sap holding

[nick]

I was wondering how long you can safely hold sap after a run. I usually boil within 48 hours of a sap run. Could I safely extend the holding if the temp is below 50 f? The syruping season is just getting going up here in northern minnesota. That is about 2 weeks earlier than last year. I have 150 taps and boil on two 2X4' flat pans.

[Dropflue]

I would boil as soon as you collect. The bacteria in sap keeps multplying every hour. If your sap is cloudy, you'll have some off flavors that will concentrate in your syrup. A UV light desinfection system may help extend your storage by 24 hrs.

[DougM]

Nick,
I agree with Dropflue that you should boil as soon as possible, but how fast your sap will spoil is temperature and bacteria-dependent. Due to work schedules we boil on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so we have to store sap as long as 3 days.
We have two 130-gallon polyethylene tanks for storage. As long as the temperature stays below 40 we have no problem keeping sap. It stays clear over that time. Our tanks are not under roof (next year) so we do put a reflective silver tarp over them if it is going to be sunny. We also clean the tanks each time they get empty, which does make a difference in how long sap will keep.

Doug

[mapleman3]

Doug, what do you clean them with? and how often?
Jim

[DougM]

Jim,
Since we have two tanks, what usually happens is one is filled over a couple of days, then we fill the other. When we start boiling, it is with the first one filled.
When that gets empty, if we're done for the day, or we don't need it right away, before we fill it again we we rinse it out well with clean water, then use a light bleach solution - about 20:1 water to bleach. We use a CLEAN :wink: toilet brush, (we buy a couple new ones at the beginning of each year, they work great for cleaning), with the long handle you can reach the whole thing, then rinse some more.
If we need to refill it right away because of a good run, we wait to clean it until we get it empty. We always boil everything we have, down to emptying out the rig, because we don't want it to sit for 3 more days. We haven't tried leaving the rig and seeing how the syrup comes out, maybe next year. Our wives would appreciate it, I know, because it takes a couple of hours to empty it after we run out of sap.
Doug

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Doug,

That is great info. I do agree that one of the main thing to holding sap is keeping the tanks sanitized. Even if you just spray with a 4 to 1 bleach and water solution, it will help a ton because 100% of the bleach cooks off and it will not affect the taste of the syrup at all. It probably makes it better because it keeps the bacteria count lower. I think the most important thing is keeping the sap in the shade. I always keep everything in the shade 100% of the time and After the end of my season this year, I left about 2 gallon of sap accidently in a bucket in a cool shady place. I was cleaning up two weeks later and found it expecting it to be nasty, but it was still clear and I could not believe it. From years of using pipeline and buckets, I think pipelines are the biggest contributing factor to sap spoiling quickly because it is unbelievable how fast bacteria can build up in the pipelines. I am sure vaccum would help this a ton, but I have never used vaccum. I am now using 9 qt aluminum buckets with lids on everything because like you, I can't boil every day and have to keep the sap for a fews days sometimes. These buckets keep the sap shaded at all times also! Another thing I think that would help keep the sap fresh even longer, it a UV bacteria killer. This seems like it would work great and I am thinking about getting one. They make one for a fish pond that is between 2 to 3 hundred dollars that works great according to someone that was using it for syrup. I will do about 7 gallon a minute!

Brandon

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Doug,

I think another key to holding sap is storing it in metal tanks if possible because they will keep the temp down lower than a plastic tank in the shade because metal is naturally colder. I ordered a 320 gallon Lappier welded stainless round bottom tank with aluminum frame from Waterloo Small for under $ 425 a few days ago. This will help also because it does not have any places for bateria to gather.

Brandon

[DougM]

Brandon,
We started using bags this year, and really like them. We switched because we couldn't find a source of buckets for the taps we added, and were only going to use them on the taps we added. But we liked them so much we replaced all our buckets with them. You don't get the shade, but we didn't have any problems with spoilage. The only drawback was not being able to get the ice out on cold days, but we figured that helped keep the sap cold.

No argument about using metal tanks, but they were not in the budget. Ours were only about $100 each. Maybe after we get our pans replaced and a few other things we need we can think about that, but so far the plastic ones are OK. There's always something. :)

Doug

[mapleman3]

How much sap does the Bag hold, and does it take any longer to gather the sap than buckets?
Jim

[DougM]

Jim,
the bags hold right at 5 gallons. We found sevreal things we liked about them:
1) They take up a lot less space. We can get all 100 holders, bags, taps drills, etc., in the back of our Gator. No way we can do that with buckets. Plus off-season we can store them in a couple of cardboard boxes.
2) Gathering is probably about the same, or slightly less. You can pour the bags out without the worrying about the lid falling off.
3) They don't blow off the trees near as much as our buckets. We were using 5-gal. plastic buckets, one windy weekend we had 1 bag of 40 off, and about 15 of 25 buckets either off the tree or missing the lid.
4) Sap was cleaner. You still get ants & moths, but not as much rain and leaves.
5) No bucket cleaning!!
The only problem we had was the trees ran and then everything froze before we gathered. It got windy and we had several bags get holes from banging against the tree and the ice inside rubbing on the bark.
I mentioned in my last post we originally planned to only do around 40, and keep our 65 buckets. But we liked the bags so much we switched them all over. We made our own holders, so our only expense was the bags ($0.20 each, less if you buy a case), the band for the top of the bag ($1 ea.) and some pop rivets to attach the handles.
Doug

[michaelh05478]

Brandon, When you get your tank don't forget to wash it out real good with baking soda! I bought a new 760 gal SS tank and didn't wash it and had the first 6 or 7 gals come out with a off taste....A dumb mistake!!! I use the 5 gal white buckets and ive had good luck with them.. I put them on the ground and i use the 5/16 spouts with the poly lines. I have some buckets with 3 lines and i have some single tap trees that are close together and i use one bucket for the two....I've had a bucket or two tip a little but none have blown away with the wind....Im still thinking about going to a 3x10 rig..........

