Collection & boiling schedule

[Kamina]

Hi all -

This will be my first year - cannot wait. I will be tapping ten reds on my property to start. I was wondering what schedule other backyard hobbyists follow for collecting sap and boiling it. Are there set days of the week or do you just play it by ear?

Thanks!

[ecolbeck]

There are quite a few variables to consider when making the decision about when to boil. How many gallons do you have collected? How quickly can you process sap? What is the weather forecast?

Sap is a perishable product. It can spoil and generally the longer it sits there is loss of sugar content and you will produce darker syrup due to bacterial action. My first year on a 2x3 pan outdoors I would save sap and have marathon 12 hour boils on weekends. Now that I have RO and bigger pan indoors I try to boil more frequently during weekday evenings. This is true especially later in the season when the weather warms.

[LMP Maple]

I would recommend collecting everyday or certainly checking the buckets? daily. The short answer is to process as fast as you can. As others have said time is your enemy. When the season is in full swing, I boil about every night. I dream of the weekend boil but like clockwork it never happens. The trees will not respect your schedule. It always runs the best on a Wednesday and for me I boil as soon as I have enough which is anything above 5 gallons. My rig will do about 10-13 gallons per hour so if I collect over 5 I boil as I don't want it to sit around. I will store about 5 gallons in the fridge on the nights that it does not run well but that is as much as I will store. There are ways to get around this. You can freeze the collected sap to prolong storage. So much will depend on how you will process, what kind of storage you have available etc. I would suggest that you talk to or stop in to see a smaller producer if covid allows. You will gain some knowledge and I will guarantee you will gain friends in the process. You will see what works for them and what has not. I have yet to meet a sugar maker that did not love to talk maple be it February, March or July.
My experience with Reds on buckets has not been all that positive however I have talked to many people that have had good luck with Reds. Mine tended to be very finicky. Have fun and be careful this hobby has a way of snowballing out of control in a hurry. In three years your thread will say moved to Vermont 1000 taps high vacuum living the dream!

[Pdiamond]

Kamina
You want to treat the sap like you would treat milk. As previously said the longer kept, the sugars become less, bacteria more. check buckets daily. On heavy run days you could potentially have over flowing buckets on all the trees, multiple days in a row. You will need to have at least twice that amount of storage capacity and plan on boiling as often as you can. Most importantly have the best time of your life, include others and have FUN!!!!!!!

[Ed R]

If there is a good freeze thaw cycle going and your buckets are big enough so you can time it, I like to gather an hour or 2 after it starts running in the morning. This thaws the ice out enough so it's easy to get the ice out so you can toss it out. With work for me I'm usually gathering when I get home from work though after the ice has thawed.

[18mile]

My Dad always made a rule to never hold sap for more than 24 hours. I saw Him many times dump sap which was held for less time than that(warm temps). His point of view was that if your going to burn the wood make good syrup. He took pride in the flavor and appearance of his syrup. We also spent a lot of late weeknights boiling down. I remember being tired but also remember those nights as some of best with Dad, Family, and friends.

[BSHC]

you can hold sap for a few days if it is kept cold, like almost frozen. That is if you can only boil on weekends. If its warm then it can sour rather quickly. We tend to get rid of it right away but for 10 trees you should be ok. You might even be able to put in the house freezer? I know some people do that to save it. If you have some snow pack the gathering buckets in the snow outside in the shade.

[bigschuss]

I started on a backyard rig on just 10 taps or so and collected sap during the week and boiled only on the weekends. I kept the sap in a 55 gallon drum, in the shade, packed by as much snow as I could shovel. Did that for 10 years or so and never had a problem with spoilage. And since you're batch boiling anyway, it's not like you're sacrificing the color or flavor of the sap by letting it sit. It is what it is when you batch boil...dark and flavorful syrup.

Have fun.

[ChaskaSap]

I collect mine in 5 gallon buckets and boil it within 72 hours. Doing a smaller mid week boil helps break the marathon weekend up a bit.

