Charging to boil....

[Woody]

What seems to be a fair price or trade-in-syrup to have someone boil down sap for you?

thanks

[KenWP]

Would depend on how much time he would have to put into boiling it down. I would have to guess about half and half at the most.

[Mac]

Woody,
I'm new at this.. but you have to consider, from either side..... if your just delivering sap... pretty low overhead... the guy boiling has all the investment plus his time... boiling, filtering, canning, cutting and splitting wood.... I think it's worth a 50/50 split for delivered sap.. Hopefully some folks that have put more moisture in the air than the 800 gallon I gave back will chime in... I may be asked to boil... so I would like to get some opinions as well as to what is fair.

I couldn't wait for sucess, so I went ahead without it.
Johnathan Winters

[briduhunt]

I have two familys that deliver sap to me and our deal is 50/50. That being said I test the sugar content each time they deliver so I can determine exactly how much syrup I can make with that sap. I did not charge for the containers but I will be asking them to provide the containers or at least pay my cost of the containers. Both familys have already agreeded to this. I am now looking for more familys to do this as I have to spend a lot of time just to collect my sap as I have all buckets (150). I would rather be boiling than collecting.

[PerryW]

Last season, Average Sap was worth about 30 cents per gallon, so .....

The 40 gallons of sap required to make 1 gallon of syrup is worth $12.

(Figuring syrup at $50 per gallon), If you go 50:50 you are essentially paying something like $1.25 per gallon for the sap!

If I could get that price for my sap I wouldn't bother boiling it down.

[Haynes Forest Products]

PerryW the problem with that is now your hobby is gathering sap. Thats like buy fish at the market and saying your a fisherman.

[KenWP]

Perry me thinks your math is a bit out. Works out you give a guy 80 gallons and get 40 back in syrup . Course it might just be easyier then standing beside a evaporator for 20 hours a day boiling sap . After about 4 weeks it becomes a job instead of a hobby.

[brookledge]

I agree with Perry.
If you go 50/50 you are essentially paying 1.25 per gal of sap using the value of syrup at $50 and sap to syrup ratio of 40-1
40 gallons of sap will make 1 gal of syrup and that would be worth $50
So you give him 50% = 1/2 gal of syrup made from 20 gallons of sap
$25 divided by 20 gal = $1.25 per gal of sap.
With that deal I'd sell sap instead of boiling it too
What you should do is buy the sap at the going rate and then trade for syrup instead of paying cash
Like Perry said depending on sugar content figure .30 to .40 per gal otherwise if you are boiling it and give half away you are on the short end of the stick
Keith

[3rdgen.maple]

If I read it right Woody is supplying the sap to someone else to boil like he stated. So at 30 cents a gallon times 40 gallons equals 12.00 dollars. I think If Woody gets a quart for every gallon the guy boiling it for him gets he is doing pretty good in my book. I dont think I would boil someone elses sap for anymore than a 75/25 split.

[brookledge]

That was my feeling that 50/50 is not fair to the producer and it should be more like 75/25. But I feel for simplicity if you bought the sap at the going rate for your area and then instead of paing cash trade for syrup for the amount owed.
Keith