buckets or bagholders

[Ron Engesether]

I run about 150 milk jug buckets hanging on tap in minnesota, Would like to change to a harder platic pail or metal ones, or Bag holders. Any recomedations on what would be the best choice? any other suggestions would be welcomed.

[MaplePancakeMan]

If you've got a local college or food service check and see if they have any 5 gallon pails or 4 gallon square pails. I use them with drops into them work really nice. The square ones are especially nice to pour from one of the corners. Most of the time you'll get them for free too. I just got some scrap ply wood from construction sites and used them for covers and they stay on nicely due to the weight.

[briduhunt]

I get my 4 gal. buckets for free from the local food store bakery dept. They come have frosting and other filling in them but I just wash them out and they have a good top with a real good seal. I also get them from the local box donught shops. Plenty of them out there free just for the asking. It took me a few weeks to get the 30 pails that I needed, but If I started earlier it would have been faster, as other local backyard maple guys have been doning the same thing. Last year I used the buckets for other uses and I will not be doing that again. Now that I have good buckets I store them for next year. Remember it does not hurt to ask.

[Brent]

This year we decided to try the Sap Saks. I got five before the season, hung them to test and liked it so we got 50 more. Now we have about 180 buckets and 55 saks. Everyone loves the saks during collection. I'm sure that is going to change dramatically when the season ends and "bucket washing day" begins

Next year ... all sap saks

[Fred Henderson]

I think the saks maybe the way to over the buckets.I don't see the holders as being to diffcult to make myself.

[MaplePancakeMan]

i think i would rather bucket liners rather than the saks. I just don't see how emptying the saks is easy?

[Brent]

Emptying ... easy ... sap sacks re-define easy.
Just lift of the spile grab a bottom corner and dump
Putting back on the spile is10 times easier than hitting a hook.
We often push the daylight and end up doing last collection in the dark.
Finding the hooks is a big pain on the buckets.


No lid in the way.
No rain gets in.
Lids don't flip up in the wind
Virtually no bark and debris

So far only two have sprung leaks and I think that was operator inflicted.
I was trying to smash ice by whacking the bag against the tree.

The sack holders do come with a lot of sharp edges the I rounded with a deburring tool before the season started.

Finally, my unpaid help loves them, and if she loves them that ends the argument for me.

[Ron Engesether]

The one thing I hate about the milk jugs is the moths get in them so bad at end of season. Are the bags better with that. one thing i am considering is going with bigger pails with lids and drop lines

[twigbender]

Emptying the saks is very easy. But then I don't find any of the buckets I use 'hard' to empty either. The only thing that I don't like about sap saks is that in high winds they can get blown off the trees if there isn't some sap in them to hold them down. I use 80 saks out of the 190 taps I have.

[tapper]

I have 25 sap sacks and holders for this season. They are very easy to use and dump. The sap has froze almost everytime this season before there is enough to gather. The bags hold up to the ice ok but I have some in open areas and the wind and ice combination doesnt work. The bags in the woods less vulnerable to the wind held up perfectly but in the open have been replaced at least once and in some cases were replaced with buckets.

[matrob]

I have been gradually switching to bag holders over the past few seasons. I have found that not cleaning as many buckets is very nice at the end of the season. I got a great deal on the sack holders from a neighbor who made them for a time after he got out of sugaring ( temporarily, he's back in now. It's like a bad habit, you know) I also had buckets blowing around by the end of the seasonwhen I used tubing drops.

Still waiting for a good run in nothern WI.

Matt

[johnallin]

I now use bags and can't imagine anything easier. Nothing gets into them and if not full, you can empty right into a collecting pail without taking off the tree. Just grab one lower corner and tip other upper corner into the pail and empty the whole thing, it just rotates on the spile.

For bigger runs, where you may want to carry back to the collecting tank, son-in-law came up with a doozy. Take an empty bag to the tree, exchange with the full bag, go back to the gator and empty, no need to go back to that tree - just continue on to the next. Cut trekking time in half.

[Brent]

Today was our day for the big wind test. Blowing like H*&^.

Everything that was lighter than 1 ton got moved

In the woods
2 buckets pulled their spiles and blew off
4 lids came off buckets
2 bags came off the spiles

Going to freeze tonight so we should get another run tomorrow.
It will be interesting to see how many more bags are down and more intersting to see how many got whacked around so much they have holes.

I did not totally empty the bags today to help stop the flapping.
In any case from what happened out there today, the bags didn't seem to fair so badly. So far they still get my vote.

[tapper]

This season I tried both bucket liners and sack holders. The sack holders won big time for ease of handeling and better sap quality for entire season. Bucket liners ended up being an overall pain and I probably wont do them again. I will for next year have many more sack holders. Although the sacks dont hold up very well in the windy open areas they lasted the entire season in the more sheltered wooded areas. I think a few strips of duct tape on the tree side of the sack may help during windy ice in the bag times.

[Brent]

well this morning after the big blow of yesterday ( Toronto airport just 15 miles south of us recorded gusts of 90 km / hr (about 55 MPH)
there was a little more carnage in the woods. I would get about a dozen of the bags, out of 55 out there, had blown off. About equal to the buckets.

Still next year, I'm promising myself and the wife... all bags.

The other nice thing. I can see with binos who the run is going. The woods is 800 to 1000 feet from the house.

[lpakiz]

Has anyone heard/used sacks that appear to be made of plasticised aluminum foil? Actually seems to be maybe "mylar" like the helium balloons. These sacks are about 16-18 inches square and have a small plastic spout molded into them in the upper middle flat part. They are made for something else (foodstorage) because the spout has a cap that you remove and toss, then I have to cut off about 3/4 inch of the threads. The resulting "port" is about 1 inch diameter and about 1 inch long. They hang from a 5/16 tubing spout, tapped in upside down, so the barbs are up. They hang there like your jacket on a coathook and the whole spout is inside the port.. Easy to cut off one upper corner and swivel on spout to empty, or also easy to remove and fold in half vertically and dump into 5 gallon pail. They cost about 35 cents each and need no metal frame. I have had some more than half full and they are TOUGH--no tearing yet. Not sure how much they hold before sap runs out. One disadvantage will be ice--no way to get it out.
Larry