High vacuum in gravity tubing research

[Springfield Acer]

So, my idle thoughts between gathering a mother load of sap and scorching stuff has left me with the following thought trail:
It would seem that one would need 35' of fall to get max vac at the top and the vac gets less and less as you go down hill.
Therefore for best vac you would want to be 35' below your last tap which could be impossible due more maples along the way, topography, or property lines.
The best would be a sheer drop off at the end the bush.
However, why couldn't we flat landers tap at some normal slope radially to a cenrer point where you would have 40' deep well capped at the bottom?
Case it with PVC and put rock or concrete in the bottom to keep it from floating and then install submersible pump with float.
The. 3/16 drops would be of rigid tubing for neatness and clearance.
???????

[Gary R]

Springfield Acer, you must have been drinking your Famous Grouse for that one That is a very interesting idea. Many of us have no slope. Many runs of 3/16 going down the pipe 35'. Pump on the bottom with a float to turn on when it get 5' deep of sap? I like it. Would it work? People spend a lot of money on a vacuum system.

My 60 taps on 3/16 just ran 110gal in 24 hours. The weather isn't even the best yet. I can't wait to total my gal./tap for the year!

[Springfield Acer]

I'm not sure how expensive of an experiment it would be but if it would work, you would get full vac on all taps and get the great vac results you got (or better) with no pump and only a light power supply for the pump.
We need a sap producer who is a well driller by trade to give it a try.

[cadocter]

I like that Springfield Acer! Maybe that will be on next year's to do list. Lol. I went and checked my 3/16 line today and to my surprise had over 3 gallon per tap today. I only have twelve taps on the line and came out with around 40 gallons. The weather wasn't even that great today. All of my other taps averaged about a gallon per tap today. Nice surprise, other than the fact I still have 150 gallons to boil off plus what I got today. Oh well, time for a bigger Evaporator.

[Gary R]

The sap has run great this last week. The 60 taps on 3/16 ran 588gal of sap the last 6 days. The season may only last another week for me. I wanted to post a few pictures. One is my collection tank so I know how much sap there is. Another is the flow of sap on two of my lines and how I wrapped around a tree to take tension of the line going into the tank. I wish I had a big bush to set up.

If anyone else has comments, good or bad, on their 3/16 systems please post it here. We all learn by posting it.
Copy of 3-16 volume measurement.JPGCopy of 3-16 high sap flow.JPGCopy of 3-16 line support.JPG

[Gary R]

The sap had slowed this week due to cold weather. It has now picked up big time. I collected 140gal. of sap off the 60 taps in the last 24hrs. The taps have been in since Feb. 9. I am now over 30gal. of sap per tap! I turned my vacuum off last week at only 22GPT.

[Springfield Acer]

That is so impressive that I cannot help to wonder about the 40' deep well with submersible pump for us flat landers.

[TRAILGUY]

The sap had slowed this week due to cold weather. It has now picked up big time. I collected 140gal. of sap off the 60 taps in the last 24hrs. The taps have been in since Feb. 9. I am now over 30gal. of sap per tap! I turned my vacuum off last week at only 22GPT.

details on set up?? Slope ,# taps per, all 3/16 tubing? I have 10 to 15 % slope deeper in the woods can I make then work on 3/16 never run vacuum to them

[Gary R]

The season ended for me yesterday. I ended up getting 1997gal of sap off of 60 taps, 33.3GPT. That was twice I was hoping for. This system worked incredible well for me. I'll recap the whole set up.

I used all 3/16 D&G tubing, no main lines. The only 5/16 was about a foot at every tap to transition to the CDL clear polycarbonate tap. The line from the highest tap to the next tap was 5/16. I did this because it is stronger for holding to the end tree. I had three separate runs. One, 450' with 22 taps, one 650' with 20 taps and the last, 650' with 18 taps. They ended in 55gal barrels for collection. My slope varies a lot. The top is about 5%, then I have a steep drop of about 30% then about 15% to the barrels. 50 of the taps have at least 30', up to 50' of total fall. I did not have any failures in the tubing (lines pulling off barbs). I tapped the trees on Feb. 9th and pulled them April 7th. We had a lot of cold weather here. I believe we would have a more sap if it was a few degrees warmer on the days it ran. I cleaned the lines as I pulled taps. The sap was still running when I pulled them. I used a bleach solution and started at the top. The tap was pulled and it sucked up the bleach. I then capped the old tap. Once I got to the bottom tap or two they did not suck the bleach up well. Probably because they were near the end of the line and did not have much vacuum on them. I then went back to the top and sucked in clean water to flush the bleach out. I left the top end open so that the lines drain well. I'll cap both ends tomorrow. Whether cleaning helps is still being researched. I plan on using CV2's next year.

This was a fun and very successful experiment. Thanks to Tim Wilmont and UV Proctor!

[TRAILGUY]

thanks gary your information is very understandable and points me in the right direction you got all most as much as i did on250 .
i have 8 to 15 % slope on 70 taps deeper in the wood the other 200 only have short 4 to 8 % slope so i do not think they would do much

are you saying you have a 30 foot drop after the last tap?????