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Black birch makes a flaky precipitate. Thursday (4-25-2024), I let some simmered 4% settle at room temp in a half gallon jar tilted 45 degrees. Next morning, the junk was stuck to the side walls....

Read this thread quickly so might have missed: Has anyone tried setting with quart or half gallon jars tilted 45 degrees? Vibrating to speed up settling?

Current Black Birch Experimenter
Have...

The insert on page 7-30 of NAMSPM includes the following:

"If sap is concentrated to maple syrup density using only a method like RO or freeze-drying, the result is a nearly
colorless, tasteless...

The '500' is actually 2 each 100s and 2 each 150s. The pumps are an 8852-2J03-B424 and another the same but B423. My thinking on moving the 5 Micron filter to the intake side of the pump was that...

Started with 2 x 75's on an 8800 and now up to 500 on same pump. Nice to get water out faster but can't tell any difference in ultimate (flow gets down to almost nothing / stalls) concentration....

Is the same pump going to get sap to a higher ultimate concentration level with a 75 or 150 gpd membrane?

Pressure: Running homemade 4 memb 500 gpd with 8800 pump. Chicken out at 100 psi due 125 psi max 5 micron housing warning. Down to trickle then anyway. What would happen if I put 5 mic upstream...

I freeze-thaw quite a bit. Just tried the 1.6 gallons of 3.5% birch and got 1 quart of 4.8%. It froze overnight as opposed to taking over 2 days to freeze and over 2 days to thaw a 5 gallon bucket....

Last night, I did first black birch RO of the season on 15 gallons. Like last year, about 3.5% max. This is same 100 psi max system on which I recently got maple, sycamore and black walnut to almost...

Is it common for the first sap out of a tree to be significantly higher Brix than it will be even 3 days later?

In another thread, I saw a 0 ppm chlorine tolerance as the reason to use permeate or spring water. When my permeate is gone, I have to drive an hour to get spring water. Then I have to heat that on...

Somewhere I think I read you can get most of the pectin out of black walnut sap if you let it sit in almost freezing temps for a week and strain. Have not tried that but if it happens with beech,...

On the Facebook black walnut page, a fellow fairly new to RO said beech sap clogged the membranes so badly they had to be discarded. Quote from post:

"I was also experimenting with beech this...

Aside from experience, how do you decide if concentrate is "bad"? Appearance / opacity? Smell? Taste? pH? Brix decrease?

I need to clarify that question. These are 2 gallon and 5 gallon size batches in commercial freezers. I always figured frozen (0 F to 10 F) would keep indefinitely like orange juice concentrate (if...

How long will frozen sap and concentrate (0 to 10 F) last?

Realize your post was 12 years ago. In NE TN, we have made black birch syrup a couple of years. Brix ranging from .5 to 1.0. Second year with RO assist, I simmered at or below 200F and you could...

How about if you freeze the concentrate?

2004: 1st Maple Syrup Festival at Tipton Haynes-Historic Site
2022: Ropey syrup from black birches - built RO 2 x 75 and 2 x 100
2023: Discovered...

At 33 F, you may have frozen and thawed sap resulting in an up to 12% sugar concentration at the bottom of the vessel. Put the intake in that and it will stop a 6% capable system in its tracks.

Recently, I changed out a membrane and noticed a thicker than water "drool". Tasted it and it was slightly sweet but not unpleasant. There were no ill effects. Saturday, there was a LOT of it in...