sugar % increasing

[NedL]

I was getting ready to pull the taps and call last weekend the end, but the sugar content in my sap this week has gone from about 1 1/2 % earlier in the year to over 3 this week. This is only my second year at this, but I thought sugar % went down as the year went on. Has anyone else experienced this?


So, I'm leaving the taps in to see if we can get a couple of cold nights to reset the trees.

[RileySugarbush]

If the sap has been sitting for a while, sometimes the density goes up as the bacteria grow.....

[NedL]

It was fresh sap collected the same day that I measured. It was nice not to have to boil as long to get some syrup.

[RileySugarbush]

Ours has been 3.5% all season. Nice!

[Russell Lampron]

I have had the same thing happen here. In the early part of the season the sap was only about 1.5% sugar. The later runs have been 2% or higher. I boiled in 815 gallons of sap on March 10th and only got 10 gallons out of it. On March 28 I boiled in 425 gallons and got 9 gallons of syrup out of it. My pans were sweetened on the 1st of March.

[birdmancf]

Anecdotally, I can say the same thing without having measured the sugar in my sap. The second and third boils I got much more syrup for the volume of sap boiled off. I just thought I was getting better at it somehow.;)