No Golden Delicate - is RO the cause?

[tgormley358]

The last two years I seem to be making much less GD syrup, and I’m wondering if it’s due to using RO which I started two seasons ago. Yesterday I made my fist syrup and it’s already Amber. When I started out 6 years ago I made lots of GD on a % basis, maybe 1/3. At farmers markets where I sell mostly, I like to be able to show all 3 (4) grades. Has anyone else noticed use of RO resulting I less GD? What else otherwise? I suppose if my sap sugar content has declined that could require more boiling and result in darker. I will test today with refractometer.

Tom

[western mainer]

Anything RO under 12% will darken the syrup as you do above that point it will be lighter if its clean and sap tanks are clean and new sap not held over a day or more and cold.
Brian

[johnallin]

Not sure about the RO as the cause for darkening. If anything with a higher SC the sap is spending less time in the pans.
1.2% sap takes a lot longer to bring to syrup than 3%.
I’d look more closely at how clean your tube setup is, your tank(s) and how quickly you’ve been processing after collecting.
Good luck this year

[DrTimPerkins]

Anything RO under 12% will darken the syrup as you do above that point it will be lighter if its clean and sap tanks are clean and new sap not held over a day or more and cold.

The above is the correct answer. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/m1015reverseosmosisflavor/ About up to 10% Brix concentration or so (the precise point depends upon several factors), syrup will be darker. Somewhere a little above that, syrup will start to be lighter. The higher you go with RO the lighter the syrup will tend to be.

[johnallin]

Thanks for correcting me on that Dr Tim. It goes against my logic, but I just read the referenced article and am in no position to question any of you.
Is the < 10% RO'd sap darker due to heat build-up while being run through?
Apologies if the answer is in the article, but I only read far enough to see the results of the tests...;)

[tgormley358]

Thanks for sharing this research Dr Tim. I had not heard this. I hope the article will explain why that happens with concentration under 10-12%. But at least it gives me some options if I want to make more GD.

[DrTimPerkins]

Is the < 10% RO'd sap darker due to heat build-up while being run through?

Probably, although the experiment wasn't designed to answer that precise question, so I can't say for certain.

[TheNamelessPoet]

The above is the correct answer. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/m1015reverseosmosisflavor/ About up to 10% Brix concentration or so (the precise point depends upon several factors), syrup will be darker. Somewhere a little above that, syrup will start to be lighter. The higher you go with RO the lighter the syrup will tend to be.

Is it just because of my new pan then, because I got a new pan and an RO and I made the lightest syrup I have ever made this year.

Although the new pan does make a little sense since it boil of much faster.

[DrTimPerkins]

Is it just because of my new pan then, because I got a new pan and an RO and I made the lightest syrup I have ever made this year.

Could be. Each year is different in some ways. You changed pans...anything else along with it? How high are you concentrating to?

[maple flats]

I never worried about not making any or much golden, my sales always trended to darker being requested more than lighter. Yes, I know some sugarmakers pride themselves on making lots of golden syrup. My experience has been contrary to that. I sell about 2 amber for every 5 dark, however that has recently trended more to Amber. My ratio used to be 1 amber to 3 dark.
When I make golden I generally pack some for retail and the rest gets put in a bulk SS barrel. I can't recall ever having to pack more golden in retail containers, every time I end up blending it to get amber or more often dark. I don't make enough to sell it bulk and besides it's worth far more to me as amber or dark, whichever I need. For years I have retailed all of my syrup, especially since I began making bourbon barrel aged syrup, if I have any very dark, I use it for the bourbon barrel aged syrup, a process that always darkens the syrup anyways.
Before the bourbon barrel aged syrup, I used to bulk some very dark syrup if I had it.

[VT_K9]

The discussion of darker for under 10-12% makes sense based on my experience. We started with a CDL Hobby RO (250 gph) several years ago (maybe 6 years) and no longer made GD. We made very little AR. We made a lot of DR. I prefer darker syrup and so do most of my customers. However to be able to make more AR and some GD would be nice. Our one step we knew we needed to make was processing the sap sooner, hence the need for more sap.

The hobby RO did well to get the sugar content to 8-9%. Last year was our first year on the CDL 600 gph unit. I think we stopped at or just shy of 12%. We are not interested in pushing the limits of the membrane. After seeing this post we’ll step it up to 15% or so to see what the results are.

Good discussion here OP..

Mike

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

This is good discussion and good info. I’m all for RO’s but based on the study how can we say RO’s don’t affect the flavor? 11 points difference on the color spectrum and they taste the same? I wouldn’t think so.

[ecolbeck]

This is good discussion and good info. I’m all for RO’s but based on the study how can we say RO’s don’t affect the flavor? 11 points difference on the color spectrum and they taste the same? I wouldn’t think so.

Using an RO does change the flavor of the finished product but that effect is meaningless because nobody can taste the difference.

