How many trees is too many?

I'm not familiar with that brand but I've had great luck with the Membrane Solutions brand. They recently asked me to partner with them and do a video review (will be posted in Jan) and are offering 10% discounts on their products through 6/30.

Lots of people use the 150 gpd but they are much slower at removing permeate from the sap than the 400 gpd ones. With 84 taps on 3/16 you should buy a couple of 400s and the coronwater 8900 pump. If you start too small you will be upgrading next year and probably want to move to multiple 400s vs. a 150.

Partnership / discount links below.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BT6HZNH （400 GPD RO housing）
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BPSFLNW （150 GPD RO membrane，2 Pack）
10% off Code：ROSEUMRO102

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071SGLF18 （400 GPD RO membrane，1 Pack）
10% off Code：ROSEUMRO10

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Originally Posted by DRoseum

I'm not familiar with that brand but I've had great luck with the Membrane Solutions brand. They recently asked me to partner with them and do a video review (will be posted in Jan) and are offering 10% discounts on their products through 6/30.

Lots of people use the 150 gpd but they are much slower at removing permeate from the sap than the 400 gpd ones. With 84 taps on 3/16 you should buy a couple of 400s and the coronwater 8900 pump. If you start too small you will be upgrading next year and probably want to move to multiple 400s vs. a 150.

Partnership / discount links below.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BT6HZNH （400 GPD RO housing）
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BPSFLNW （150 GPD RO membrane，2 Pack）
10% off Code：ROSEUMRO102

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071SGLF18 （400 GPD RO membrane，1 Pack）
10% off Code：ROSEUMRO10

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Thank you for the advice and code.

Oh to still have my house in Arizona. The cost for those in Canada are more than double the US price.

I 100% agree that the 400 gpd would be superior, but the 150’s are more affordable and are a good match for my evaporator. Likely the best case scenario for 8 hours of boiling is 60 to 80 gallons of sap, but it could be as low as 50 gallons.

A 150 gpd RO can run through 50 gallons of raw sap in 8 hrs. So if I ran 50 gallons of raw sap from 4 pm to midnight, then store that concentrate outside in the cold and then run another 50 gallons of raw sap from midnight to 8 am, that would give me 50 gallons of concentrate to boil.

Now if I get a fancy evaporator with more gph, that will mean I am divorced and I then can upgrade to 3, 400 membranes.

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Originally Posted by Swingpure

Now if I get a fancy evaporator with more gph, that will mean I am divorced and I then can upgrade to 3, 400 membranes.

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Nope, that means you only get half of what you started with. Just clowning around
But on a serious note, if you get buried in sap this spring and don't want it to spoil just give me a message, I only live 1.5 hrs.from Parry Sound and visit my mother who lives there frequently

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Originally Posted by Someclown

Nope, that means you only get half of what you started with. Just clowning around
But on a serious note, if you get buried in sap this spring and don't want it to spoil just give me a message, I only live 1.5 hrs.from Parry Sound and visit my mother who lives there frequently

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If I have any excess sap, I certainly will let you know, although I will work hard so there will be no excess.

You are in Prime fishing country!

It will be interesting to see when your sap flows compared to mine. I find the weather is different from Mac Tier to Parry Sound, Parry Sound to where I live, and then again to where you live.

With getting a pump for Christmas to pump out the sap from the collection barrels into the pails, it freed up some money and I am going ahead with building my DYI RO unit. It will be a budget one, but still should make a big difference. Today I ordered the Aquatec 8800 pump that is good for up to 200 gpd, I ordered two 150 gpd membranes and housings. (I likely will get a third later on) And I ordered the housing for the 5 micron filter. Over the next week, I will order the pressure gauge and the needle valve and then see if I can source the fittings and tubing locally.

The goal would be to concentrate 50 gallons of sap late afternoon and into the evening, store it outside in the cold and concentrate another 50 gallons of sap overnight. That should give me 50 gallons of sap to boil, which should take about 5 hours and hopefully give me 2.5 gallons of syrup. If I am not keeping up with the sap, I could concentrate more during the day and boil it as I am finishing up with the first 50 gallons

One RO question, when I first get it set up and flush the membranes, or when I clean the membranes by flushing, when you are done, you are left with water in the lines and the housings. When you start pumping the sap, do you just drain that water into a separate pail until you see sap come out? (Hopefully the sap looks different than water)

I learnt a new fact in watching a video from the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Associstion, which had a number of neat tips I did not know.

https://youtu.be/S73SSgsuupI

The new fact that is relevant to “How many trees is too many”, is that for trees with two taps, I counted them that in the perfect world I would get close to 20 gallons of sap from the two taps. What Ray Bonenberg says is not to expect 200% of the sap from a two tap tree, but to expect 135%.

