Anyone tap red's? I was wondering what your ration has been. I've been getting past two years about 60:1
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Anyone tap red's? I was wondering what your ration has been. I've been getting past two years about 60:1
about 10% of my trees are red and the sugar content runs between
50-60/1.
A friend taps about 100 reds, and we figure ratio wasn't too bad, usually 40-45:1 I think, but our diligence in tracking things wasn't very good.
I tap pleanty of the reds and worst I got to was 57.3:1. If I didn't tap them, I wouldn't have much around to tap, so I don't mind the extra boiling and the syrup still tastes great to me.
I think they get a bad wrap, and may be true some of the time but not something you can say is true all of the time. They aren't the plague, still a maple tree and still run.
I sent you a pretty detailed PM.
Maybe since I am more north they are sweeter, or maybe it is just because I pat them before I tap them :wink: They were running on average 2% which is basically what any sugaring model is based on.
If I had 10,000 2foot sugars on a hill side behind my house, yeah I'd get them first. But I don't. Don't pass up sugars but if you got reds drill em and fill em.
You go with what GOD gives you :!: :!: :lol:
When I first started sugaring I would only tap sugars and thought that reds were only good for firewood. I now have about 150 taps in reds and those are on vacuum. The lower sugar content and it isn't much lower doesn't bother me because with the RO machine it all goes into the evaporator at 8 %. The season always seems to end here before the buds open enough to change the flavor of the syrup and if it did the price for comercial syrup is high enough to sell it in bulk.
Russ
Mine are all reds, and I get about 60:1 too. Sadly, my buckets (on the ground) are under 20" of snow!
I don't know what my % is, but I find the biggest problem I have with reds is inconsistent with sap output. I have two reds next to each other about the same size. One has a bucket overflowing, while the other wasn't even worth collecting. I find the sugars are much more consistent. This is based on my small sample set of ~15 reds.
You can buy a refractometer on ebay for under 25.00 - No more guessing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pyro
I have similar issues. I tap all reds and certain trees are always better than others each year. Some days I have trees with almost nothing and other overflowing.