[DrTimPerkins]

11 points difference on the color spectrum and they taste the same? I wouldn’t think so.

You might think you can (most sugarmakers do), but put it in an opaque bottle (so you can't see the color) and it is statistically very unlikely that you will be able to pick up a difference. All those used in our test were quite experienced maple people, so not just any bums off the street who didn't know maple syrup.

The actual test is quite simple...Sesame Street "One of these Things is not like the other." Three (opaque) bottles of syrup...two are the same syrup (for example, syrup made with RO), one is different (for example, non-RO syrup made from the same sap). Taste all three and pick out the one that is different. Do that with a bunch of people and see if people can pick out the odd one. By chance alone 1/3 will get the right one, but most often it's a guess Turns out most cannot.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Interesting, I guess that fits with the new grading standards that came out. I'm inclined to grade based off flavor as much, if not more so than the color alone. Boiling raw sap, seems it doesn't make much difference........an Amber tastes like an Amber and a Dark has that more noticeable Robust flavor. Hopefully we have Dave's RO going for next season and will see how much that changes.

[sweet spot maple addict]

Like my old mother says ....there is always two side on a coin .
I am cooking on a 2x6 that evaporates 25 gallons an hour with 200 taps on 3/16 and a 250 gallons sap tank.
The 4x40 RO with a recirculation loop produces 25 gallons an hour of 6 to 7 brix which is directly feed to the evaporator via a small balance tank.
So in about 3,5 hours the 250 gallons of sap is processed. I have performed temperature test on the concentrate , and it is about 2 fahrenheit above the sap temperature , if you consider that processing this sap without the RO would have taken me a good 10 hours boil , it conterbalance.
Personnaly i make a nicer syrup with my RO , but:
I cook the concentrate as it comes out , i clean and rince the float box , the balance tank , and the tubing between them after each run.

[paulslund]

So I read through most of the document.. and skipped to the results of the second test where they compare 2%, 8%, 12% and 15%. While they certainly show that the 15% is lighter than the 2%, I was expecting that the differences between 2% and 8% would be about the same as the raw-sap to 8% comparison test.. however this is not the case. At most there is a 5% difference in light transmission in one of the samples, and the rest are less.. nowhere near the 11% difference that the first test showed...

I'm also surprised they compared the same volume of concentrate, as compared the equivalent volumes of raw sap. By this I mean the following: the comparison of 300 gallons raw sap to 300 gallons of 8% concentrate is closer to 1,200 gallons of raw sap .. had they compared 300 gallons of raw sap to XXX gallons that 300 raw gallons would have RO'd down to, would the results be the same? The way the test is conducted each batch would produce increasing total volumes of syrup. Maybe it's a moot point as syrup would be drawn off sooner with the higher concentrate batches during the boil?

I boiled 470L of sap on Thursday (for many...many.. many hours).. if instead I RO'd that down to 8% sap would that equivalent syrup be any different than what I actually ended up with?

Maybe I'm overthinking it.. I've been known to do that.. :-)

[DrTimPerkins]

Maybe I'm overthinking it.. I've been known to do that.. :-)

Ah...always lots of decisions to make when doing experiments of this type. There are always trade-offs with any decision.

The key reason to maintain the same amount of concentrate was to maintain the same length (approximately) of boiling time. Given that all the evaporators were identical (3' x 10'), had we chosen to do equal raw sap volumes, we would have had to either: 1) change the size of the evaporator to accomplish the same amount of boil time with each treatment...and ended up with a tiny evaporator for the raw sap treatment or 2) boiled for vastly different lengths of time for each treatment. Most sugarmakers would then look at that and say, "but you didn't do it the same way." We chose to maintain a commercial level of evaporator throughout these experiments and to maintain the boil time the same throughout.

We'd be happy to do it the way you suggest....just send a $250k check made out the "UVM" to..... :lol:

[paulslund]

We'd be happy to do it the way you suggest....just send a $250k check made out the "UVM" to..... :lol:

Hmm.. I don't think my ~35L of yearly syrup output will cover that... :lol:

It probably is a moot point when the syrup is being continuously drawn off.. every L of syrup spends the same amount of time being boiled whether it's 300 gallons of concentrate, or a less volume of concentrate from 300 gallons of raw sap..

I was about to ask if there would be difference with a batch boil.. but I suspect the results would be the same.. the concentrate will still boil for less time than raw sap, and it doesn't appear that the darker RO'd syrup has to do with boiling time anyways..

So if I want lighter syrup from RO'ing, I need to get to 15%... I would need to tap more trees or I'm only going to be boiling for 2 hours at a time.. :D

[maineboiler]

This discussion makes me wonder how the syrup is being graded. I used to use the temporary grade samples and do a visual test, now I use a syrup digital grader that measures the transmission of light. The 2nd method seems much more accurate, I boil sap when it’s as fresh as possible, don’t do RO and keep the pans clean. I find that I don’t make much Golden Delicate anymore. Still tastes good——