Use Blood Glucose Monitor to test Brix?

[Hurdhaven Farm]

I attended the VMSMA Maple School on Saturday in Hyde Park. Learned a lot as the speakers were excellent and the program well organized and run. In one of the presentations while discussing checking Brix of both syrup and sap someone brought up using a Blood Glucose Monitor to check it. I had never heard about this so Googled it when I got home and did find these: http://www.nnyagdev.org/maplefactsheets/CMB%20206%20Measuring%20and%20Adjusting%20Invert%2 0Sugar%20in%20Maple%20Sugar.pdf

http://maple.infor.ca///uploads//Website_Assets/Dosage.pdf

If I understand correctly this tests for invert sugar content. Would the same monitor work for sap? Anyone tried this?

[Beweller]

Before I got a refractometer I tried inverting the sugar by adding a bit of hydrochloric acid and heating, then titrating with Fehling's solution. It seemed to work--I standardized with table sugar solutions--but was time consuming.

If you want to analyze sap, you must first invert the sugar. Like Fehling's solution, the kits respond only to invert sugars.

[davey]

We use the glucose monitors to determine the invert sugars primarily to decide which syrups are best for which "value added" maple products. As the links you posted explain pretty well. I think my sap hydrometer is much easier to use to determine sap sugar content than that would ever be.

[Haynes Forest Products]

This is why I love doing what we do. We are always thinking about how to make the most basic prosses Complicated. I hope thats what they put on my headstone...............HE LIKED TO COMPLICATE THINGS

No matter what they come up with you cant beat the old Hydrometer I see guys put the old standby under there auto draws just to keep everything honest........CARRY ON MEN

[Hurdhaven Farm]

Reading the files I found with the web search and now the replies on this forum you have confirmed my first thoughts that this sounded a lot more complicated than a hydrometer for sap. The person that mentioned it at the maple meeting made it sound like just a drop of sap or syrup on the test strip an you get your Brix value. I hope to get a refractometer at some point. Seems like the list of needs and wants for sugaring can get real long (and expensive!) real fast.
Thanks for the input!

[maplwrks]

At the recent Verona school, Joel Boutin told us about using a glucometer to help predict syrup grade before boiling. Apparently as sap warms up, the sucrose in the sap changes to glucose. The more glucose, the darker the syrup and the more flavor in the syrup. The glucose is what carmelizes and give the flavor and color to the syrup. The higher the number on the meter, the darker the syrup. What he was trying to point out was that by using black mainline that is too large for the amount of taps on it, it could work out that you would only make dark, flavorful syrup. The reason for this was that the sap would heat up so much in the pipe that the sucrose was converting the glucose right in the mainline. The coop that he runs, did side by side tests on different colors of mainline. White and Blue mainline made the lightest flavor and color syrup, while Black mainline made darker,more flavorful syrup. Joels' suggestion was to use black mainline and size it to run as loaded(or full) a pipe as possible. By running a fuller pipe, you would cut down on the heating of the sap slowing the sucrose to glucose conversion. This he said would help create a syrup with nice light color and with lots of flavor. If any of you ever get to listen to him at a school, take the opportunity, he is very interesting and entertaining.