How long can you hold sap?

[Sugar Sue]

I have been holding sap for a couple of days in our supply tank. How long can I hold it and how do you know when it has gone bad?

I have also noticed that some times my buckets have sap that is a little brown, but clear? What could this be and is it a problem? will it contaminate the the whole collection?

[dano2840]

if its below 32 you can store it as long as you want because it will be frozen, if its 40 i wouldnt go for more than a day maybe a day and a half, if you absolutely have to 2 days, if its higher than 40 outside then boil it asap

[Smitty]

Sap should be crystal clear, as soon as it starts getting a little foggy its too late. If you get a tank, can, bucket of foggy sap, wash it out good before you add any more good sap. It will cause it to turn bad faster.
Hope this answered your question.

[Dennis H.]

I try to boil the sap the same day that I collect, if that is not possible then you want to keep it as cold as possible. if you have snow around pile it up around your tank or like I did last year I took a few 2 liter bottles and put water in them and put them in the freezer tilll they were frozen then I just tossed them into the tank to help to keep the sap cold.

I only get a slight off color sap right after tapping the hole, I figure it was the hole just cleaning itself, and at the end of the season when the buds started to break open. But then it wasn't brown t was more of a cloudy look.

[TapME]

sue take some gallon milk jugs and freeze them and put them in the sap to keep it cold. Dennis H said that just a bigger jug. Next make something to shade the tank if it is the sun use something light colored to reflect the sun. And banking with snow is always an option.

[Maplewalnut]

Don't fill the jugs with water to freeze them...fill them with sap! I've always been told to treat sap like milk. With that said I have kept it a few days at a time before when cold and still produced medium. And I have said all along people south of New England do not want light syrup anyway.

[MapleME]

I collected all week in 3 trash cans which I burried in the snowbanks in my driveway. They never got cloudy on me all week. I did this simply because I only boiled once per week on saturday or sunday. It seemed to work really well. never got cloudy or stinky.

This year I got a 150 gallon plastic trough so it will be lower to the ground to bury in the snow.

MapleMe

[DS Maple]

The answer really varies with your storage conditions and available technology. If you can somewhat control the temp at which it is being stored, you're OK for a few days as others have said. In our case, the tank room in the sugarhouse is insulated, so it maintains a pretty steady temperature in the mid 30's. We also have a UV system installed which the sap can be cycled through, cutting down on the bacteria growth. With this setup, I can easily store sap up to a week without degradation regardless of the temperature outside.

[ebourassa]

I always found that it keeps longer in the early part of the season than later, most likely due to weather and the bacteria build up in the tap holes. if it starts to turn cloudy boil it right away but if it starts to stink throw it out, one year i boiled down some stuff that stank and spent half aday cleanig out the evap, and tank to throw out the syrup. but like everything else you have to learn the hard way sometimes.lol
happy sapping
erik

[3rdgen.maple]

A little brown sap in your buckets is probably from rain water or melting snow running down the tree into the buckets. Taste it if it is bitter dump the bucket you do not want to mix it with good sap. I run about 350 buckets and even with covers I still get rainwater or melting snow leaching into a bucket once in awhile.

[Russell Lampron]

Rain water turns the sap yellow. If it is brown it is probably rust from your buckets.

Ebourassa don't throw any syrup away. Commercial syrup is worth big bucks and they will take anything.

[SeanD]

I also do the three trash barrels in the snow. Having it next to the driveway makes it so the snowblower buries them pretty deep. I've never had stinky syrup with this method, but at times it has gotten cloudy. I give the barrels a rinse when I empty them to help with that.

Late in the season it gets harder to keep the snow high enough to cover the top of the barrels, so I really liked your lower trough idea, MapleME. How do you draw the last of the sap from the trough when the level is down to an inch or two? With the barrels, I can pick them up and dump them, but I'm guessing the trough is a lot harder to handle.

Sean

[tuckermtn]

a note about "cloudy sap"

I've make some very nice tasting light amber with cloudy sap...

try to boil it as soon as I get it- but on maple weekend, etc when we have to store sap we have boiled some cloudy sap- and the syrup was just fine....

its the yellow stuff I worry about...

[3% Solution]

We boil the sap as soon as we gather it, that day!
I know some folks have to hold their sap for the weekend.
Sometimes you are going to get other than clear sap, like towards the end of the season or if the temperature is a bit warmer.
We have boiled alot of cloudy, milky, yellow/orange sap and have made some good syrup.
So, run it through, it won't hurt a thing!!!!!

Dave

[3rdgen.maple]

Russel your spot on. Yellow is rain water, don't know why I referenced brown. Brown could be rusty buckets. I have alluminum so I was not thinking along those lines.

[Sugar Sue]

We have figured that the evap. holds about 15 gallons. So we should have at least 45 gals. to start boiling. With 70 taps we don't always get enough to boil. Today we had just enough sap to do one draw and then had to let the fire die. All that excitment for our first draw only to run out of sap. Weather here is returning to low to mid 20's. It will be about a week till I am thinking I can boil again.

[dano2840]

find more trees!
maybe do some pipe line

[tessiersfarm]

I just went to a maple school at Bacon Farm and we were told once the sap is in your pan it should be brought to a boil every day or so if you can to kill bacteria in the pan. If boiled every day he said it would keep for quite a while although it will darken. He said just build enough of a fire to boil the sap for a minute or two and then let it cool back down.

[MapleME]

I also do the three trash barrels in the snow. Having it next to the driveway makes it so the snowblower buries them pretty deep. I've never had stinky syrup with this method, but at times it has gotten cloudy. I give the barrels a rinse when I empty them to help with that.

