To throw ice away or not ?

[smokeyamber]

Ok, so it's cold here and I have lots of ice , in buckets, pans, storage containers of sap. Popular idea is to chuck the ice and the remaining liquid will be the more concentrated sap. My question : is this true ?

I hate to be throwing sap away since I don't boil alot, but I also hate wasting wood to melt ice if it's got no sugar in it.

Was there any scientific test done to prove either way ?

Thanks !

[PerryW]

Drink some of the sap and you will notice how sweet is. I chuck my ice as there's not enough sugar to waste wood on. It's the poor man's RO. Course, if the whole bucket is frozen solid I wouldn't, but I try to avoid that.

[adk1]

We recently tested this theory. We took enough solid ice off and let it melt. added the now unfrozen "water" to the hydro cup and with the sap hydrometer measured the brix. It was exactly 2%.

[happy thoughts]

Dr Perkins posted something about this just a week or two ago. He cited research that concluded that there was enough sugar content in frozen sap to make it worth processing.

Personally, I would never toss ice, For one, I don't usually get enough sap to be that wasteful. And logically, to think that sap ice contains no sugar just makes no sense to me. The fact that if temps get low enough whole buckets of sap will freeze kind of blows the theory that only water freezes off sap, to my mind at least.

[RileySugarbush]

Ice around the rim and top of a bucket will have nearly no sugar in it. If a bucket freezes nearly to the center then sugar is being frozen on the inner edge. As it thaws, sometimes the outer edges will thaw first releasing mostly water and leaving some of the more concentrated stuff locked in ice.

Once a bag has frozen solid we don't throw out the ice. Clearly all the sugar is still in there! If it is partially frozen, then the ice along the edges can be thrown away.

[smokeyamber]

Whew, I have thrown some away, but mostly I have been using it. I found the note from Dr. Perkins and will keep it from now on. If I get buried in sap I may have to chuck some since I don't have enought storage or wood to do it all anyway, but for now I am keeping up boiling a few hours each night. Guess I need to ... upgrade

[steve J]

Well you are not alone with frozen sap I have 50 buckets either full or 3/4 full frozen solid as a rock and two large holding tanks frozen solid. When the weather starts to warm tomorrow my holding tanks have some capacity left but 2/3 of the buckets are full and frozen this has been a tough spring so far but rest of week looks great once thise freeze breaks.

[DrewCP]

I just picked up a sap hydrometer last weekend. My 20 gallon test bin with ice formed on top and sides had the liquid sap @ +/- 3.5% with the thawed ice sap measuring @ +/- 1.25%. We have always boiled down our ice but I may rethink now.

[RileySugarbush]

Exactly, Drew!

If you value your time and fuel, think about tossing out the ice on the edge of the bucket. If you want every possible drop of syrup, melt and boil it all.


25 gallons of the freeze concentrated sap to get a gallon of syrup. 2.5 hours to get a gallon if SmokeyAmber's barrel evaporator boils at 10gph.

69 gallons or nearly 7 hours to get the gallon out of the ice, not including the time and energy to melt it.

It is all about priorities.

[smokeyamber]

steve J, Bet you are loving the mud this year in Middlesex... I managed to get my buckets mostly empty, problem is my collection buckets froze solid !

Sounds better for later in week. Gotta go cut some more wood ( dead standing stuff... ) or I will run out of it just when I need it.

In Middlesex, Vt waiting on the sap.