Of my 84 current taps, 16 of them are double taps. That would make a big difference is the amount of syrup expected. In the perfect world instead of 84 lites of syrup (not counting any bonus from 3/16 line vacuum), I should only expect about 74 lites of syrup.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Swingpure

I learnt a new fact in watching a video from the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Associstion, which had a number of neat tips I did not know.

https://youtu.be/S73SSgsuupI

The new fact that is relevant to “How many trees is too many”, is that for trees with two taps, I counted them that in the perfect world I would get close to 20 gallons of sap from the two taps. What Ray Bonenberg says is not to expect 200% of the sap from a two tap tree, but to expect 135%.

Of my 84 current taps, 16 of them are double taps. That would make a big difference is the amount of syrup expected. In the perfect world instead of 84 lites of syrup (not counting any bonus from 3/16 line vacuum), I should only expect about 74 lites of syrup.

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I'm skeptical of this. In the graphic shown along with that claim it shows a tree that is only 18", or well under where I would put two taps in a tree. Obviously if you put two taps in a smaller tree you'll get less sap. Also, it showed a case where you've got 25" of vacuum. If you don't expect to get that much vacuum, I imagine you're going to get more than 35% increase from your second tap.

Certainly on buckets, where I don't add a second tap until the tree is at least 6' around (usually more), I see as much or more per bucket on those big old trees with two buckets as I see on a slightly smaller tree with one bucket.

GO

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Originally Posted by DRoseum

Also - 50 to 60 trees is going to keep you very busy on a 4 or 5 steam pan block arch. General rule of thumb is about 1 gallon per hour of evaporation per square foot of pan. Assuming excellent efficiency that might put you in the 8 - 10 gph evaporation range. On a decent run you will get 2 gallons per tap. Average day will be more like 0.5 - 1 gallon per tap. So low end would be 25 gallons per day, resulting in 4+ hr boil. On a big day, you could have 120 gallons, resulting in a 15 hr boil.

Have you considered building a small Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit to cut your boiling time and wood usage in half or even more?

Its the absolute best thing I did. It let's me tap way more trees, use way less fuel and get it done way faster. There is tons of info on this site about how to build a small scale DIY unit. They are reasonably priced when you do it yourself.

I'd be glad to give you some recommendations on this as well. I have built 2 of these. One used the biggest aquatec pump and the 2nd used the biggest coronwater pump (even high flowrate). I moved up from 36 trees to 100 when I made that change.

RO basics: https://youtu.be/s106bSrcfno
2nd unit I built: https://youtu.be/9_Eq_sq6Tp0

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Dan, I just wanted to thank you for the links to your RO videos. I just rewatched them and they are very helpful. I basically designed mine after the one in your first video. Sorry I did not start off with a 400 gpd membrane, but maybe that will make next year’s budget expenditures.

The only thing I am missing is the pressure switch, but I should never run short of sap, as I will run the concentrate back into the gathering tank. Not much sap should actually be recirculated, as the pump should only be on as long as it takes to process what was initially in the gathering tank.

If I actually build a good (but small) sugar shack next year, I may redesign things.

Thanks again.

Gary

Anytime Gary! Those pumps can run dry and the pressure switch isn't really worth it in my opinion. The level sensor i used on my 2nd unit worked much better anyways. As for the 150 vs 400, no apologies needed! Just enjoy building it and if you have questions, the group here will do our best to answer them!

Re: 1 vs 2 taps. Important factors are tree size and vacuum level (and somewhat taphole placement). The video ( apparently based on UVM Proctor Maple Res Ctr research since some of those figures/photos are ours) as well as how the season plays out (duration of sap runs) is an oversimplification of the issue.

On gravity, in trees 18” or above two taps may yield double one tap or slightly less.

On vacuum the yield is often less than that with the gain being a function of vacuum level. Of course higher vacuum will yield more from one tap (larger collecting volume within tree, but not exactly as shown in the video). By the time you get to 28” Hg, the added yield is very marginal for an 18” tree in most yrs, and increases as tree size increases.

Some info here. https://mapleresearch.org/pub/m0613y...ortwotapholes/ note that the vacuum level wasn’t especially high in that work. We’ve completed 5 yrs of more recent work on this (3 yrs red maple, 2 yrs sugar maple) and have at least one more yr to go before finalizing the project. Stay tuned.