Sap color?

[mdm1]

I have a question regarding the sap color from different trees. We tap red maples and 1 sugar all at the same place. I have one red maple that is split about 2-3 ft up from the ground forming 2 trunks of equal size. I am tapping each trunk. The sap from one is clear and the other one is discolored. Kind of a light yellowish brown. But it is clear. When I tap I make sure I only tap into white wood. Is the sap good or should I just dump it? We only do 30 trees and give it to friends etc.

[Galena]

Hehe sounds like you've got some tree pee happening....relax, it just means rain or snow got into the pails. So long as it's clear, and doesn't smell funky or look cloudy (or both) then you're fine to boil it. If you don't like that idea you can always just dump it out.

FWIW I keep tree pee and chuck it in with the rest of my sap :-) Hope this helps!

[ebliese]

It might be worth testing the sugar content of the discolored sap. We have noticed sometimes we get a discoloration early in the season in some sap and it can't be rain or snow because our buckets have lids on them. When tested, we saw it had a higher sugar content. I was told to keep the discolored sap separate, reduce it by half, and taste it. If no odd taste, then put it in with the other sap. We had no odd taste so we boiled it.

[Galena]

One of my trees reliably produces tree pee for a short period of time, and as I am using buckets and lids and we have had massive amounts of rain since the last collection, blame that for the discolouration. I've personally never tried boiling the tree pee separately but I may try it tomorrow just because there is about 3 l of it out there. So far have never had any tree pee ruin a batch of syrup.

@ ebliese....I also use buckets and lids and rain/snow easily gets into the sap, esp if there's a good wind blowing too. Lids are easily blown askew.

[mdm1]

Thanks for all the replies. I may check the sugar content of that tree. I think I am good to go.

[ebliese]

Galena, do you use the buckets that hang on the spiles or 5 gallon buckets on the ground with drops going into them? We use the latter. We have a hole drilled in the lid for the tubing to go into but it's the same size as the OD of the tubing. Usually we snap down opposite sides of the lid-enough to keep them on but not so much as to make removing them more of a chore. I realize I should have made that clear in my original post. Sorry for the confusion.

[Galena]

Galena, do you use the buckets that hang on the spiles or 5 gallon buckets on the ground with drops going into them? We use the latter. We have a hole drilled in the lid for the tubing to go into but it's the same size as the OD of the tubing. Usually we snap down opposite sides of the lid-enough to keep them on but not so much as to make removing them more of a chore. I realize I should have made that clear in my original post. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, mine hang off the spiles...hence the wind can flip up the lids and dump rain/snow in or blow the buckets askew. I've seen setups like yours around with the drop tubing. No prob re the confusion, I figured our setups had to differ in some way! take care :-)