Tools and Equipment

[Amber Gold]

I debating on whether to install tubing or buckets. I have about 60 taps in one location that I'll be tapping next year and hopefully others around town. I'm trying to decided if I should go buckets or tubing. Obviously tubing would be nicer, but I'm not sure of the tools and equipment that will be needed. What tools do I need and how much do they cost?

Thanks

Josh

[Uncle Tucker]

for 60 taps the only tools you will need are;5/16 nut driver, a blade knife, and a thermos of hot water.

[danno]

Or find a neighbor with tubing tools to borrow - and return the favor with a case of his/her favorite beverage.

[brookledge]

josh
As it was said you really don't need much for tools, however a tubing tool is well worth it and I agree you should look to borrow one from somebody near bye to try.
Keith

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

You will get more sap out of buckets and higher quality sap too vs tubing.

[Russell Lampron]

If you already have the buckets, spouts and covers and most importantly the time to gather them go with those. If you are going to use tubing a 2 handed tubing tool is a must have. I would say especially if you are planning to expand but we all know that that is a given.

[Amber Gold]

Thanks for the info.

Why does quantity and quality of syrup degrade with tubing vs. buckets?

Russ, is this the tool you're talking about:

http://mapleguys.com/index.php?item=198&ret=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mapleguys.com%2Findex.php%3Fp age%3D1%26category%3D8

Yes, expansion is a given.

Thanks

[Russell Lampron]

Josh go to this link http://s238.photobucket.com/albums/ff175/royalmaple/ and click on tubing tool on the left. Matt has some pics of his there. The tool in your link isn't the one.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Non vaccum tubing builds some pressure inside that affects sap flow a little where buckets have nothing to build up any pressure. I can't prove that scientifically, but that has been my observation over the years.

As far as sap quality, sap has to flow thru tubing for a distance and gets heated up all the way vs the temp in the tree as it is probably always cooler or almost always cooler inside the tree vs outside temp. Bucket sap has to travel about 12" which takes about .5 seconds and has no time to heat up and the color of the buckets doesn't seem to attract heat to bad and develop ice very easily overnight which also helps sap quality.

[Amber Gold]

Brandon, makes sense what you said about quantity and quality. So when vacuum is used is it pulling more from the tree than would be had using buckets or is just bringing the tubing up to what you have been yielded from buckets?

[maple marc]

I attended a Maple Days conference here in OH this January. The featured speaker was the maple guru from UVermont. He had a chart showing the yield per tap, from buckets to tubing to tubing with vacuum. According to him, you can get significantly more sap from a tap using tubing and vacuum vs buckets. I would be curious to hear what you pros have experienced in real life.

From my own limited experience with 60 buckets and an experiment with a few drop tubes to buckets on the ground, I would want a lot more than 100 buckets to make tubing a choice.

[Amber Gold]

Russ, that looks like quite the contraption. It looks like it cuts, pulls the tubing apart, you put the fitting in, and it pushes the tubing over the fitting. Is this correct and where do you find this?

Thanks

Josh

[VtSugarhouse]

It is my understanding from Tim Wilmot of the University of Vermont Extension service and his research at the Proctor Center. That Bucket sap yeild is more than tubing without vacuum. Tubing with about 15 inches of vacuum is equal or maybe slightly better than a bucket. Now if you go to 21 inches of vacuum or more the yeild of sap doubles any bucket production and the the difference is like night and day between low vacuum (15 inches) and high vacuum (21 inches and up).
This is what I got from his report. I run 23- 25 inches of vacuum most of the time and the sap yeild is good on those not so good running days.

That my take on it!

