Anchoring buckets on 5\16 drops

[Trapper2]

Last year was the first year I used drops into buckets, boy did that work nice UNTIL the snow melted and I found 1\2 of my buckets tipped over and empty. In haste last year I ended up tying buckets to trees. What do others do?

[therealtreehugger]

I put a brick or two on the top of each bucket.

[Pdiamond]

Trapper, I place a rock or a wood block on the lids of my buckets. That seems to work well.

[darkmachine]

Here is a video showing how we have hung buckets. These are 7/16 taps, however properly seated 5/16 hold up a full 5 gallon bucket as well. This season we are switching over to stainless taps(5/16 smokylake), buckets hang GREAT on them, never going back to plastic. We never had much success putting buckets on the ground, between wildlife and wind somehow the sap would end up on the ground.


https://youtu.be/1cxe5EdDaww

[Z/MAN]

I also place a flat stone on the lid of the bucket and except for really high winds I have no problem.

[maple flats]

A story of evolution: Back when I did "buckets" I actually used 5 gal cooking oil jugs from a Chinese Restaurant. I started by cleaning them several times, at first using Dawn dish soap and HOT water. 2X doing that, then a whole bunch of times using just clean hot water and shaking them vigorously. Then I used a hot (glowing red) old knife steel to put a hole in the cap. I tried drilling but the caps were too hard and brittle as the bit went thru they broke. I then sat the 5 gal jugs on the ground and had the tubing enter thru the cap, with a clamp under the cap. If wind blew hard the jug might while empty or very low, reposition but they never blew over. To empty, I had several extras, I just unscrewed the cap and either swapped the jug or dumped it into another empty. Basically if the jug was up to about half full, I got dumped, if over half I swapped it out.
For dumping I made a funnel that worked well. It was a 4" x 1.5" PVC coupling, with about 3" of 1.5 out the bottom and about 6" of 4" out the top. That top piece had a slot I made, just wide enough to fit the threads on the outside of the jug neck. That helped eliminate losing sap.
The 1 year I did that I have a carrier on the back of my 4x4 20hp tractor. I made a wooden box that mounted to it. With that I could carry up to 16 jugs. I rarely needed more than 1, sometimes 2 trips in to collect my sap. I also had a good set of chains on the rear tires, because, especially when I had 16 full jugs, and snow about 3' deep in spots I needed it (just drifts at the edge of the woods), never that much in the woods that year.
By the next year, I had built my sugarhouse and had tubing on gravity. I then was only in the woods, and no drifts. I then used a 125 gal plastic tank, and had 4 or 5 collection tanks. A year later I changed again, to a larger tank (165 gal) and added more taps, I then had to collect from 2 locations.
That now surrounds my sugarhouse and vacuum pulls all sap to the sugarhouse.

[Trapper2]

A story of evolution: Back when I did "buckets" I actually used 5 gal cooking oil jugs from a Chinese Restaurant. I started by cleaning them several times, at first using Dawn dish soap and HOT water. 2X doing that, then a whole bunch of times using just clean hot water and shaking them vigorously. Then I used a hot (glowing red) old knife steel to put a hole in the cap. I tried drilling but the caps were too hard and brittle as the bit went thru they broke. I then sat the 5 gal jugs on the ground and had the tubing enter thru the cap, with a clamp under the cap. If wind blew hard the jug might while empty or very low, reposition but they never blew over. To empty, I had several extras, I just unscrewed the cap and either swapped the jug or dumped it into another empty. Basically if the jug was up to about half full, I got dumped, if over half I swapped it out.
For dumping I made a funnel that worked well. It was a 4" x 1.5" PVC coupling, with about 3" of 1.5 out the bottom and about 6" of 4" out the top. That top piece had a slot I made, just wide enough to fit the threads on the outside of the jug neck. That helped eliminate losing sap.
The 1 year I did that I have a carrier on the back of my 4x4 20hp tractor. I made a wooden box that mounted to it. With that I could carry up to 16 jugs. I rarely needed more than 1, sometimes 2 trips in to collect my sap. I also had a good set of chains on the rear tires, because, especially when I had 16 full jugs, and snow about 3' deep in spots I needed it (just drifts at the edge of the woods), never that much in the woods that year.
By the next year, I had built my sugarhouse and had tubing on gravity. I then was only in the woods, and no drifts. I then used a 125 gal plastic tank, and had 4 or 5 collection tanks. A year later I changed again, to a larger tank (165 gal) and added more taps, I then had to collect from 2 locations.
That now surrounds my sugarhouse and vacuum pulls all sap to the sugarhouse.