Late in the season it gets harder to keep the snow high enough to cover the top of the barrels, so I really liked your lower trough idea, MapleME. How do you draw the last of the sap from the trough when the level is down to an inch or two? With the barrels, I can pick them up and dump them, but I'm guessing the trough is a lot harder to handle.

Sean

Sean, well this is the first year with the trough burried, so Im not 100% sure how the last inch or two will work out. I imagine I will be out their with a 2 gallon bucket tilting it to one side to get the last bit. BUT, for the most part I think I can keep more sap colder for a longer time. The snowbanks do a nice job of keeping it cold.

I headed over to TSC actually seeking out a metal 2x6 trough, mainly because I wanted a inexpensive storage solution. The rubbermaid was actually cheaper- and holds 25 gallons more.

For a backyarder (or in my case a front yarder) I think this is a great step up from the trashcans on previous years.

If your interested its this: about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_10551_10001_28497_-1______?rFlag=true&cFlag=1

MapleME

[BryanEx]

Like many other weekend warriors... sap storage has been an issue for me as well. These are the two best articles I've found covering how to keep sap until processed...

Filtering Maple Sap (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/05-031.htm)

Food Safety Practices for the Production of
Maple Syrup (http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/maple/pdf/fs_maple_ch2.htm)

- Bryan Ex

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I sometimes hold sap for as long as a week, is this the best thing, no probably not but as I have stated before I live close to 30 minutes from the sugarhouse, work full time, have a wife and 2 small children, and I go to church on Wed night and twice on Sunday, so I don't have a lot of extra time. I have a 625 gallon sunset milk tank inside the sugarhouse aprox 5' from the evaporator and I try to freeze 3 to 5 nine quart aluminum sap buckets each day and throw into the tank when I am holding for several days. I also have a Wedco stainless UV light exactly like the kind in the Leader catalog and I make a single pass of sap thru it when pumping into the tank and this year I am going to try to recirculate it every day while gathering when the sap quality is getting poorer later in the season or when I am going to be holding it for several days.

My sugarhouse floor is entirely concreted and aprox 6" thick and my sugarhouse is on the north side, so it is almost always colder inside it than outside except when I am boiling.

How much does the UV help, I don't know for sure but it helps a some I would think since it s a whole house type and the ice helps quite a bit with the tank being an insulated tank. I just throw the frozen sap buckets into the tank and in a few minutes, they will be thawed enough to allow you to dump out the frozen chunks of ice. This works great as the frozen sap/ice floats on the top and as it melts, it cools downward as cold travels downward. This also allows you to quickly refill the buckets and put them back in the freezer for the next day.

[Groves]

From someone who taps less than ten trees here in the Ozarks of Missouri, I also hold sap for over a week sometimes. Seems to boil fine, test fine, taste fine.

I don't sell any, so I'm not worried about the lawsuits. Don't think I'm killing myself or my friends, though.

It's never been cloudy.

I prefer it stay all nice and chilled, but honestly, if the day is 60 degrees, the day is 60 degrees.

[swierczt]

I store sap most of the week and boil on weekends...once in a while I boil during the week if I have a good run. I've had good luck making sap-cicles....I freeze a 4-gallong jelly bucket of sap in a chest freezer, take it out of the freezer in the evening and set it outside or in the grage on a really cold night and drop the giant popcicle into my 55 gal. tanks of sap. The tanks kept on the north side of the barn will keep all week with a frozen chunk floating in the barrel for all that time...I use the smell and taste test...if it smells or tastes off...I pitch it....works for me!

[SeanD]

For a backyarder (or in my case a front yarder) I think this is a great step up from the trashcans on previous years.

If your interested its this: about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_10551_10001_28497_-1______?rFlag=true&cFlag=1

MapleME[/QUOTE]

That definitely looks manageable. I was picturing something a lot bigger. You could easily get away with just tipping it and scooping out the last of the sap with a small bucket or pitcher. That's going to work out well.

Sean

[MapleME]

For a backyarder (or in my case a front yarder) I think this is a great step up from the trashcans on previous years.

If your interested its this: about 4 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2.5 feet deep.
http://www.tractorsupply.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay_10551_10001_28497_-1______?rFlag=true&cFlag=1

MapleME

That definitely looks manageable. I was picturing something a lot bigger. You could easily get away with just tipping it and scooping out the last of the sap with a small bucket or pitcher. That's going to work out well.

Sean[/QUOTE]

I hope so Sean. Will keep you updated. My only concern is is doesnt have a lid or top, so this season I will try a piece of plywood with a brick or cement block on it. I have a boat-load of wild turkey around here, and I can imagine they would LOOVVEE to drink the sap all day while I am at work :)

Josh MapleME

[Haynes Forest Products]

I have two of them and had covers made for then they work great for the little woods. Plus they stack inside each other easy to tip to suck out of.

[maple flats]

I think the main issue with storing sap is the storage temperature. I kept below mid 30's it will keep for 6 or even 8 days. The warmer that shorter time it will keep. The real point is that the longer you store it the less you get. any bacteria/micro organisims that get into the sap feed on the sugar. The longer they feed the lower the remaining sugar there is to make syrup. This being said, I would still make syrup out of it as long as the sap hydrometer says there is still enough sugar to bother with. That number is up to you. Devide sugar % into 86 and you will know how many gal of sap you need to make a gal of syrup. If you are comfortable with the andwer boil it, if not toss it. The other point is that the longer the sap degrades the darker the syrup will be, but even commercial has good value these days. The only sap I won't boil is when it has gotten really stringy or if it smells really bad, up til then I boil