[Hkb82]

I try and check daily and boil ever other day if and when possible. I’m not a fan of letting it sit around but then it depends on your schedule. A lot of work to be dumping sap. Brings tears to my eyes lol. I also start to feel like it’s work and not a hobby when I get to real far behind so that’s why I boil as often as I can. Plus who doesn’t like the sugar shack time. My buddy can only boil weekends and he seems to be able to keep it with no troubles. Like others have said he uses snow and leaves the ice in his buckets whenever he collects. I think put around 60-80 out every year When in question taste it. Lol

[goose52]

Know a guy who for various reasons will be holding sap for 2 weeks before he can boil. Looks like it will be one week for me. Cold nights n the barrels packed in snow- I’m not worried about it.

[Ocelotsden]

Know a guy who for various reasons will be holding sap for 2 weeks before he can boil. Looks like it will be one week for me. Cold nights n the barrels packed in snow- I’m not worried about it.

When I boiled the close to 30 gallons I had on Monday, it had been a full week since I started collecting it. The sap was in 20 gallon containers packed in snow and was crystal clear. About halfway through the boil I was curious and checked the temperature of the sap in the container that had now been open for a few hours and the sap was 34 degrees. Based on that, I think I could have held it several more days if needed, but I don't have a lot of experience so I'm not sure.

[Ravenseye]

It's always different. I work quite a way from home so it's hard to schedule for me. Once they are tapped though, you can't really control everything so I boil as soon as I get home, even if it's late. I'd rather get some done than leave it and worry about the sap going off. The flow of sap varies depending on weather, etc. as well. I run buckets and rain can cloud the sap in them quickly so I pull on rainy days as often as I can. I also started doing reverse osmosis and it has dramatically cut down on the boil times so that helped me a lot.

[Swingpure]

This thread answered a few questions, but raised a few others.

If you get an average of 10 gallons of sap from a maple tree in a forest, and the season lasts let’s say four weeks and you have a few days where you might collect 2 to 4 gallons per tree, there must be a number of days, where you get much less.

On those days where you get much less, let’s say a 1/4 of a gallon per tree, and you have 50 taps, that would be 12.5 gallons of sap and if you boiled that into syrup, that would be 1.25 quarts of syrup. What would be a typical minimum number of gallons of sap on hand, before you fire up the evaporator?

[Brian]

That depends on you. I will fire if I have 2000 gallons, that will last about 1 hour hardly worth messing with. I like to have 5000 gal or more.

[Pdiamond]

You my friend are asking a very good question. It all depends on how much sap your evaporator will boil off per hour. As an example my 2 x 4 raised flue will boil off between 40 and 50 gallons per hour of sap, remember I do not RO. So for me when I collect I need a minimum of at least 110 gallons of sap before I can fire up the evaporator. Now if I go thru that and then have several days of low sap collection that will go into the head tank and i'll fire up the evaporator enough to get it hot and shut it down. Hope that helps.

[Swingpure]

I would recommend collecting everyday or certainly checking the buckets? daily. The short answer is to process as fast as you can. As others have said time is your enemy. When the season is in full swing, I boil about every night. I dream of the weekend boil but like clockwork it never happens. The trees will not respect your schedule. It always runs the best on a Wednesday and for me I boil as soon as I have enough which is anything above 5 gallons. My rig will do about 10-13 gallons per hour so if I collect over 5 I boil as I don't want it to sit around. I will store about 5 gallons in the fridge on the nights that it does not run well but that is as much as I will store. There are ways to get around this. You can freeze the collected sap to prolong storage. So much will depend on how you will process, what kind of storage you have available etc.

I am feeling more comfortable with tapping, lines and collecting, but when to start to boil is an unanswered question in my head. I plan to boil almost everyday and try and keep the sap only 24 to 48 hours old. But in the example you gave, boiling when you get 5 gallons or more of sap, you would only end up with a half quart of syrup.

I was thinking that when the sap starts running, I would wait until I had 40 gallons of sap (80 taps, 67 on lines) before I boiled, at least you ideally would end up with a gallon (4L) of syrup. That would justify starting up the boiling, finishing, filtering and bottling process. My goal, based on from what I have read and understood on this site, is not to mix batches and to bottle the same day if you can.

I am not sure if I am wrong thinking this way, it is one of the things I do not have nailed down in my brain.

