Sap to syrup ratio

[hymer02]

I was wondering if anyone else was having this issue.I boiled 65 gallons on Saturday and I ended up with 48.8 gallons sap to a gallon of syrup.Yesterday I boiled 82 gallons and ended up with 48.95.This is on the same 40-50 taps as last year,which I was doing 37.5 average.Our weather here in northern Michigan has been pretty mild,and I haven't been getting the sap like I did last year.Could the weather be the main factor or is it something else?

[Sugarmaster]

Here in North Central Pa we have been averaging 49 51 gal sap to 1 gal syrup.

[Russell Lampron]

The sugar content is down this year here in NH. I think that it was because of the rainy month of June and most of July. The trees need sun to make sugar and they do most of that in June and July.

It is too early to tell but I have made 68 gallons of syrup with 5150 gallons of sap. That comes out to almost 75 gallons of sap per gallon of syrup. Of course the evaporator is still sweet and the syrup from that needs to figured in to be accurate. I'm glad that I have an RO machine. I'ld be putting in some long hours and using lots of wood if I didn't.

[PerryW]

Russell,

Watch out. I'm catching up with 53 gallons; all fancy except the first 5 gallons.

Best I can tell, I am getting 6 gallons of syrup from 275 gallons of sap or 45:1.

[Mike in NY]

50 to 1 on poor running trees this year. 3 days of rain and temps in the 40s this weekend may finish an otherwise disapointing season early

[Willy]

Sunday I ran about 30-35:1... used refractometer and selected trees to tap. Have some trees with 4.6% sugar, approx. 20:1, none less than 2.5%.

[Snow Hill Farm]

Our sugar content has been low also, only been up to 2.0. We had a wicked hail storm in July that took at least 20% of the leaves off the trees and I'm curious how that may be affecting things?

[Lyle]

Pretty much a replay of last year here. 55-1, only not as much sap as last year so far.

[Amber Gold]

72:1 plus the sweet in the pans. Slightly better than last year so far.

[Russell Lampron]

Perry that number will go up some tonight. I have 485 gallons in the bulk tank plus what runs today. No BIG SAP report from home yet so I don't know how it is running today. Hope to make 10 or 15 gallons tonight.

[Brian Ryther]

I am at 43 gal sap per gal of syrup this year. Even the bush that was hit by the Forest Tent Catapilers is testing 2.0.

[sapman]

I'm running about the same as last year from the woods trees, 2% at best and 1.7% lately. I finally did a test on different sections of the bush yesterday. I isolated mainlines, as almost all sugar maple come on one mainline. The swamp reds and silvers were at 1.7, and the sugars were like 1.65, virtually identical! I sure expected the sugars to win!

Tim

[JohnsSugarShack]

At best I'm averaging 2% on my sap and if I figured right I averaged 48:1 for syrup, plus what's still in my evaporator.

[Maplesedge]

Two boils at 54:1, one at 72:1, but I had a lot of "tea" and rum on that one.

[theschwarz1]

Here in North Central Pa we have been averaging 49 51 gal sap to 1 gal syrup.

My friend measured my sap and I'm averaging at 3.2 sugar content. ..looks like trees out in the wide open along a stream fare quite well...still not the volume of last year.....is it to late to hit some big old lawn trees?

[Bucket Head]

Your hedge row, front yard and roadside tree's always do better than tree's that are in the woods. They got to grow without competition and received more light their whole lives. They have larger canopies than those in the woods. More leaves in the summer translates to a higher sugar content in the spring.

All we tap are roadside, hedgerow and yard trees for that reason. If you have access to some of those go ahead and drill 'em! I'm going to put out a few more buckets on some front yard trees this weekend.

Now if we could just get some good sap runnin' weather...

Steve

[globetrotter]

I had a great run from a black maple that was struck by lighting.
In 3 days on 3/19-21 I gathered on bags 18 gals of sap with over 3% sugar.
I don't understand why its did so well. Does this make sense?

[ejmaple]

globetrotter i've had some of the same results in my lower bush that suffered havy damage from last years ice storm. i've read trees that are stressed will produce higher volume and sugar % sap than healthy trees. there wasn't much other info on how and why but just it happens.

[maple flats]

Can't yet be absolute because I'm not yet done but mine is looking like 40-41 to a gal. I'll know for sure when I finish off the pans.

[sapman]

My bush sap of late has been 1-1.3%. The 200~ roadsides were at 2.4 Sunday.

[tomslusher]

I started out close to 40:1 but the last few weeks I am getting closer to 30:1. Sunday I boiled 40 gallons and recieved 5 quarts and 1 pint of syrup. Twice my 4 gallon buckets were spilling over on several of my trees after 24 hours. Same thing last year. But there are a few exceptional trees with huge canopies in our woods.

I have 25 taps (first few weeks only 20) and I could have gotten 8 - 9 gallons of syrup. There was an incident when I sort of forgot about the syrup (watching the UFC fight saturday night) and once we had to dump 40 gallons of sap because it was dumped into a soapy barrel.

I have 60 gallons of sap left to boil and I am done. The trees are still running a bit but some buckets are getting mold in them and it is suppose to hit 80 degrees the next few days.

I'm pretty happy with the season, even though it was only my second year. Now, what to upgrade for next year????

Thanks for everything you guys taught me, you are all invaluable!!

tomslusher

[JohnsSugarShack]

Previously I'd posted that I was getting 48:1 but now that I've wrapped up the season my actual ratio was 36.8:1 which was a lot better than I was expecting.

[caseyssugarshack93]

Maybe you guys need some of these trees if you sugar % is soo low

http://www.youtube.com/user/BirchMapleResearch#p/a/u/0/NorpEH6vnAc

[cur dog]

Bear with me guys, the kids and I are new to this. I've always tapped the roadside sugars on our farm. Around here you never really hear anyone talking about tapping red Maple or what we call soft maple. I've got a south slope with a couple hundred young soft maple. Its really got my wheels turning thinking about the future.

What kind of ratio could I expect from the Reds? We've always figured 40to1. on the sugars.

[maple flats]

The rule of 86 prevails. Devide 86 by the sap sugar % and that gives your ratio. If 2%, 86/2=43 so 2% it takes 43 gal sap to make 1 gal syrup, or you need to remove 42 gal water.

[cur dog]

Ok, thats handy info. Without tapping any of these trees, is there any basic rule of thumb for the soft, or red maple? How much sugar compared the the Sugar Maple? Would it be somewhere around 50to1?

[cur dog]

Any rule of thumb for the soft maple? I hate to spend alot of time and money to find out I should have stuck with my roadside and North slope sugars. Any advise is appreciated.

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

Any season could be better than last. I got more already this year than the whole year lasy year. My cousin usually gets 200 gallons of syrup on a normal slow year. He got 140 last year and 290 the year before.

[Rossell's Sugar Camp]

Any rule of thumb for the soft maple? I hate to spend alot of time and money to find out I should have stuck with my roadside and North slope sugars. Any advise is appreciated.

i dont think that it woujld be a waste of money at all. i know a uy with 40% reds. Any tree you can tap. Do it. He has 1200 taps and makes 200-290 gallons of syrup a year.

[adk1]

yeah, I flagged my maples the other day. I have a few reds that I will tap since they are there. I might put them on buckets though instead of the tubing. Everyone says that they turn quicker than the sugars do

[sapman]

I checked my sugars against the softs last year once or twice. They ran neck and neck for sugar %. I do think the sugars gave me more volume, but all softs come in on a series of sap ladders.

[3rdgen.maple]

You ready RED MAPLE lol Leave No Maple Behind if you gott'em tapp'em.