I have a dozen or so jugs as you explain but mine didn't need such vigorous cleaning.
With 100+ plus buckets, storage would be a problem for jugs. At least buckets I can stack.
Slowly adding tubing where ever I can find enough trees in a group.

[maple flats]

Storage room wasn't an issue, when I built my 16x24 sugarhouse I made a shelf 24' long x 26" deep on one side about 75" off the floor, my walls are 10'. That would have stored over a hundred such jugs. It was the collection time that pushed me to tubing. Back in that first year I had too many taps on a Half Pint, I kept adding until the sap really ran hard, I couldn't keep up. At that time I had 79 taps (yes, a half pint is not enough) Back then my wife boiled a lot while I collected more sap.
I started that season with 27 taps, every time the sap ran, I said I can handle more. I kept adding, not realizing at the time that I was just getting a small % of what would come from each tap later in the season.

[maineboiler]

I use 5 gallon buckets, food grade plastic with 2-4 drop lines to each. I found that a ziplock plastic bag with water, placed in the bucket was the best way to anchor it.

[SDdave]

For what it's worth...I have found that a water bottle (the cheap crinkly type) inside the bucket provides enough weight to keep it on the ground during the "soft" winds, but for those high wind days a trusty string tied to the handle is the best!

SDdave

[Johnny Yooper]

Trapper2,

We use approx. 4' drops to buckets, in a former life they were cake frosting pails, 2+ gallon capacity; we dig the snow out at the base of the tree and place the buckets on the ground and then pack snow around them to keep the sap cold and the buckets from tipping over or blowing over due to winds. If little or no snow, then we do the rock trick or lean a heavy branch on the lid to help stabilize the bucket in place. Our woods is flat as a pancake so difficult to use tubing; we push the end of the drops through a matching hole in the bucket lid, no bark, no critters.

[Bucket Head]

Ditto on all of the above. We did plastic buckets with tubing into them for years and they worked great. No bugs, tree parts, animals or other in the sap. Rocks, bricks and in the open, very windy locations, a piece of broken cement block on the lids. That had a little more weight to it. And we drilled a slightly smaller hole than the 5/16 tube I.D. in the lid. That way we had to force the tube in, which kept the lid on the hose if the bucket did get away. That way we only had to locate the bucket, which was usually easy to spot. A lid covered by inches of wind blown snow, not so much... lol.

[Trapper2]

For what it's worth...I have found that a water bottle (the cheap crinkly type) inside the bucket provides enough weight to keep it on the ground during the "soft" winds, but for those high wind days a trusty string tied to the handle is the best!

SDdave. I used parachute cord wrapped around the tree and hooked to the bucket the last 3 weeks of the season, seemed to work well.

[Trapper2]

Trapper2,

We use approx. 4' drops to buckets, in a former life they were cake frosting pails, 2+ gallon capacity; we dig the snow out at the base of the tree and place the buckets on the ground and then pack snow around them to keep the sap cold and the buckets from tipping over or blowing over due to winds. If little or no snow, then we do the rock trick or lean a heavy branch on the lid to help stabilize the bucket in place. Our woods is flat as a pancake so difficult to use tubing; we push the end of the drops through a matching hole in the bucket lid, no bark, no critters.
Yes I always pack snow around them also and then we had a big Thaw and the buckets either tipped over or blew over. Thanks.

[Johnny Yooper]

we're light on the snow here for this time of year; heading into spring I like to plow up a big snow bank near the sugar shack and cover it with a light colored tarp, I use that to surround the 275 gal tote tank to keep the sap cold until the weekend boils; I can usually keep a good supply of snow until mid April or so when the season ends; pretty cheap refrigeration, just hoping Mother Nature comes through by mid March with the white stuff, just not too much at a time :)