Jacking Sap,

[PerrinFarm2]

We're wating on a new flue pan from leader but in the mean time we collected. I had got down the night before to about oh -5 and all of the buckets had tons of ice it them. the sap was flowing pretty good but still a ton of ice. Anyways we drained the sap out of the ice and through the ice aside. Just like Jacking hard Cider :) anyways now we are sitting on 700 gallons of sweet sap. Anybody know how much water you can get out when you throw away the ice?

-Ben

[Thompson's Tree Farm]

Not sure just how much water you can get rid of but I recall throwing ice out of buckets 3 or 4 times on a route we couldn't get through to collect due to deep snow. We finally hauled it in on a toboggan with milk cans. We collected about 80 gallons of 12% sap from about 150 taps.

[VT maple maker]

Perrin Farm,

Where in Central VT are you located? I didnt even check my buckets today becouse its so cold out but maybe i should have.

Kyle

[VA maple guy]

I tested some sap i had put in a bucket when it was frozen. It had about
1/10% to 2/10% sugar in it. My sap averages just at or slightly under 2%.
I'll throw a few chunks in my storage tank to help keep it cold but I'll throw
most of it away. I don't know if anybody has refroze sap over and over to see
when you start loosing a large percent of sugar.
Gerry

[maple flats]

Years ago Mother Earth News did a piece on freezing sap, throwing the ice out, freezing again for several cycles and then boiling to finish. I don't remember how many times they repeated but it was several. This was for making your own for home use and used the home freezer, definately not for a commercial scale operation.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

This would definitely be cheaper for a small backyarder with a propane burner unit. An older deep freeze is easy to find for $ 50 or free for hauling and sure would be a ton cheaper than propane no more electricity than it uses.

[pennslytucky]

that deep freezer would work about 20 times better with a tiny fan inside to move the air. ive had meat that didnt freeze through after 4 days in mine

[Brent]

Day before yesterday I was late starting to collect so yesterday I went out and got what had froze from day before. I threw away 90% of the ice and brought back what I thought was going to be real sweet sap.

Tested at 3.2% WHAT !!! I've been getting 3.0 bang on for a week. Does make sense. I was expecting 4 to 4.5.

Next time I'm going to bring in 10 gallons of ice and melt it down and check it.
This is physics. It's gotta work, doesn't it ???

[MaplePancakeMan]

I had 6 buckets that i tested a month ago earlier in the season. I collected them at 2% for 30 gallons that would make just over 3/4 gallon of syrup using the 86 rule. For three days of deep freeze i let the buckets freeze then jacked two holes in the top one on the side wall and on in th%e middle to vent and poured them in to new buckets and repeated by the time it was all said and done i had 8 gallons of 7.5% sap. And i just only tossed a hair of sugar away

[Brent]

Right !

How'd you make out with the busted stack ???

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Deep freeze wouldn't need a fan in my opinion because it would freeze around the outside of the container(s). You wouldn't want it frozen solid too fast, just partially frozen and dump out the concentrate and discard ice and repeat. I use one for freezing sap to throw into the bulk tank and it freezes 6 buckets of sap pretty good in 24 hours. Not solid, but fairly well frozen.