, the last 2 years my season has been a several day freeze, then several days no freeze. That seems to hurt the sugar %.

[slammer3364]

That was some good info I will try to check some of my trees also with my sap hydrometer. There was an old thread where a person checked the ice after it melted and came up with same results. Can learn something new everyday

[Daveg]

The people who sluice for gold don't get all the gold. Some gets washed out into the tailings. Same with throwing out the ice. It's a dance, but empirical data helps the decision making.

[Jake8484]

The people who sluice for gold don't get all the gold. Some gets washed out into the tailings. Same with throwing out the ice. It's a dance, but empirical data helps the decision making.

I agree Dave. But it is such a small amount it isn't worth boiling to me. When I melt the ice that I throw out and it comes up at .2 % sugar content it just isn't worth boiling. At that content; using the rule of 86 I would need to boil 430 gallons of sap to get a gallon of syrup. Yikes.
The sugar content does go up with each successive freeze thaw cycle as I throw out the ice but even then after three freeze cycles it is still below .6 % so I throw it.
BUT- if most of the sap in the bucket has frozen (more than half) then you have a different story. The sugar content in the thaw could be higher depending on how much of it was frozen and especially if I was on a second or third freeze cycle.

I have a very small setup so I don't want to boil any more than I have to. I collect the sap in one gallon plastic water jugs. I transfer it over to 17 gallon barrels that are on my four wheeler. Then at the house I place about 4 gallons in five gallon buckets and hope to get a cold night. If it freezes half way or less and I take out the ice and melt it down- that first melt water has .2% sugar or less. On the second freeze cycle I would like to have only about a 1/4 of it to freeze. If too much freezes I let it melt some and then take out the ice.
I have measured the melted ice in every stage and I am careful not to throw out good sap.
Your point is well taken, I can't just blindly freeze most of the sap and throw out ice as there will be a point where the frozen sap is of a high enough sugar content where it is definitely usable.

[TerraPerma]

I had 16 gallons of sap in a food grade barrel. The same day i collected it the sap reading was 1.6%. That night the temps fell to 6 degrees. The next day I broke the ice on top and poured all the sap into another barrel. The sap now was at 2.2%. I let the ice melt in my semi-warm garage. I checked it and it had a reading of 0.1 %. Worthless. I did this two more nights and increased my sap sugar content to 3.2%. I wish I had written down how much ice I pitched out over those three freeze cycles but I think it was about 6 to 7 gallons. The last ice melted had a sugar content of .3 % - still a waste to try to boil it down. Now of course if 3/4 of your sap is froze you don't want to pitch all of that but what I am getting at is the water freezes first and it seems to me in the thawing process the sugar water thaws out first. I have sampled the thawed and thawing sap many many times as I wanted the first hand knowledge.

I did the same experiment this year, now that I have a Misco refractometer, with the same conclusion: sugar concentration increases progressively with frozen volume. If you can check your storage vessels early and often, it doesn't look like you'll lose much sugar at all by tossing the first ice that forms. I had a bucket that froze nearly solid, so naturally the sap at the bottom was something like 4.5 or 4.7%; but what I didn't expect is that even after half the ice mass had melted, I was still getting 2.2% sugar in the melt water. As it melted completely, I kept testing and like you, ended up with progressively lower sugar %. I should've taken note the volume of ice that was left when the concentration dropped well below 1%, because I'd just chuck it every time I see that much ice.