Having used 5/16 on a steep hillside and experimenting last year with 3/16 on same hillside 3/16 is clearly vastly superior. I have added still more taps to the 3/16 this year.
Having used 5/16 on a steep hillside and experimenting last year with 3/16 on same hillside 3/16 is clearly vastly superior. I have added still more taps to the 3/16 this year.
110 taps W.F Mason 2x3 and two turkey friers for finishing
2011 expanding to a Mason 2x4 with a blower increasing taps to about 200
2011 Hurricane Irene rips thru my small sugar bush cost me to lose 20% of taps
2014 I have reworked my lines for 2014
32 taps on 5/16 line with check valves
57 taps on 3/16 line with check valves
55 buckets with total tapped trees of 144
How many taps were on each line, and how many feet of drop did you have below the bottom-most tap? Do you know the gallons-per-tap average for each run?Originally Posted by steve J
Boulder Trail Sugaring
150 Taps on Vacuum
Homemade 20"x40" Hybrid Pan - 15 gph
Homemade Steamaway - 10 gph
Waterguys single-post RO
Tim Wilmot (the UVM Maple Extension Specialist who came up with the idea of using 3/16" tubing) has always included 5/16" tubing as a "control" when he compared sap yields. His studies are available on the PMRC website.
The 3/16" tubing has always far out-produced the 5/16". To make 5/16" generate natural vacuum, you need a good number of taps (25-50) and a good drop (like you do with 3/16" tubing), but even then it doesn't produce nearly as good a vacuum and isn't nearly as good as self-perpetuating the process. The 5/16" lines are big enough so that they drain to some degree after the run stops, whereas 3/16" will not due to the capillarity of the tube. So the vacuum tends to continue even if the sap slows greatly or even stops for a while in 3/16", whereas it usually will not in 5/16" tubing, meaning that you need to wait until it freezes again for the next run.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
I guess That pretty well sums it up, I'm going to try the 3/16. In 2 runs of 25+/-. Thanks everyone for sharing your experience.
I have about 12000 feet of 3/16 on steep grade- average 20-25 taps per lateral. a control plot (100 taps of new 3/16) doubled 2 and 3 year old 5/16 tubing. Yield per tap in 2014 was 6 /gallon versus 12.6 for 3/16. vacuum gauge showed 18 inches vacuum below the last tap on 3/16. In places I will run two 3/16 into 5/16 via a wye. to equalize vacuum on each 3/16 I run a loop from below the wye back to each small line- in this way one line cannot hog all the flow. In total I will run up to 60-70 taps on 5/16 ,using it as a small mainline taking sap straight to tank. I am tearing out older large laterals- patching together to use as mainline, and replacing laterals with DG small lines
Just to throw a question out there. What kind of slop are you calling enough to run 3/16 line I have herd that on a low grade slop it really does not perform well how much is 2 little slope?
2 1/2 x 10 with steam away leader drop flue inferno arch.
550 in gravity
It is not the degree of slope, but rather is the amount of elevation DROP you have from your taps to where the sap exits the 3/16" tubing (either into a mainline or a tank of some sort). For each 1 ft drop you get "roughly" 1"Hg of vacuum.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
I put up 3 lines of 3/16 the other day. I put 35, 30, and 26 taps on each line. My trees are on a a gentle slope and then it drops off pretty good to the tank so that I do get the drop at the end of the line that is neccessary. My concern is that I had to run 1100-1300 feet of tubing per line to get to my tank, 600-800 feet from the last tap on the lines. Is that going to be an issue? From what I have read the length of the line doesn't seem to be a big concern as long as you have the drop. I also have a pretty high number taps on each line so I should have enough sap in the line, right? Its my first experience with tubing so it is a learning process.
and that is from each tap correct? For instance, my furthest uppermost tap is basically at 1,077 feet. The end of my mainline dumping into my tank at the sugarhouse is at 966 feet, therefore I have 111 feet of elevation difference. I also have taps next to the sugarhouse that are probably at 967 feet or 10 feet above the outlet of the mainline. each tap will have a different Hg I would take it?
FIRST GENERATION SUGARMAKER
First boil 2/22/2012! Went Pefect!
3,500' of laterals
1,000' of mainline
2012 - 105 taps on gravity, 12 sap sacks.
2013 - 175 taps on gravity, 25 on sacks = 200 taps for 2013! Second year.
2014 - 250 taps on gravity, 25 on sacks
Tapped on February 16, 2014
2015 - adding vac sap puller no more gravity for me!
275 gallon holding tank for 2014
20'x30' Sugarhouse
If your sugarhouse is at 957 feet then every tap above 987 should have max. vac. The ones 10 feet higher than at the sugarhouse would have about 10".
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