Backyard Syrup Enthusiasts 2020

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Originally Posted by West Sumner Sugar

It is recommended that you change your taps yearly. Obviously not many of us could afford to do this. But as the years go by bacteria forms in the taps and tees and when the sap slows at night it causes the bacteria to back into the tree which will cause it to heal up hence shortening your season. Changing the taps and tees/drop lines should get us back to year 1 production rates. We are also testing check valve taps this year to see if there are any benefits to this.

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Let me know if you see a more pronounced production rate with check valve taps v. regular ones, I would be interested in hearing! Hopefully your new evap comes soon especially since you sold your old one!

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Originally Posted by West Sumner Sugar

....Lots of new drop lines to prep. 5 years on tees and taps is to long as we have seen huge drops in production on our original 3/16 runs, even with Shurflo's on them.

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By that point, just from a sanitation standpoint, you'd be down to about 50-60% of Yr 1 sap yield. It could be even less if you had serious plugging issues.

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Originally Posted by Tuckeradams2012

Let me know if you see a more pronounced production rate with check valve taps v. regular ones, I would be interested in hearing!

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Lots of research information on the subject of sanitation influences of spouts and drops on yield at: https://mapleresearch.org/search/?_sf_s=sanitation

Thank you

I change out my drops and tees yearly so I just wanted to make sure.

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Originally Posted by DrTimPerkins

By that point, just from a sanitation standpoint, you'd be down to about 50-60% of Yr 1 sap yield. It could be even less if you had serious plugging issues.

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You are correct, we used to think we had leaks in the system resulting in lower yield. Hoping to be back at 100% or close to it with new tees, drops and taps.

If our 3/16” line works good, I think I’m going to try:
Year 1: all new with smartspouts
Year 2: new tees and zap bacs
Year 3: new tees only
Year 4: all new again and restart cycle

Only 34 taps for us so not really a cost issue. I do not plan on trying to clean the lines.

How about boiling taps for 10 minutes like you're purifying water? Will that kill the bacteria? I'm essentially thrifty at heart, but I don't want to sacrifice sap flow just to save $20. I have been boiling taps each year since 2013 just because it seemed like a good idea. I boil my drill bit too.

I've done that and had good results. Now saying that those have been taps for buckets hanging on trees and taps with tubing down to 5 gallon buckets. I do add baking soda to the water while boiling, then put the taps in.

Probably a silly question, but why the baking soda?

Helps to clean some of the wood debris off the taps.