Namelesspoet, find that study, I don't believe both the liquid and the ice once thawed had the same sugar%. I never heard of any study showing that.
Namelesspoet, find that study, I don't believe both the liquid and the ice once thawed had the same sugar%. I never heard of any study showing that.
Dave Klish, I recently ordered a 2x6 wood fired evaporator from A&A Sheet Metal which I will be converting to oil fired
Now have solar, 2x6 finish pan, 5 bank 7x7 filter press, large water jacketed bottler, and tankless water heater.
Recently bought another Gingerich RO, this one was a 125, but a second membrane was added thus is a 250, like I had.
After running a 2x3, a 2x6, 3x8 tapping from 79 taps up to 1320 all woodfired, now I'm going to a 2x6 oil fired and a 200-425 taps.
The sweet will not be frozen in the middle, it will be in the bottom of the container. There will be some sugar in the ice. The closer to the top the less sugar there will be.
Stinson and Willits in the Maple Syrup Digest Vol. 2, No. 2. 1963. http://www.maplesyrupdigest.org/?m=196302
The summary is below:
Summary
1. Do not discard ice from partially frozen or melted sap. The value of sugar lost with the ice exceeds the gain from lower oil consumption.
2. Dipping frozen sap in plain water or fresh sap has no advantage.
3. Discarding centrifuged ice which has been crushed or rinsed is advantageous. However, this procedure would not be practical due to the high cost of centrifuging.
4. Discarding the ice from partially frozen sap appears economical only under unusual condition wherein an evaporator house could not process all of the sap supply or a maple farmer could not haul all of his sap run. Under these rarely encountered circumstances it would be advantageous to process only the liquid portion of the mixture since syrup solids are greater in the liquid phase.
Keep in mind that this was done when oil was so cheap that houses had very little insulation because it was cheaper to burn fuel.
A more recent smaller study is at: https://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cg...xt=elce_cscday , although this has some methodological issues (length of time over which it was conducted and spoilage/consumption of sugar by microbes).
That said, I think it can be a bit more complicated than that depending upon fuel and cost as well as time available. The ice that forms (especially at first) will be mostly water with very little sugar. As more of the liquid freezes, some sugar will get entrained into the ice. In general, if the bucket is 1/4 or less ice, I'd toss it, although you will lose a SMALL amount of sugar. If more ice, keep it. As a youngster sugaring with my grandfather/father/uncle, we'd toss the ice in the bucket or let the strainer in the gathering tank accumulate it and then scoop out the ice from that once it had drained some.
Last edited by DrTimPerkins; 02-20-2020 at 07:52 AM.
Dr. Tim Perkins
UVM Proctor Maple Research Ctr
http://www.uvm.edu/~pmrc
https://mapleresearch.org
Timothy.Perkins@uvm.edu
While I’ve mostly tossed the nice from buckets and tanks in recent years on the advice of this forum, I’m thinking this year of keeping more of it to help keep sap cool as temps rise. The only downside seems to be it takes up room in the bucket or tank that might be needed for a strong sap flow. I suppose as it melts it will dilute the sugar content of the liquid back to normal,
But my small RO will take care of that.
2022 is season 7
2016: 20 taps on buckets, 4 gallons on a borrowed 2x3.
2017: 32 taps on buckets, 8 gallons of syrup, on a "loaner" Lapierre 19x48.
2018: 80 taps. First time tubing. New 10x12 sugar shack, Lapierre 2x5. Made 17 gallons
2019: 100 taps. 22 gallons. Added a small RO 50 gph.
2020: 145 taps, 30 gallons, sold half. Murphy cup is a great addition.
2021: tapped Feb 23, 150 taps, 35 gallons.
2022: 200 taps. I lost 50, added 100. Having fun but short season?
Since rock solid frozen sap is such a pain to deal with afterwards, I always try to look ahead and keep it boiled in on the front end. It messes up your tank capacity and bucket capacity to much for too long, plus you risk busting up your buckets if they are full. I always toss partially frozen sap.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote