new to the forum and tapped my first trees a week and a half ago...

[happy thoughts]

If I could find one for that price I'd go for it, too. But some of us are far from dealers. Last year I found one at a hardware store and they were asking $32. That's about the same price as mail order with shipping and handling. Then you need a test cup which is even more expensive than the hydrometer. And with my luck I'd use it once and break it, lol. I can buy a gallon and a half of syrup for less than that and save a whole lot of work for myself. But where's the fun in that

[DaveB]

Hydrometers are around $18 at the dealers. Even my first year with a dozen taps, I felt a hydrometer was worth the money. Take the money you would spend on a thermometer and put it towards a hydrometer. You will have perfect syrup.

A thermometer is nice to have to watch the temperature rise. A hydrometer doesn't do much good unless it's really close and then you have to stop, measure and start again while a thermometer would tell you how far off you go. I also remember a few batches where I barely had enough syrup to fill the testing cup and my father finally reminded me that it was fine the way it was and didn't have to be "perfect" for our use.

I would just like to say welcome to Alcontrast and that there's nothing wrong with making syrup for yourself using a thermometer. I preferred the taste test myself when I was first starting out.

[alcontrast]

assuming I make syrup again next year I'm definitely moving away from the turkey fryer method! It's easy and convenient just slow with the tall narrow 11gallon pot! I realize this isn't a fast process no matter how it's done but I can tell the pot is definitely slowing things down to some degree..


I'm currently finishing sap I started this weekend.. about 22 gallons of sap (roughly) and I's reduced down to around 4 gallons at the moment.. I'm away for work all week but I think I may just bring this 4 gallons down to 2 and store it in my fridge until the weekend. Then I can do a bigger boil (I have around 35-40 gallons collected now and should have another 25 or so by the weekend) and add the mostly reduced sap to that.. Then finish it all as one decent sized batch.. It seems easier to do that but....

Are there any concerns with a week in the refrigerator for 90% reduced sap aside from leaving something like a bunch of asparagus in there as well and ending up with some slightly odd flavored syrup? I'll seal the sap pot with shrink wrap and then put the lid on it to avoid contamination and it will just be for 6 days at most..

[markct]

I wouldn't worry about putting it in the fridge, my evaporator stays full in the sugarhouse all season, and at times we end up going a week or more with no sap to boil and never had a problem at all

[Sapling]

Alcontrast - I also started with a turkey fryer propane burner and pot. It works, and we made some fine syrup that way. We stored the partially boiled sap in the refrigerator in a covered pot between boils and the finished syrup came out very good (clear light amber).

This year we upgraded to a “hotel pan” on the same turkey fryer burner. With the volume of sap you have, I think you could immediately benefit from the same change.

A “hotel pan” is the slang term for a steam table pan. We are using a “full size 6" deep” pan. Its just under 21" x 13". Google that description and you will see them. They are about $20 and provide for more than 2.5X the surface area of sap as compared to our 11.25" turkey fryer pot. Surface area is a key factor in evaporation rate.

Our evaporation rate more than doubled with this change. The steam table pan & propane burner is good for about 1gal per hour of evaporation. Most importantly, because we are using the same burner, the fuel consumption per hour is unchanged, but the evaporation rate is more than double. The other way to look at that is to say that by changing from the fryer pot to the steam table pan, we are using about half as much propane to do the same work. We saved the cost of the steam table pan in propane savings very quickly.

In fact, I added a second burner and pan when I saw how much better it worked. I have discovered/proven that propane is a very costly way to boil sap. But, propane is very convenient, and quick to start and stop. There is good reason why most people working with any real volume use wood fires. Im not quite there yet, but maybe some day.

Good luck and have fun!IMG_7155.jpg

[Littlesap]

Alcontrast, I too started w/steam table pans, in fact I still have them. Not sure where you are in central CT but if you want these just make me a reasonable offer and they're yours. I think there are either 3 or 4. You can buy cinder blocks from HD and build a nice little block arch for under $20, just make it narrow enough so the pans sit on top or rest the lip of the pans on the blocks. It will dramatically increase your evaporation rate and as long as you don't wet morter the blocks you can just take it apart and stack somewhere out of sight for the summer. LMK

[markct]

Littlesap, how is sugaring going down your way this year, having a decent year so far up here close to 100 gal syrup so far, the underground hobbit house is slowly filling with kegs of syrup! I have nearly all my taps on vac this year so that helps.

[Littlesap]

It started late for me, didn't get taps in for those few weekends in Feb but lately it has been flowing well. I only have 75 taps in this year but they're all on vac so I'm getting enough to have fund. Have a couple gallons finished and should finish this week w/a few more.

I was wondering how the hobbit house worked out, that's great to hear.

[markct]

Yup its all done and stayed about 37 deg inside all winter! I will post pics when i get on computer later. When you were here it was just a hole in the ground and a crazy idea with giant pipes laying around! I was pleasantly surprised to see this morning i got around 1000 gal of sap that ran since i pumped tanks at 3pm yesterday

[markct]

http://mapletrader.com/community/sho...up-underground


Thats the link to the thread on here with all the pics of my underground hobbit house as its become known, holds up to 100 of the 15 gal kegs