Planning for next year's syruping

[snakes14009]

Hello everyone. It has been 25 years since I was involved in making maple syrup. And this coming year will be my first where I have my own sugar shack and all the fun that encompasses. One thing I am planning on doing is building my own arch including my own divided flat pans. So I have to figure how how many taps I have and how big of evaporator I want.


My questions are this. I have not counted all th trees yet but so far my tap count is 8 silver 60 reds 30 sugar. So if I tap my soft maples how do I count those when I am trying to size my arch. The do not run as reliably at sugar maple? So do plan on them producing half the sap?

I noticed this past spring the silver maple in my back yard would run when the sugat maple wouldn't but in never seemed to run as hard as the sugar maple did?

Just looking for some real world experience with tapping soft maples and how much sap they produce. Thank you in advance. This forum has been great to see all the different sugar makers ideas and information.

[Haynes Forest Products]

Boy reminds me of planning a family get together. Best thing I did was ask everyone to send in a photo of themselves so I could guess how much food I would need.

Count the trees and go bigger. anyone with a formula is guessing.

[minehart gap]

Snakes, this past year I tapped approximately 65% red maple, 35% sugar maple with 3/16 tubing and had good gravity vacuum. The years average was a little better than 19 gallon per tap. I honestly couldn't tell you if the sugars ran better than the reds but I had several runs of 2 gallon per tap per day.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

Figure out how many taps you have access to and don't get hung up on which trees run best. Weather and things you have no control over play the biggest role in that game. Sounds like you're probably in the popular 2x6 size evaporator area. If you stay around 100, a 2x4 would be enough but is limiting room for expansion. A 2x6 will handle up to 400+ taps with the right add-ons (preheaters, blower, hood, etc.) Or more with advanced technology like RO's. At 100 taps to start you could buy with a 2x6 with no bells and whistles and add to it as needed if your tap count grows.
We have about 400+ taps, probably 65% reds and 35% sugars with a mix of sizes and just went with a 2x6 oil. We did it for years on a 2x5 flat pan/barrel evaporator but we were doing 10-12 hour boils. Our reds give plenty of sap, just at a lower sugar content than sugars which puts our ratio around 52:1 overall most years. Picking up the new evaporator after Memorial Day, PRETTY EXCITED.

[maple flats]

A 2x6 flat pan will not handle 400 taps, it should boil away about 12-14 GPH if the arch is designed properly and you have good dry wood, with good draft. Then just figure how many hours you have to boil. As stated above, even with 3/16 gravity vacuum you can get 2 gal/tap/day on good days. Do the math.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

I missed that snakes stated he was looking at flat pans. My suggestion for a 2x6 was for a flue pan evaporator set up. Our 2x5 flat pan would boil 15-18 gph with dry hardwood, a blower and preheater that got the sap to 160 degrees. We did do 400 5/16" gravity taps but it was a lot of boiling to keep up with it and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 200 would have been much more manageable.

[Haynes Forest Products]

I keep coming back to what fun it was boiling sap the first few years in a kettle on the gravel driveway. Then the obsession started and I went sap happy. Then the spiraling out of control. That is when the helpful friends start to fade away and reality sinks in..........................I'M CRAZY and everyone knows it.

As Maple Flats said it best do the math. Buy the biggest evaporator you can't afford and then tap accordingly. there is nothing worse than having a "GOOD" year and the inability to cook all the sap that is pouring in. Then you don't make it out to the woods and the sap turns yellow and now you need to dump them and they stink............and the dang trees are still running. Are you kidding me TREES TAKE A BREAK PLEASE. Your getting low on wood and the wife is pissed because she hates pancakes and the kids are no help and you need to get them signed up for Pee Wee soccer and your the assistant coach. Nice thinking on that one. Your down to one hand because you reached into the cool white mist that was hanging over the flat flue pan...........Really how hot can it be HOT HOT HOT

YUP do the math and then a simple mission statement. How much time and effort can I really devote to this sport of maple syrup.

[maple flats]

One other option comes to mind. Arrange with another local producer to either buy your extra sap when you get swamped or to process it on shares.
I do that with 3 other producers locally, but it's mostly just one who is somewhat routine. He has a 2x4 drop flue and a real small RO and he taps between 250-300 roadside taps. On slower flows he can handle it, but when the flow is real good, I process his surplus on shares.

[mainebackswoodssyrup]

there is nothing worse than having a "GOOD" year and the inability to cook all the sap that is pouring in. Then you don't make it out to the woods and the sap turns yellow and now you need to dump them and they stink............and the dang trees are still running. Are you kidding me TREES TAKE A BREAK PLEASE.

And that about summarizes my season hence the 2x6 oil coming next weekend!! But I still don't regret how we went about things. We started small and outgrew our flat pan. But we made a lot of syrup on that pan and had a total of $600 in it. Big deal.........not a lot of money lost there. It's the guys that buy too small of everything (evaporator, RO, tanks, etc.) that really can take a beating if they outgrow their original setup. You can start small and work on upgrades as you grow, just be smart about it. And as a small producer, it likely will take forever, if at all to pay for itself so just realize that as well. It's still making syrup which is fun- big or small.

[snakes14009]

To everyone,
I appreciate the advice. The more I think about it, the more I want to build a 2x6 arch and flat pans. If I decide to upgrade the pans later the new 2x6 pans available sound like they will handle a lot of taps. My grandfather used to tap just the sugars and with a 2x4 he said more than a few runs he would get over whelmed. I do not plan to make into a business yet but you know how plans change. I am going to keep an ear and eye if I can find a 2x6 for sale I might buy instead of build. But after just buying a house and buying all the other equipment that goes with syruping its hard to swallow thousands of dollars for an evaporator. I will be a fun adventure either way. I just wish I had my fathers evaporator still it was drop flue copper pan....