Amount of sap storage.

[TapTapTap]

.......When I went to haul out sap the next morning at 6:00 AM, just 14 hours later, the tank was overflowing. 1.8 gal per tap in 14 hours. ................

Thanks for stressing your point Joe. With my expansion I'll potentially be at an occasional critical storage situation. My plan is to replumb my permeate tank as an overflow for my 3,000 gallon raw sap tank giving me 5,000 gallons at the sugarhouse. Sharing your experience has motivated me to get that done before the season starts. Now all I need to do is to remember to set the valves right at every process.
Ken

[18mile]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. I am currently undersized in storage and will be upgrading for next year. I am getting by with 1.5 gallon/tap but have had some close calls. Also added a few hundred more taps. Hope to make it through the season.

[GeneralStark]

I don't think there is a hard and fast rule as there are many factors that would help to determine ideal storage. I got by for several seasons with about 1.5 gpt but I was often overflowing on overnight runs. My region of Vt is prone to very dramatic rapid thaws in the winter and it is not unusual to see 2gpt in 24 hours.

I now have 2gpt in my primary bulk tank and 1gpt in my concentrate tank which my main tank overflows into. My work and home lives are such that having the extra storage is key. But, I know of several large operations in the area that have less than 1 gpt of storage and rely on their ro machines to keep up with the sap, but they also have crews of folks dedicated to keeping things running 24/7.

[ecp]

I agree with GeneralStark this topic is very dependent on the operation you have and how you want to run things. About 5 years ago we were running at about 1/4 of a gallon storage per tap, and never spilled a drop of sap. There were heavy run days where the RO didn't shut off for 40 hours straight (that was undersized too ). During these runs my wife would have to be pumping sap every 5 minutes from one tank to the RO feed tank, and you don't go to sleep (couple weekends of that and you begin to pray from a deep freeze). O by the way those are the days that every family member you have want to show up and talk haha. Finally we purchase 9000 gallons more of storage which got us to 1 gallon per taps. The advantage there is that we could spend more time maintain vacuum of better production. In maintaining better vacuum that seems a little undersized now, but for a hobby it works. The plan is to get a better sized RO next so that we can get those tanks empty and sleep at night. In the end going with bigger tanks would have been a better call I think just to remove some stress and get sleep, but it is really up to what you want for production and sleep during a short season.

[DrTimPerkins]

Yes, General Stark brings up a good point. A lot depends upon how you manage your operation.

For our main bush at UVM PMRC, we have 2.5 gal of primary storage, and another gal of additional (can be either used for permeate or for sap) if necessary. There are several times when we've come in with the tank just about to spill over the top. Typically this happens when a good sap flow starts very late in the afternoon or early evening and it runs all night. None of us live at PMRC. We do have both cameras and Smartrek sensors, so we can keep a good eye on it. Occasionally, if the concentrate bulk tank is full, we will ROed sap back into the sap tank to reduce the volume. Since we RO to 35 Brix, it reduces the volume tremendously.

In our other site we have a bit more room, but it too has come close a couple of times.

At our third (not yet online) site, we should have plenty of space for a year or two (keeping 1,100 taps of red maple and sugar maple sap separate in 2,500 gal tanks), but eventually we will pump from site 2 above across the road, then pump it all up the hill to the sugarhouse. By that point we hope to have 2 10,000 gal CDL silo tanks at the sugarhouse. The pumpline was installed this summer along with the mainline installs for the 1,1000 new taps.

So I expect over the next 2-3 years we will have a bunch of 500-1,000 gal tanks for sale, and maybe a couple of 3,000 gal tanks.

[TapTapTap]

In my experience in life, business, and sugaring - extensive unnecessary effort to overcome failures in one area almost always spills over into other areas.

What makes sense: A storage plan with base capacity for a typical run, that includes built in flexibility and contingency options.

What doesn't make sense: A storage plan with base capacity significantly below typical runs which depends upon luck and frequent modes of crisis operations.

Ken