(Ironically the thermometer on my bottling kettle is at the 3 gallon mark on the kettle and without ever mixing batches, the syrup level will never reach it, with 1.5 to 2 gallon syrup maximum on any boiling day, unless it is a very long day.)

[buckeye gold]

I was thinking that when the sap starts running, I would wait until I had 40 gallons of sap (80 taps, 67 on lines) before I boiled, at least you ideally would end up with a gallon (4L) of syrup. That would justify starting up the boiling, finishing, filtering and bottling process. My goal, based on what I have read and understood on this site, is not to mix batches and to bottle the same day if you can.

What I do is let it cool, usually 24 hrs, because it will taste different cold. Taste every batch is my rule. If the flavor profile is good I mix batches to bottle. I bottle every 2-3 days. That mix becomes one batch as far as lot numbers go.

I filter as I make syrup and it's hot. I do not like letting unfiltered syrup set. Once it's filtered I put it in sealed containers and hold for bottling. I usually bottle 2-4 gallons at time.

As far as boils. Boil as often as possible. Personally I want around 40 gallons (my evaporator boils 12-15 GPH depending on firing), but if warm weather is coming I'll boil 15 just to sterilize it. A boil doesn't have to make syrup, you can hold the sweet. It's more important to me to kill that bacteria and prevent spoilage.

Another comment: If your holding sap, clean those containers after emptying. Your sap will spoil faster and hold less time if you let those containers get loaded with bacteria. As a rule clean as often as possible. I try to clean all tanks every couple days. Sometimes that is just a hard rinse after spritzing with a deluted calcium chloride solution, but they beed a hard cleaning at least weekly.

[DrTimPerkins]

... is not to mix batches and to bottle the same day if you can.

If the syrup tastes good there is not a problem mixing batches. A continuous-flow evaporator (divided pans) does this as a matter of operation. If you wish to keep your grades separate, then not mixing until the syrup is graded makes some sense, but otherwise, as long as it tastes good and there are no off-flavors the syrup can be mixed.

Similarly, bottle when you want and it makes sense. Doesn't have to be every day. Wait until you have enough to make it worthwhile. The issue is not getting too far behind unless you have some way to hold and reheat it. Some people can syrup directly off the evaporator. Others will put syrup in a different pot or canner and wait until some time later to reheat and can.

[Swingpure]

Thank you Buckeye Gold and Dr Perkins for the last two posts, that clears up a lot of questions and gives me a good path to follow.

I am gaining an appreciation of the roll of bacteria and how important it is to keep containers clean. I don’t have great outdoor cleaning facilities. I just have one outdoor tap and no laundry tub in the house. Will likely power wash containers. That will get all of the residue sap out and hopefully the bulk of the bacteria. I will try and give them a calcium chloride swish.

I also now understand the importance of heating sap that will not be fully boiled to remove the bacteria.

This will all be very interesting this spring, lots to learn, I can’t wait. Although that means usually the first week or two of March in these parts, I learnt yesterday that in 2020 the sap started flowing February 23. The Pike and Lake Trout might catch an early break from ice fishing.

[berkshires]

I am feeling more comfortable with tapping, lines and collecting, but when to start to boil is an unanswered question in my head. I plan to boil almost everyday and try and keep the sap only 24 to 48 hours old. But in the example you gave, boiling when you get 5 gallons or more of sap, you would only end up with a half quart of syrup.

I was thinking that when the sap starts running, I would wait until I had 40 gallons of sap (80 taps, 67 on lines) before I boiled, at least you ideally would end up with a gallon (4L) of syrup. That would justify starting up the boiling, finishing, filtering and bottling process.

The key phrase you may have missed in the post you are quoting (LMP boiling every time there are 5 gallons to boil) is "when the season is in full swing". Start of season is a different kettle of fish. Typically it will be cold with a few small runs at the start of the season, and the sap in the buckets freezing between runs. When the sap is frozen, bacterial spoilage is not a concern. Dr Tim is always saying "think of sap as you'd think of milk". The analogy holds here: You can keep milk a long time in the freezer, but if it's sitting in a bucket in the sun at 50 degrees, you better sterilize it (in this case by boiling) pretty quick!

