Boil Ruined - question

[Conococheague]

We were doing our last boil of the season yesterday- probably ~110 gallons of sap collected and stored over the last 2 weeks. We boil one batch over a 2 makeshift evaporators burning wood. It’s not efficient as far as wood usage goes but we have bigs pans and can get 100 gallons in less than 8 hours. Yesterday we boiled the oldest sap first and worked our way to the freshest (or I should say the last collected). We we close to having the last of our sap on heat and I had been taste sampling from all four pans about every 15 minutes and everything was fine the tasted normal. I add sap as the pan levels drop from a turkey fryer preheated usually right after a taste test. All of a sudden I sampled out of one of the pans and it had the a sour citrusy ice tea taste. I was horrified and sampled the other 3 pans and had the same thing. My partners verified my taste test. We were depressed but had no choice but to dump it. It wasn’t bad but it wasn’t maple syrup and we wanted nothing to do with it. It was warm here last week. We keep the sap cold after we collect but we collect at night and we use bags. It doesn’t appear that our trees are budding yet. Could the sap spoil in the bag on a warm day. We’ve never had this and want to make sure we avoid it in the future. The syrup taste could be described as sour. Any help or misery sharing appreciated.

Conococheague

[MapleMark753]

First, sorry to hear about your ruined boil, that is tough i know.
I put out a few hundred bags every year, and we have had (unfortunately) on a couple occasions sap spoil and begin to ferment in the bags, AFTER a warm day like you mentioned. And while boiling there was a fruity sour smell to the sap. We threw our sap out, cleaned everything and started over.
Its possible you have a different problem, but thats my take on it.

[DrTimPerkins]

~110 gallons of sap collected and stored over the last 2 weeks. …. The syrup taste could be described as sour.

Sounds like classic sour sap. Tastes sour...perhaps a little "fizzy" on the tongue. There is a maple off-flavor taste kit available so producers can learn what some of the more common off-flavors are: https://www.themaplenews.com/story/off-flavor-syrup-reference-available/137/

It was probably stored it too long. Same thing can happen to sap sitting in tubing systems between runs. Think of it this way....if it had been milk, would you have consumed it after two weeks the way you stored it?

Probably best to process it more frequently if possible.

[Conococheague]

Thank you both for replies. I’m more and more convinced that it was sour or spoiled sap and another lesson learned the hard way. In the future I won’t boil sap more than a week old and I’ll just dump sap bags on warm days. Thanks again.

Conococheague

[maple flats]

Even sap a week old is spoiled unless you can keep it cold, under 35 F may be needed.

[buckeye gold]

yeah I never store sap for more than a day or two unless it is below freezing. If I can't boil it I dump it if it gets warm.

[Bruce L]

Believe it or not even frozen sap can spoil. We have had runs beforehand where the sap tank will fill perhaps 2/3 full,then freeze solid for a couple of weeks,when it thawed out the sap was milky and had to be dumped. Sap is one of those commodities that you cannot save,needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible

[wnybassman]

This thread reminds me on an incident I had many years ago. I was still boiling outside, had a big batch going, got down to about three gallons and brought in the house to finish. Fired it up, going along nicely, good taste and smell then BAM! All of a sudden things went rank on me. Tasted funny, smelled funny, hemmed and hawed for a long time and finally dumped it. It was going to be a gallon and a half worth of syrup, which was a ton for me back then.

The next batch a few days later did the exact same thing. WTH!! It wasn't as big of a batch but I decided to work through the "off-ness" and finish it anyway. The next morning I tasted it and it was great tasting syrup. ????

It really had me scratching my head. Did I dump the other for no good reason?? Then it dawned on me that the batch I dumped was really the first time ever I drank beer while finishing in the house. And I did as well on the second batch too. I truly believe that the bitterness of beer really messed up my taste and my sniffer. I never drank beer while finishing again, and I never had the problem again. Coincidence? I have no idea.

Not saying this is what happened in your case, but your experience brought back these memories of what happened to me.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

One of best sessions I ever attended at Verona was the off-flavor class. It's well worth it to try the different off flavors. You will not forget them.

[bigschuss]

Believe it or not even frozen sap can spoil. We have had runs beforehand where the sap tank will fill perhaps 2/3 full,then freeze solid for a couple of weeks,when it thawed out the sap was milky and had to be dumped. Sap is one of those commodities that you cannot save,needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible

Just wondering if there is there any chance something else was the culprit? Bad sap going into the tank? A contaminated tank? Thawing a tank slowly over the course of a few weeks and it going bad? I'm having a hard time believing frozen sap will turn in a matter of weeks.

[Smokeshow]

I’m a novice at this but.....I’ve never had sap or syrup go bad and i don’t boil often but collect daily. However, I am extremely thorough when it comes to cleaning my equipment prior to the start of the season. My wife gives me grief because we clean at the end and I insist that we clean again at the beginning. I use hot water, vinegar or baking soda and nothing else.

I think a clean start is key to preserving what you collect. Just my opinion.