[brookledge]

Maple marc
You will definately get more sap on vacuum than buckets. For me its a time issue. I have 1165 taps of which 4 are buckets. I'm a one man band wagon and when I get home from work the sap is waiting for me. I always hang my buckets last and they are the first to dry up. It is true that sap will heat up in tubing especially black main line but if your mainline gets alot of sun you can always paint it white. On the other hand tubing lets you go places you can't effectively collect with buckets and you never get rain water or other foreign objects in it. Many times employees don't care too much if they spill sap when collecting buckets or slip on slippery conditions.
Keith

[Sugarmaker]

Josh,
Brandon is probably right about darker syrup from tubing, but not this year the weather was perfect for sap, since we did not get much warm weather here in NWPA. Having used buckets for years the sap quantity is probably a little more on buckets, tubing takes a little longer to get thawed and running. But the labor savings this year allowed me some extra time to boil and make quality syrup. So we will stay with the tubing next year also.
Estimate $5-7 per tap for the tubing on a gravity short run system like mine.
Takes longer to put up ( tubing) and is more trouble to clean, but has some advantages during the big sap flows.

Find some local folks that used tubing and go see the how the pieces go together. Or Get some good buckets and use those, both systems will work for you.

Regards,
Chris

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

It is increasing the yield over any other type of gravity system including buckets. What vaccum does it that it lowers the pressure inside the tubing lower than what is in the tree so that the sap seeks the lower pressure area.

This is the technical definition and in reality, yes it does help suck the sap out of the tree to a certain extent. The sap is not oozing out the tapholes at a drop per second, the second it starts excreting out the sapwood, it is pulled on down the tubing vs building up enough sap inside the spout hole that a drop has to go somewhere.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Chris,

One thing to point out on your new system which appears to have been well designed from the pics and your season output is that you had brand new spouts and tubing, no bacteria anywhere to start the season. Never will be that way again, thus one of the reasons for all the light syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

Josh,

This tool is designed to do just that. You clamp it on to the lateral line, cut the line, open the tool, insert the tee or connector fitting and squeeze it together. I didn't see one of those tools in The Maple Guys online catalog but if you send Chris a pm he could get you a tool and or price.

[Jim Brown]

Hey Russ I sent you a PM.

Our tubing has been up for three years and we flush it with water after each season(haven't done it yet this year). And as the others in the area we made nearly all light and med syrup this year. Last pull off the rig was 10 gallons of 'B" just bearly. I think keeping the tubing clean along with new 5/16 adapters helps



Just our two cents

Jim

[Amber Gold]

Thanks for all the help. I just wrote the maple guys an email asking a price for the contraption Russ was talking about. Not sure if I'll got with tubing or buckets yet. I guess I'll wait and see how things go and see how many places around town I can find to tap.

[Amber Gold]

I was planning on installing 100 taps next year on the basis of generating 1 gpd/tap and boiling 20 hrs per week. This past season I averaged that, with some days being more and some less, using buckets. Is this still accurate with tubing, and if not, about what is the average sap production rate with tubing without vacuum?

Thanks

[Haynes Forest Products]

Josh
Sounds like your just getting started. So who cares if what you make is light or light amber or dark your out having fun. Now I dought that your going to wholesale what you get till you start to get into the 100 200 tap range so go with the tubing and dont worry about color. The differance in wholesale price in light or dark is so small that you should plan for expansion and that is tubing. I have to laugh at all the talk about what gives lighter syrup. I havent seen any one telling you how when the wind blows the lids of the buckets blow off and then it rains and they spend the next day dumping pails. Or they blow off the trees all together. Go with the tubing then go with the vacuum If you want light syrup get a tig welded stainless evaporator. and cook as fast as possible. spend the money on supplies and forget all the fancy tools 75.00 will buy all 750 ft of tubing.

[sapman]

You've got it right about the grief with buckets and foul weather! Every time we get high winds, I swear I'm going to find a bush somewhere and go tubing. Or when the sap ran good when you weren't expecting, and it got to 10 degrees or less that night, so a bunch of buckets are now leakers. I could go on and on. But, there's really no other way to tap the big roadsides I do, and they really yield well.

Still waiting for that big bush to show up!

Tim