The other thing is that when you're starting from scratch, you'll want enough sap to run your evaporator for a couple of hours, and you won't have any saved sap, you will have only what you've collected.

Put these two things together, and many seasons it might take a few small runs before you fire up your evaporator. Looking over the last six years, four out of six of them, it's been a week or more after I tapped until my first boil. Some years it has been several weeks!

Hope that helps,

GO

[Brian]

I think it was me that said think of sap as if it was milk, I have been saying that for years!!

[Swingpure]

The key phrase you may have missed in the post you are quoting (LMP boiling every time there are 5 gallons to boil) is "when the season is in full swing". Start of season is a different kettle of fish. Typically it will be cold with a few small runs at the start of the season, and the sap in the buckets freezing between runs.

GO

Thanks that keeps things in perspective. It was the start of the season I was concerned with. Your advice has really helped. I am feeling more comfortable with that part of the process. The way my mind works, is I go through each step of the process, from start to finish until I hit a roadblock. One more roadblock removed.


A unrelated question: when I watch people on you tube, transferring sap from pan to pan, they always seem to take a small potful of fresh sap and put it into their least dense pan, call it pan number 1, then take a scoop out of pan 1 and put it into pan 2, etc.

That always struck me as diluting a pan before you transferred it. It makes more sense to me if you have let’s say four pans, is to take a potful from 3 into 4, immediately take a potful from 2 into 3, etc. The only reason I’m can think of why you would not do that is that the pans are already shallow, making it hard to get much sap into the pot and that even though it might only be for 10 seconds, the now even shallower sap could burn.

Thanks

Gary

[Aaron Stack]

Last year was my first real year with 50 taps, but only 34 real producers. I had a plan to boil on weekends, but like almost everyone says, that was thrown out fairly quickly when nature decided to give me way more sap than a 10+ hour boiling day could handle because I had a couple days with over well over 75 gallons collected. In the end I had to dump 50 gallons of sap that went bad so this year I'll be planning three boils a week (Tues, Thurs, and Saturday)... lets see how that plan works out. Insert that quote about God laughing when we make plans here.

I haven't really thought about a minimum gallon requirement for a boil, but I have a small 20x30 that churns out about 14 gallons an hour so I'd guestimate a good 30 gallons = a boil on a work night.

Skipping the 16 taps at Dad's this coming season and tagged 27 trees for 47 taps last weekend at the main site and can easily reach the 50 mark after I clear a lot of brush to access the trees. Something about that 50 mark driving me batty.

[berkshires]

Nice to see you back here Aaron. Maybe we can manage to see each other's operations this year, though there's always so little time when the trees start doing their thing!

You boiling in Westfield?

Gabe

[Aaron Stack]

Hiya Gabe. Boiling in Westfield again yes, and it would be great to see your setup and giving a tour of mine when time permits. I've been checking the site all along for tips but the new job had most of my focus while getting up to speed. Spoiled myself and picked up a small 8x14 sugar shack this fall. The stove is inside and the next couple weekends will be devoted to getting the chimney right since I had so much excitement with that last year.

[berkshires]

Enjoy boiling inside, and good luck sorting out the chimney Aaron!

GO

[Swingpure]

So if you had the option to either collect the sap in the morning or late afternoon, which is best?

[Aaron Stack]

I did both depending on the day. Weekdays between 3 and 5pm then weekends in the morning. Tended to see ice in the mornings due to the cool nights, but in the afternoons none so I'd say late afternoon.

[aamyotte]

I usually collected in the evening. On the real warm days near the end of the season I would collect at lunch so that I could get it cold to reduce spoilage.

[berkshires]

So if you had the option to either collect the sap in the morning or late afternoon, which is best?

As with most things, it depends. For example with buckets: If there's a little ice in the morning, it's great to toss it before collecting (fractional crystallization AKA nature's RO). But if there's a lot of ice, it's better to let some of it melt off during the day, rather than needing to put bucket-sized ice cubes onto your evaporator! And with lines, I imagine they'd freeze up at night, and then you'd get a lot more in the afternoon after they thaw.

