custom boiling what to charge

[sawyer40]

Fellow called me to ask if I would boil there sap. What should I charge? How should I figure on doing this? I can't drain the evaporator each time they bring sap. I guess I should give an idea of what I know I can do. My evaporator is a 3x10 oil fired that boils off about 80 gal of sap an hour. I don't know if I should even consider doing this I have almost 500 taps out myself and have to go to work from 8-5 at my sawmill. Can anyone give me any Ideas on what or how to charge? Does anyone else do this?

[backyardsugarer]

I would check the sugar content and give them back the amount of syrup that their sap was worth if I was buying it. Be careful though I had a guy a few years ago bring me about 200 gallons of sap for a total season from his yard trees. He wanted 2 gallons of syrup and a couple of pounds of candy. (over 50% for the sap he brought me). I decided it was not worth my time.

[jdj]

If you have a 3x10 oil fired with no R/O or steamaway I would think you would have to charge someone quite a bit to boil there sap. With the 3x10 evaporating 80gal of sap/hr and burning 9 gal of oil/hr, with oil at 2.50/gal you will be burning $22.50 an hour in fuel to make a max. of $100 worth of syrup. There are also many ther costs to boil sap that must be factored in. Take it from here.

[waysidemaple]

How much sap is the guy bringing you? What is he trying to get out of it? when I started I had around 100 taps and took the sap to one of my dads freinds, for every 100 gallons of sap I gave him I got a gallon of syrup back. I wasn't in it for the money or the syrup I just liked to collect and then watch it boil, not to mention the smell. just my 2 cents

[monktonmaple]

Are you keeping part of the syrup for boiling or are they looking to pay cash?
If cash you have consumables(oil, maybe containers?), your labor and return on your capital equipment. Do you have the time and the capacity on the equipment to process their sap? At 80 gallons of sap an hr and labor at $20/hr that would be ~$10 per gal of syrup for labor + fuel oil $3 per gal???. + return on investment??? Probably need to get at least $15 probably more like $20+ to make it worth it. May depend a bit on your relationship with this person. Another approach is to look at the value of the sap being delivered vs wholesale value of syrup produced.

[oldfox]

I boiled sap for a guy a who's evaporator self destructed several years ago. I picked up his sap, boiled it and paid him in syrup. I paid him 1 quart of syrup, whatever grade the sap made, for every barrel of sap. I put the syrup in 5 gallon cans I got from him. everybody was happy.

[briduhunt]

I pay my sap suppliers .12 per sugar point/gal of sap after checking the sugar content and the amount of sap they supplied me I pay them in cash or equal amounts in syrup. If I owe a family say $18.00 for the sap and they want it in syrup I give them one quart. I get my selling price for the syrup thus figuring in the time, fuel and bottling cost. Everyone is happy as I make out good buying the sap and the family gets good syrup. All of my customer know the price I am paying up front and also how much I am selling my syrup fo, so they understand everything up front. So far everyone has been happy.

[sawyer40]

I haven't called him back yet to find out everything. I wanted to hear from you guys that been there and done that. I'm still thinking about all the time needed to boil mine and then someone elses. I see a lot of all night boils and then go run a sawmill all day. This is supposed to be my hobby. Not my night time job. I'm going to call and see what he's looking for out of it. But I keep reminding myself this is a hobby.