New guy with 2x4 continuos flow. How many taps should I have for weekend boiling ?

[The Bee]

Tapped 25 trees last Sunday. Yesterday we collected approximately 30 gallons of sap. Made almost 4 pints of syrup. Last year we boiled on a 55 gallon drum and 2 banquet pans. Made 4 gallons with 23 taps. Bought a 2 x 4 and built a sugar shack. Had to push the season to see how it would all work out. SWEET. I can see we will need to get the rest of the taps in when the real season comes along. Would like to hear from anyone with 2 x 4 pan, who can only boil 2.5 days a week, how many taps they can handle.
Thanks Larry

[Big_Eddy]

Some thoughts for you.

A 2x4 flat pan will evaporate ~8 gals/ hour on average, assuming no blower.

If you can boil weekends only, (Friday 5-10, Sat 8-5, Sun 8-5) you comfortably have about 20-25 hours of boiling time a week, or up to 200 gallons of sap. You can push your boiling time as high as 40 hours by staying up late.

Over a typical week, a typical tree on buckets will produce 4-5 gallons of sap. So 40 trees would be comfortable.

In an exceptional week, those 40 trees could produce up to 10 gals each, or 400 gallons pushing you close to your theoretical maximum. What is your collection plan and how are you storing sap? If you have buckets on the trees and won't be collecting during the week, the bucket size becomes the limiting factor. If you are collecting daily into a central tank but only boiling weekends, then tank size becomes your limiting factor.

On the flip side - you can always dump sap you can't boil, but you can't boil sap you don't have. I'd be tapping extra trees and dumping sap in the exceptional weeks to make up for weeks with a poor flow. Or take a day mid-week and boil.

I kept up with 100 trees on a 2x3 arch for many years working full time during the week. I would occasionally have to dump sap, and I would often boil from Friday at 4 straight through to 2-3am Monday, but it was what I had at the time and I made do. I did have the option for a mid-week boil though and would do 1 or 2 each season.

[The Bee]

Thanks Big Ed,
I have 270 gallon tank. My plan was 70 taps all on buckets and collect every day. Maybe I should cut back a little ? I can probably give excess away. Hoping to spend a lot of time boiling. This certainly is the maple syrup fever every one has said you get affected by. Thanks again for you input.
Larry

[Big_Eddy]

70 sounds reasonable to me. I would start there. You'll be up to 100 next year anyway

[psparr]

There was a thread on here a year or two ago about someone marketing sap as a health drink. If you live near a big liberal city, you might have a market.

[Rockport]

I am a weekend boiler too ! have new 2x4 from sunrise and plan on 35 taps to start and up it to 75 in a week . Have a 300g tank and pumping it to a 200 above and gravity into the evap. hope it works out well ...

[eustis22]

if you only boil weekends how do you keep your sap during the week? I find I can't count on cold temps so I have to throw a midweek boil in so my sap doesn't go bad.

"dump sap".....what does this mean?

[kiteflyingeek]

eustis22,

Dump sap == pour it on the ground

Basically, if it starts to go bad the only real solution is to pour it out.

--andrew

[spud]

Tapped 25 trees last Sunday. Yesterday we collected approximately 30 gallons of sap. Made almost 4 pints of syrup. Last year we boiled on a 55 gallon drum and 2 banquet pans. Made 4 gallons with 23 taps. Bought a 2 x 4 and built a sugar shack. Had to push the season to see how it would all work out. SWEET. I can see we will need to get the rest of the taps in when the real season comes along. Would like to hear from anyone with 2 x 4 pan, who can only boil 2.5 days a week, how many taps they can handle.
Thanks Larry

Tap more then you can handle. It's better to have to much then not enough for the weekend boil. Store your sap each night and then throw all the ice out each morning. By doing this your sap amount will drop but your sugar count will rise. By weekend you might have 3-5% sugar. You could make 2-5 gallons of syrup each day by doing this. If your tapping big maples that are road side the sugar might be 3% already. If you could bring it up to 5% it would only take 17 gallons to make a gallon of syrup. You could do that in two hours. Just a thought.

Spud

[The Bee]

I appreciate the input. Last year when it looked like warm weather was coming I froze 2 liter bottles and put them in the sap. I will try to tap more then I think I can handle, a friend of mine will take any excess.
Thanks Larry