Some of this stuff you just need to learn by doing. :)

GO

[ennismaple]

There's no such thing as a schedule during maple season - you're a slave to the trees. Make a plan and then expect the plan to go off the rails quickly! You can have near perfect conditions and take time off from your day job to boil - and end up with next to nothing in the tanks and running the chainsaw all day to kill time. A week later the overnight forecast says it will be a couple degrees above freezing overnight and when you get up in the morning the tanks are running over! Any time you have enough to justify firing up you should be boiling, especially when it gets later in the season and the sap can spoil. The day you fall behind will almost certainly mean tomorrow is the best run of the year and it takes 2 extra days to get back on top of it.

[buckeye gold]

There's no such thing as a schedule during maple season - you're a slave to the trees. Make a plan and then expect the plan to go off the rails quickly! You can have near perfect conditions and take time off from your day job to boil - and end up with next to nothing in the tanks and running the chainsaw all day to kill time. A week later the overnight forecast says it will be a couple degrees above freezing overnight and when you get up in the morning the tanks are running over! Any time you have enough to justify firing up you should be boiling, especially when it gets later in the season and the sap can spoil. The day you fall behind will almost certainly mean tomorrow is the best run of the year and it takes 2 extra days to get back on top of it.

This is spot on. Here is the formula sap+available time = boil. Sap never improves, it starts a downhill journey the second it comes out of the tap. the sooner it's processed the better

[Swingpure]

Thanks everyone for the tips.


This is spot on. Here is the formula sap+available time = boil. Sap never improves, it starts a downhill journey the second it comes out of the tap. the sooner it's processed the better

I 100% get this. It always makes me wonder what the weekend hobbyists do. Their sap is 5 days old when they get back up. Perhaps they only collect in the early part of the season where it is still quite cold. I will be on it everyday, so as long as there is enough to boil to make sense starting up the evaporator, I will be on it, barring having to clean up from a major snow storm. We get lots of snow here, so my hope is any sap collected over night will be in pails in snowbanks, where the snow is up to a inch or so of the lids.

As it will be just me most of the time, I think I will designate the first hour of the day to collecting sap, unless I find that the freezing temperatures are a barrier to easy sap removal. Then I could focus solely on boiling and finishing. I would also collect at night if there is time after boiling and finishing.



As with most things, it depends. For example with buckets: If there's a little ice in the morning, it's great to toss it before collecting (fractional crystallization AKA nature's RO). But if there's a lot of ice, it's better to let some of it melt off during the day, rather than needing to put bucket-sized ice cubes onto your evaporator!

GO

I have watched a few you tube videos where they have grabbed the ice, pulled it out, and tossed it aside, stating that it is all water and like you say, sort of acts like nature’s RO. In the videos usually there is some ice on the sides and a little on the top. Is it when the ice starts to get thick that you do not want to toss it away, because it could contain some sap?

I understand I will learn when I start doing things and will discover for myself the best routine and also how to adapt when plans change.

Headed up today to get two more barrels, another 55 gallon one and one 16 gallon one. I will also get the last of the Mason jars I will need. I have a collection of all sorts of different bottles and caps, mostly new. I will also get another stock pot to hold finished syrup, that I will taste the next day to see if it can join with the previous days syrup.

[berkshires]

I have watched a few you tube videos where they have grabbed the ice, pulled it out, and tossed it aside, stating that it is all water and like you say, sort of acts like nature’s RO. In the videos usually there is some ice on the sides and a little on the top. Is it when the ice starts to get thick that you do not want to toss it away, because it could contain some sap?


If you mean - could the thicker ice contain sugar, then yes, that's the general idea. Think about it this way: if there is a tiny skim of ice it is basically pure water, however if the whole bucket freezes, it contains all the sugar. Between the two is a gradient, the harder the bucket freezes, the higher the percent sugar in the frozen part. Complicating matters somewhat is the fact that each additional freeze-thaw cycle makes any given volume of ice more like pure water. I have seen the case when almost all the bucket was ice, and it warmed and chilled for several days, and what is in the bottom of the bucket is so sweet it tastes like it's halfway to syrup.

But basically dumping a little ice means saving boiling time with basically zero loss in syrup, but dumping ice when it is half the volume in your bucket, you are starting to sacrifice more final syrup.

Gabe