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Thread: Tapping on flat land.

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Location
    Southwest Minnesota
    Posts
    64

    Default Tapping on flat land.

    Well my year is over and the syrup is in bottles.
    My crop ended at 66.5 gallons. I had a pretty low yield per tap which ended about 6 gallons of sap per tap. I harvested 2500 gallons.
    The season caught me off guard. It started at the end of February so I was putting in taps after the first run had started. I didn’t have all my lateral lines in and I was still putting in long days at the office.
    So I had a frustrating start.
    I learned a few things this year that most of you knew all along. I learned that it’s a lot easier to put your lines in when it warm. Not after it snows and is cold. Gloves make running lines and using tubing tools. I won’t make that mistake again. 66 gallons is 3 times more than I made last year so I’m pleased with my crop.
    My question comes from my experience of putting tubing on fairly flat land. Some mentioned sap ladders and I have seen pictures. But I don’t know anything about them. Could someone give me a primer or point me to some information where I could learn about them.
    Second question. My shuflo pumps were handy and cheap. Somewhat labor intensive with the batteries. I noticed that I wasn’t as careful with my mainline installation as I should have been. Once it warmed up and expansion occurred there were a lot of places where the tubing drooped enough that the sap filled it up. I wondered how much this affected the vacuum and production of sap. Im speaking in general terms. I had three 1” mainlines and none of them produced like I thought they would. They were all it’s the problems as mentioned above and were on very low grade.
    I had 2 - 500 foot lines of 5/16 with about 25 taps each. This bush did as well or better per tap than the mainlines.
    This is my first year so I’m learning a lot.
    Any ideas?
    Jerry


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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Mar 2011
    Location
    Potsdam in far northern New York
    Posts
    775

    Default

    A yield of 66.5 gallons of syrup from 2500 gallons of sap is nothing to sneeze at. We hauled just a bit under 6000 gallons of sap this year and made only 109 gallons of syrup. Work on making your sugar content higher might be more important than trying to get more and more low-sugar sap. Energy put into careful thinning can save energy that would be put into fuel and cooking time.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jun 2017
    Location
    Southwest Minnesota
    Posts
    64

    Default

    Thank you Mike.
    I didn’t tell you I burnt the first batch. I left it in the evaporator overnight. When I left there were two mostly burnt logs still hot. When I came out in the morning it was all black. I thought I ruined my evaporator. But it cleaned up very well. So if that would have turned out I would have had about 75 gallons on 2500 of sap.


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