[mapleman3]

I too use the 5 gal buckets with tubing besides my metal buckets,they work great !! I might try some bags next year. and see how I like them. and michael you should go to a 3 x 10 most definately <grin> (My rig is being sold tomorrow :lol:) how are the bags to clean... just rinse them at the kitchen sink? :wink:
Jim

[DougM]

Clean? :oops:
We didn't clean any during the season, and we just tossed them at the end.
We thought about it, but figured we would never get them dry if we were to clean them at the end of the year, and at 18-20 cents each we're throwing away $20 or less a year... worth not cleaning buckets to us.

Doug

[mapleman3]

Well thats pretty cool !!!

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I have used 5 gallon buckets in the past but the biggest problem I have with them is that they fill up too quick. Most of my trees I put in 4 to 5 taps because they are enormous and if the trees are running full blast, they will fill up a 5 gallon bucket in 4 to 8 hours easily. I used to put nails on the trees to hold them and it worked great. If you can make a fairly level spot on the ground, a large rock on top of the lid works great and will not pinch off the tubing. In the past, I bored holes in the lids on the 5 gall buckets but this causes rain water to go inside. If you snap down most of the outside of the lid and feed the tubing between the edge and the lid, it will not pinch off the tubing even with a rock on top!

By the way, I have never vented my tubing system or a single tree tubed! The way my trees run, I don't think it would help. :wink:

Brandon

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Doug,

Back to the question of emptying your pan every cooking. I don't usually do that and since I purchased an evaporator for next season, I have talked to a lot of people about different things. Most peope leave the pans as is whenever they quit cooking and this saves a ton of time. Bruce Bascom told me that it would not even hurt to leave it in the evaporator for two weeks even if it was warm. The thing to realize is that is have been pasturized because of the high boiling temp and the sugar content is greatly increased. I used to take it off every night on my flat pan but that is a ton of extra work. The last batch I made this year, I cooked it five times without ever taking any off and still had Grade A med Amber. I was really suprised because I had always heard you lose a grade every time you reheat it but I guess this is not exactly true because some of the sap had been cooked 5 times. I ended up with a little over 13 gallon out of that batch in my flat pan!

Brandon

[pegjam]

Couple quick thoughts for you guys buying tanks. Milk storage tanks are worth thinking about for two reasons: 1) there're cheaper than the ones your buying from any maple supply dealer :lol: :lol: 2) there're insulated, which means it keeps your sap cooler, even in direct sunlight. The bad thing about plastic tanks is there're porus, which means no matter how good you clean them, your going to miss something. Even with bleach used as a sanitizer, they don't always come clean. One other thing, when you use bleach, you really should rinse your tanks out with clean water. Bleach does boil out of the sap, but it does leave trace amounts of chl salt, which "could" give your syrup an off-flavor. It really depends on how much you use. Just something to think about when you get out the bleach bottle. Also you should use real cholrix (spelling), it will leave less salt behind, and doesn't have the impurities that "cheap" bleach has. :lol: :lol:

[DougM]

One more thing on the bleach, is to use plain, not the scented or thicker types.
A metal tank would definitely be better than poly, but I agree it's better to rinse it with clear water than to leave the diluted bleach.

One of the disadvantages of living where we do and sugaring is a lack of used dairy equipment. There is a place in Ohio that has used tanks, but I'd rather find one at auction if I could, to keep costs down.
Our poly tanks are a step up from the multiple barrels we were using a couple years ago, we could never get them really empty and clean. Hopefully one of these days we can move up to metal. :)

Doug

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Concerning the tank issue, I bought a oval galvanized stock watering tank several years ago at a local Southern States farm supply. It has 150 gallon capacity and I paid well below $ 100.00 for it. It works great as a feeding tank and/or additional storage which is what I will use it for now since a got a 320 gallon stainless round bottom tank. If you keep it in the dry, it would probably last forever. I have had mine for aprox 10 years and it still looks like new and part of the time it was outside! I have never had a problem with bacteria in it but it is not quite big enough since sometimes I hold my sap for a few days!

Brandon

[Dropflue]

Concerning the tank issue, I bought a oval galvanized stock watering tank several years ago at a local Southern States farm supply. It has 150 gallon capacity and I paid well below $ 100.00 for it. It works great as a feeding tank and/or additional storage which is what I will use it for now since a got a 320 gallon stainless round bottom tank. If you keep it in the dry, it would probably last forever. I have had mine for aprox 10 years and it still looks like new and part of the time it was outside! I have never had a problem with bacteria in it but it is not quite big enough since sometimes I hold my sap for a few days!

Brandon
I agree, I bought a 140 gal tank for $59.00 last year. I think they are a lot easier to clean than a plastic tank.

[DougM]

Dropflue,
We have a 95 gal. stock tank we put in the back of a John Deere Gator for collecting. (Adding another for next year to reduce trips back to dump) We are working on a better lid for next year, if you aren't careful you get a shower. :)
It is easy to clean, but our poly ones aren't too bad as they are not too big. Being enclosed they do keep the sap clean, and so far we haven't had trouble with spoilage. Hopefully that won't change.
The old sugarhouse we got our rig from used a big stock tank. It was sitting out in the open, and had been for about 20 years, and was still holding water when we picked up the evaporator. We were tempted to take it, but figured we would never get it clean.

Doug